Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 69

Jan. 30, 1977 9 Sioux Falls Argus-Leader Steve Karmen: 'I Did That' gross a year. For Steve Karmen, it hasn't always been that way. Out of The Bronx, some work at New York University, nightclub singing, the lead in a nudie movie. Then "This guy didn't have any more movies, but he needed a music score.

He gave me $500 and I went out and scored a 65-minute film. And in the next two or three years I did 30 of those things. And in 1966, he wrote the music for a Girl Scouts commercial. "It was strictly an accident. Here was a case where someone needed music for advertising, needed 60 seconds worth of music, and who works cheap?" There was a lot of hanging around ad agenc les and, in 1967, A Few TVarieties NEW YORK (KFS) An interesting footnote to the recent 3Vz-hour NBC Reports Special, "Violence in America" while the comprehensive study was unfolding on NBC, the other two networks were telecasting programs in which violence was the main ingredient.

The CBS movie that night was "The Deserter" which dealt with a vendetta by a cavalry officer against marauding and raping Apaches, and the 1970 film was riddled with acts of violence. ABC started off the evening's fare with a Bionic Woman episode set in Nashville and the show has its usual quota of fisticuffs; "Baretta" followed, and the violence was accelerated as Robert Blake's' tough cop dealt with drug pushers and murders; and "Charlie's Angels" capped off ABC's evening of murder and mayhem with a tale about a ruthless assassin who received his training during WW II. Ruth Gordon, who just keeps rolling along, like the song says, showed up as the guest host of "NBC's Saturday Night" on Saturday (Jan. 22), and she fit right in with the zany Karen Valentine is one lucky lady. Although her last series outing failed, she has been signed by NBC to a development contract, and the execs are looking for a half-hour comedy series in which to star her.

If at first you don't succeed, and so forth. Those who are screaming "society is doomed, comparing the present to Nero's decadent Rome, will have more fodder for their argument on Monday when CBS devotes 90 minutes to "Evel Knievel's Death Defiers." The celebrated daredevil's big stunt of the evening is to attempt a motorcycle leap over the world's largest indoor pool, stocked NEW YORK (AP) Ever catch yourself humming a jingle from TV? There's a darn good chance Steve Karmen's responsible he writes lots of them. Steve who? "The real reward, in addition to the money," says Steve Karmen on Steve Karmen, "is to be lying in bed watching a program, watching Johnny Carson or something, and see the Budweiser commerical that comes on. "There's a song called 'Here Comes the King' with the Clydesdales. And the horses are just moving the right way and the color is right and the sound is perfect and I look back and say, 'Hey, I did that' "That's nice.

It makes me feel good." Steve Karmen, approaching 40 in age, gets lots of money to make music for radio and TV's big advertisers. You know his work: "When you say Budweiser, you've said it all," "You can take Salem out of the country but you can't take the country out of Salem," "There's nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hersey bar." Many, many more. If Steve Karmen is not the biggest and the best in the jingle business (he's sure he is, though he wouldn't use those words in an ad) he's close to it. Karmen says: "The work that I do as a creator, I think, cannot be topped in this business, call me to advertise anything and I will try to find something that's never been done in the field." Advertisers say: Steve Karmen, you lay the ground rules (and that's usually not done in this business). We'll give you a minimum $10,000 plus all your expenses, you're the creator, you keep the copyright to your work and we'll pay a royalty every time one of your jingles goes on the air.

Maybe 200 people in New York write the words and music for television and radio jingles, and a handful of those, by Karmen's estimateare really good at it. Today, being really good at it means maybe $1 million or more many times they will write their own lyrics that most of the time I refuse to use. I would prefer to work on my own. "As a writer, I like to be as familiar with a product, knowing what it tastes like. like to feel I have some sort of exposure to the product I work for, and I've been very fortunate to work for the" best.

"I'm on every night, about five or six times, on various different stations for different things, maybe more. really where you learn. That's really the educational process, and to me "The icork that I do as a creator, I think, cannot be topped in this business." it's not that, 'My God, what I did is on the air. Terrific' But to me my proving ground. I don't hear the words, I don't hear the strings.

The mix is not right or it's too sibilant. That's not how we planned it." How does he approach the jingle business? "It's not my job to sell products. It's my job to get you into the store. supposed to, 'Hey, wait a minute, look what we got to I want to stop you from whatever you're doing to say, 'Gee, I feel like having a And you might be humming my song. "I refuse to work for the armed forces at this point, nothing personal, but I just don't believe it is the job of music to recruit, at least not mine.

I turned down President Nixon in 1972 also President Ford in 1976 because I don't believe that the power of my industry should be used to influence an election. "The first law of my business is the only guy who gets satisfied first in the studio is me. "I think the amount of effort that I put into my work makes me, hopefully, a Babe Ruth in my business," he says. "At the same time, by being that, they demand an viewpoint tv? Steve Karmen with man-eating killer sharks. Shades of the gladiators and the TV and film director Tom Gries, who won Emmys for "East SideWest Side" and the TV movie "The Glass House," died of a heart attack recently.

He had just completed the theatrical feature about Muhammad Ali's life, titled "The Greatest." Gries also directed parts of "QB VII," "The Migrants" and "Helter-Skelter" for TV. He was 53 years old and one of the more talented directors in TV. CBS is thinking of reviving Dobie Gillis as a series. However, it would be called "Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis" and would star matured Dwayne Hickman and Bob Bob Newhart swears this will be the last season on TV with his current situation comedy. However, CBS is not making it official with any announcements despite Bob's comments in various interviews.

Isaac Hayes, who recently declared bankruptcy, pops up as a guest on an upcoming "Rockford Files" David Cassi-dy's brother, Shaun Cassidy, is following in his brother's footsteps by starring in an ABC series. Shaun and Parker Stevenson will be the Hardy Boys in ABC's new entry, "Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys Mysteries." Pamela Sue Martin will be Nancy Drew, and the show premieres January 30. Farrah Fawcett-Majors and her husband, Lee Majors, were the guest stars on the opening of "The Brady Bunch Hour," which aired on January 23. The couple's popularity should help to get the Bradys off to a good Every now and then a viewer wonders what became of the eldest Cartwright brother of "Bonanza" after he left the hit series, which is still running in syndication. Pernell Roberts never achieved the kind of superstardom he had hoped for when he left the hit western series, but he shows up as a guest star from time to time.

Look for him in an upcoming "Most Wanted" entry titled "The Driver." Norman Lear's latest TV entry, "A Year at the Top," was withdrawn from the CBS lineup at the producer's request. It was scheduled to premiere on Jan. 26, but Lear felt the show just wasn't ready and aked CBS for more time to get the show in shape. Perhaps it will be on CBS's fall sked. Meanwhile, a half-hour variety series starrrine "The Jacksons" premiered on the came Salem.

And "the music business of advertising is all word of mouth. Clients will see things on the air and say, 'Get me the guy who wrote that'." How does Steve Karmen work? For starters, he'll usually do just one product in a field, maybe a couple of cars, though. "They will normally come to me with a line, a slogan, and jbt, Just Laugh And Smile 26th in the "Year at the Top's" slot. "Code the new CBS adventure series, has a trio of second generation Hollywood names connected with the show. James Houghton, whose dad is TV producer Buck Houghton, is one of the show's stars; Mike Frankovich son of film mogul Mike Fran-kovich Sr.

and actress Binnie Barnes, is production manager on "Code and the director of the opening segment was Andrew V. Mc Laglen, son of the late Oscar-winning actor Victor Peter Falk will recreate his Bogart-inspired character from "Murder by Death" in sequel to the film titled "The Cheap Detective." There's nothing cheap about his salary for "Columbo," which insiders say is one of the highest ever paid in TV. Area Students Produce Show meeting the producer. Mug shots were taken with a Polaroid camera three at a time and we were told to wait about four weeks for a call to meet the producer. Mine was to be the third show taped, and as the deadline neared I became more nervous and my mouth got drier.

I was cheered that my opponent, who had been released throughout the afternoon, began to perspire even before we were set up under the bright lights. I was disappointed that one of the best celebrity players, Fannie Flagg of decaffeinated coffee fame, was on the other team, along with actor "Ao matter how well someone plays, if they're a jerk they don't get on the shove." Jack Cassidy, who was to die in his burning penthouse exactly one week later. As I was plugged into a microphone behind my celebrity teammates, Louisa Moritz of dog food commercial fame and Richard Deacon of the old old "Dick Van Dyke Show," my rattled nerves suddenly calmed. I was glad my family had found seats in the first row of the audience; that made it easy to smile. Although I never caught up with my opponent and he won the chance to try for a Caribbean cruise, I was happy about prizes (a diamond brooch and $25 worth of pie crusts, hand lotion and r.

cleaning fluid) Ldid-Wiif, Land ready for my oefct jv gamesbow. Any prize that is given away is paid for by the company that provides it, in return for a certain number of on-the-air mentions. It's fairly easy to try out for almost any television game show. Many advertise in the classified section of newspapers. Would-be contestants can simply call up and ask to take a test.

You can get tickets to be in the audience and apply to be a contestant from there. For "Cross-Wits" tests consist of a series of crossword puzzles. For general knowledge shows, such as "Hollywood Squares," prospects are given fill-in-the-blank tests covering everything from sports to biology. I answered a newspaper ad and was given an appointment for the same week. At my screening session, about 30 people showed up at the cramped "Cross-Wits" production office near Hollywood and Vine about a mile from the studio.

We took the test and filled out questionnaires about the most interesting incidents in our lives, hobbies, anything that could get a conversation going. We were told to work the test puzzles as fast as possible and raise our hands upon completion in grade school fashion. Gil circulated around the room to check the finished tests. Only the best players will be chosen, he said, but the show's producers, Ralph Edwards Productions, want interesting, likeable people, too. "I've never done anything interesting," said one woman.

"Do you have any children?" she was asked. but they're fust normal VMtnrsrf. Chance are she.dido aitfke ttto the oexj Mep1 ment students from Lincoln, Washington, O'Gorman, Brandon-Valley and Hartford high schools. Members of J.A.B.Si, the Junior Achievement television company, have written, produced and directed the program while members, man cameras nt- write and sell commercial. Students from five area high schools will present their second Junior Achievement television program of the season at 5 p.m.

Sunday. It will be aired on KSFY-TV, channel 13, and KPRY-TV, channel 4. The program, "Match Your t-Wits' is, question-and-answer show made up of Junior, Achieve'..