I’m trying to learn the name of one of the songs they play during a stunt on Banzai. The music sounds vaguely New Age/Synth pop in a sort-of not-quite-Kitaro-but-not-quite-Yanni kind-of way.
On the first episode they played it during the stunt where the three Geishas waltzed around in circles, and the viewer had to decide which of the three was the one wearing red underpants. On the second week’s episode, they played it during the sequence when a woman was stuffing $1 bills into her mouth. On last night’s episode (7/27/03), they played it during the sequence where you had to guess which briefcase had a sandwich in it.
A lot of the music from Banzai appears to be production music. The theme from Monday Night Football, which is just a piece of production music, was used to orchestrate the firefighter fight from last week and the baby race this week. And a soft tune called Sleepy Shores (which, according to Elevator Music author and Music for TV Dinners compiler Joseph Lanza, actually charted in England) orchestrated the introduction to the Magical Psychic Princess Di last week.
The king of production music in the United States is Associated Production Music. But since they don’t sell to the public (I should know), trying to find a particular piece of production music is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
That said, the music in question does remind me a lot of a synth piece called Popcorn. A number of production music pieces are intentionally written to sound like pre-existing pieces (I’ve heard ones meant to emulate Get Ready 4 This and the Jeopardy! theme), and I wouldn’t be surprised if this poppy hit was the inspiration for a soundalike.
