By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
September 12, 1986
Steven Gottlieb could very well have become a successful Wall Street lawyer. Instead, Gottlieb, educated at Yale and Harvard Law School, founded a record company.
But lest you think a new Madonna might be discovered on his label, let’s get the facts straight: The first and only album released on TeeVee Toons is last winter’s successful “Television’s Greatest Hits,” a two-record compilation of 65 themes from American television. More than 300,000 copies were sold in the United States, it went gold in Australia and it hit No. 18 on the charts in Japan.
So what’s next for the young entrepreneur? Why, “Television’s Greatest Hits, Volume II,” of course. The two-volume set, which will hit the record stores this month, includes such gems as the themes from “The Honeymooners,” “The Monkees,” “Peter Gunn,” “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Green Hornet” and “George of the Jungle.”
“I didn’t know the first volume would be such a hit,” said Gottlieb, a gregarious and affable 29-year-old.
He came up with the idea for TeeVee Toons while studying at Harvard. Although he didn’t really want to be a lawyer, he went to law school because he didn’t know what else to do with his life. After graduation, he decided to start a business instead of practicing law, and with the help of friends raised $250,000.
He and a staff of three did all the work from his New York apartment/office. They got the rights to the songs, solicited record stores and did all the paper work.
“As much risk as there is in this business, you can’t let it affect your whole life,” Gottlieb said. “If you’ve got an idea, then you just have to go with it and give it your best shot.
“You know, I chucked a legal career in part to put myself out on that limb,” he said. “I think in order to pull something like this off, you have to put yourself in jeopardy. I purposefully set myself up in that situation, where I had no way to turn back and land on something comfy if what I was doing didn’t suit me. That gave me extra initiative to make this work, because I would’ve been in debt up to my ears if I didn’t make it work.”
Laughing at the recollection of his naivete when he first began the project, Gottlieb added, “To undertake a crazy project like this, you have to have faith that your idea will sell. Sixty-five themes seem like a lot of tunes when you just look at the number. But when you think back to all the great TV shows of the past, it’s just a
smattering.
“That’s why we did a followup of 65 more,” he said. “You know, what I’m doing is not an original idea. What this is is an original execution of an old idea. There are other TV theme albums, but no one ever treated the music with any respect.”
Gottlieb doesn’t think any of today’s television shows have themes as memorable as the ones he has compiled.
“Nowadays, people write TV show themes with the objective of getting it to hit the top of the pop charts – like that `Miami Vice’ theme,” he said. “It’s a good theme for now, but no one will remember it 15 or even 10 years down the line, because no one can hum along to it.
“But when you listen to the themes of shows like `I Love Lucy’ or `Mission: Impossible,’ you listen to the dum dum dum dum dum, and you guess what show that’s from, even if you only saw the show in syndication a couple of times. These titles were written with a very specific thing in mind – as signatures to establish a mood and feeling in as short a time as possible.
“The people who wrote them were extremely talented and therefore rewarded with success. With today’s theme songs, I keep thinking of Clara Peller saying, `Where’s the beef?’ I agree: Where’s the theme?”
If the second volume is as successful as the first, you can be assured there will be a Volume III. Gottlieb said he has hopes of competing with the “big labels like RCA and Columbia.” This will mean that he will have to release music other than television theme songs, of course.
“Well, unfortunately neither me nor any member of my staff can carry a tune,” Gottlieb said. “But we’ll be branching out soon. And one day, some little record company will be saying, `Maybe one day we can compete with TeeVee Tunes.’ “
