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MMD > Archives > December 1998 > 1998.12.05 > 05Prev  Next


"I Ain't Down Yet" - The Wonderama Theme Song
By John Kleinbauer

Hi All,  Have you ever had a song or melody haunt you?  For years
I have found myself whistling this perky tune.  I know where I picked
it up from, but I don't know its name.

The tune was the theme song for a show called Wonderama here in the
New York area.  The show was very popular in the 'sixties because it
was the only kid's show to air on Sunday mornings.  If you hum or
whistle the song around anyone who is in their forties, a smile comes
to their face.  The song sounded like it was produced by a mechanical
organ.

Years have passed, and with the use of the Internet I was hoping to
find the name of this tune.  The song will be just perfect on the new
roller organ I am building.  I want a song that is fun and also a
little more complex than most simple tunes.

I checked out the Wonderama web site but, while it offered RealAudio
clips of the show, there was no mention of the theme song.  I wrote
the owner of the web site.  He remembered  the song but he did not know
the name of the song.  Off the web site there was a link to Sandy
Becker's web page.  Sandy was one of the hosts of the show during its
run.  I wrote Sandy's wife (she runs the site) and even though she
didn't know the name of the song, a friend of hers did!

The song is called "I Ain't Down Yet", and it is from the play and
movie, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".  Now I did a search of the web
to get a copy of the song to verify it was the one I remembered.
Within minutes I found it on a site called Laura's Midi Heaven at:

    http://laurasmidiheaven.simplenet.com/Broadway5.htm

As soon as the song loaded it sounded like a Barrel Organ or Fair
Organ.  Now the mystery was over!  I then went looking for a web site
that had free sheet music.  I found a site that told how to make your
own sheet music.  It seems you can make sheet music from almost any
MIDI file.  Import the file into a program like Noteworthy or
WinJammer and then print it out.

Well, that's one more mystery solved!  'Til next time...

John Conrad Kleinbauer


(Message sent Sun 6 Dec 1998, 06:28:37 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.)

Key Words in Subject:  Ain't, Down, I, Song, Theme, Wonderama, Yet

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