Weather Report - Birdland - TV/Radio Theme or bed?

Hi,

First time poster, can't find this *anywhere* on the internet!

A bunch of us 70's kids are *certain* that Birdland by Weather Report was used as a TV or radio theme/signature tune/bed/other at some point around the end of the 70's or beginning of the 80's. We're not thinking "Strangers", we're not misremembering Cagney and Lacey, we feel it was more like current affairs than sports, but we can't find anything to confirm one way or the other. And the original, not an interpolation/cover.

Can anyone help, please? Thank you!

I've definitely heard part of the track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae0nwSv6cTU (approx 2:00 in). It is so familiar but I cannot pinpoint where it's been used. Thanks for the memory prompt - it is a brilliant piece.

Yes its familiar and it does sound theme-tune like and I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before...

I can only presume it has been used as a music bed or as a piece of incidental music between scenes (those are more common on American shows than UK shows though).

Google in its infamous wisdom suggests a song from the soundtrack of About A Boy is the closest match, but personally I can't see it, and anyway that dates from 2002 and the film so its out of the OP's timescale:


American singing group The Manhattan Transfer did cover Weather Report (according to Wiki) in 1979 so if the OP remembers lyrics, that's probably where its come frmo.

Jeez!

This is gonna really annoy me.

I definitely recognise this from somewhere ...

There's a few hits here if you look up Joe Zawinul, who formed Weather Report:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1056442/

Interestingly it's documented here an episode of Emu's Pink Windmill Show used it.

Of course this is only what's documented, known about and added to IMDb. It may well appear in other things which are yet to be added to IMDb if at all. But it's going to be almost impossible to find if it's use is uncredited in the copious TV shows and films that have been and gone since the song came out in 1977.

Thank you for the replies!

@NicB1971 - thank you; I should’ve put a link and pointed out is about 2:00 in, which you did, and it’s exactly that bit.

@Neil Jones - on Emu’s Pink Windmill Show?!? I see the ref in the link and still can’t imagine what *that* must have looked like! (Assuming it was a Pink Windmill Kids dance number, rather than Grotbags having a full-on funk freak out in her grotto 😂) And I suspect you’re right - if it’s uncredited then, unless I can find *someone* who remembers then I may never know...

Been asking more people in RL and the almost uniform response has been along the lines of “Oh this!!! Yeah, of course I know this! No ‘f’ in clue where from though...” so I’ll keep questing!

If this rings a bell for anyone else then “answers on a postcard”, as ‘twere...

Having cross referenced the IMDb listing, this seems to be the episode in question, and yes it was a dance routine, in fact it actually opened the episode: