Theme Music
Through the 1973–1976 seasons, the theme music for the NBA on CBS actually had lyrics. "Last Night" by the Mar-Keys was used roughly around 1975–76 as the play-by-play announcer would give a preview to the game featured.
Starting in 1977, CBS used an alternate opening showing a montage of still pictures of current NBA star athletes with music (similar to the music used by the network for its CBS' NFL coverage at that time) accompanying it. In 1980, CBS used rotoscoped animation in silhouette of one player shooting a jumpshot and the ball in mid air rolling all the NBA teams as it spun in the air, with disco-pop-moog music behind it. During the 1978–79 season, the music for the highlights was "Chase", the theme by Giorgio Moroder for the movie Midnight Express. The opening guitar and horn riff of the Chicago hit "Alive Again" were used for the highlights prior to the opening animation during the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons.
By the 1983 NBA Finals, the opening sequence was set in a primitive computer-generated montage of basketball action inside a virtual arena that looked similar to the Boston Garden. This opening sequence (which was usually intertwined by a montage of live basketball action complete with narration) was created by Bill Feigenbaum, who also created a similar open for The NFL Today used around the same time. This opening melody (mostly consisting of an uptempo series of four notes and three bars each) from 1983–1988 is generally considered to be the most familiar theme music that The NBA on CBS used.
For the 1989 NBA Finals, CBS completely revamped the opening montage. The computer-generated imagery (once again set in and around a virtual arena) was made to look more realistic (live-action footage was incorporated in the backdrops). Also, the familiar theme music was rearranged to sound more intricate and to have a more emotional impact, along the lines of the network's later World Series coverage. Between the 1989 NBA Finals and the 1990 NBA Finals' intros, there is a slight theme tune revision. The 1989 Finals intro had a lot more of a guitar riff to it. Meanwhile, the 1990 Finals intro carried a little more usage of a trumpet sound.
Read more about this topic: NBA On CBS
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