Arts ^Entertainment
Wednesday, February 7, 1996
Page 9
Brian Priesman
TV songs
often outlive
story lines
TV theme songs — most of the
time, they’re better than the shows.
“Sometimes you wanna go where
everybody knows your n-a-a-ame,
bum-bum-bum. And they’re always
glad you c-a-a-ame.”
Ahh ...“Cheers,” that beloved show
about the bar in Boston with an anal
mailman named Cliff.
Who can forget the haunting theme
to “M* A* S* H,” “Suicide is Painless”?
I bet you never knew that was the
name of it, did you? Now you know
something new. I’ve done my good
deed for the day.
Producer Donald Bellassario al
ways gets cool music for his shows.
First, there was the awesome theme to
“Magnum, P.I.” Then he followed up
that with the fan favorite “Quantum
Leap,” which is my personal night
time drama fave. Now he’s got “JAG,”
which is cool in a nineties sort of way.
Some themes become favorites
because they’re cool. Others because
they suck. Like “Gilligan’s Island.”
--“Now sit right back, and you’ll
here a tale, a tale of a fateful trip ...”
Ickky! Y ou know, “Gilligan ’ s Island”
creator Sherwood Schwartz has the
lock on cheesy themes. He went from
“Gilligan” to “The Brady Bunch.”
Would you like some crackers with
the cheese, Mr. Schwartz?
“You take the good, you take the
bad, you take it both and there you
have...” What do you have? The “Facts
of Life.”
And who can forget Nell Carter
singing the theme to her own show,
“Gimme A Break?” “Gimme a break,
I’m sure I deserve one ...”
I was always particularly fond of
“Who’s the Boss.” And “Family Ties”
had a spiffy theme. I just can ’ t remem
ber it right now...
HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt” has
one of the coolest themes to hit cable
since — well, since ever; But what
else do you expect from Danny
Elfman?
And speaking oi Danny Elfman,
what about “Batman: The Animated
Series”? It’s not really an adult-ori
ented show, but it’s still pretty cool.
Recent ly, a new generation of theme
songs have captured the audience’s
ears. NBC’s grossly popular sitcom
“Friends” has even inspired its own
album (which is pretty dam cool). The
theme from “Seinfeld” is instantly rec
ognizable as well as is the theme to
ABC’s “Home Improvement” More
power! Grunt, grunt, grunt!
But by far the best themes belong
to Saturday morning cartoons. “The
Muppet Show,” although not a car
toon, has one of the best theme songs
a Muppet fan could hope for — “It’s
time to put on makeup, it’s time to
light the lights. It’s time to get things
started on the Muppet show tonight.”
And what about “Josie and the
Pussycats”? Although a pretty rotten
cartoon, it had a kick-butt theme. But
my favorite classic cartoon theme has
to be “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”
—“Hey, hey, hey! It’s Fat Albert!”
If you to have the psychotic need to
hear TV theme songs, I’m starting a
12-step program that will meet at a
place and time to be announced later.
Until then, “The Love Boat...”
Prlesman Is a freshmen theater and
news-editorial major and a Dally Nebras
kan staff reporter.
‘Comedy Central’ captivates UNL students
By Brian Priesman
Staff Reporter
Some teachers might be wonder
ing why students were missing
classes today. And some Student
Assistants might be asking them
selves why the only noise they’ve
heard coming from some rooms was
the sound of raucous laughter.
It might be because of “Comedy
Central.”
Last week, Lincoln Cablevision
added “Comedy Central” to its ba
sic cable lineup on channel 52.
Students across the campus spent
last weekend and the first part of this
week enjoying the immensely popu
lar station.
“It’sabouttime,” said Jim Sokol,
a junior theater major.
Sokol, like many students, said
he had been waiting patiently for
Cablevision to add the station.
Kelly Lamb, a junior broadcast
ing major, agreed.
“I love it,” she said. “I’m going to
watch it again and again and again.”
At lunch tables Monday, the ad
dition of Comedy Central had many
students reminiscing about their fa
vorite shows.
“There will always be a place in
my heart for the ‘Penis Skit,”’ said
Scott Jones, a junior secondary edu
cation major, referring to a beloved
“Saturday Night Live” sketch.
“Saturday Night Live” topped the
list of favorite shows with others
being “Who’s Line Is It, Anyway?”
“Mystery Science Theater 3000,”
“Soap” and “The Kids in the Hall.”
Tanna Kinnaman/DN
Outside of Noyes Art Gallery, Faridun Negmat-Zoda holds his painting, “The Com Maiden.”
Art, Aphrodite for Valentine’s
Painting
describes
Nebraska
By Patrick Hambrecht
Senior Reporter
If Rene Magritte had lived in
Nebraska, perhaps he wouldn’t have
painted European men in bowler
hats surrounded by floating green
apples.
Maybe he would have painted
cowgirls on sunny days, flanked by
free-floating ears of corn, like
Faridun Negmat-Zoda’s “Corn
Maiden.”
“Com Maiden” is a small master
piece of Nebraska weirdness, a mix
of Negmat-Zoda’s uncommon eye,
his naive and classic influences and
a practical business sense.
“See her dress,” Negmat-Zoda
said, pointing at the woman in the
painting. “It has the colors of the
Nebraska flag.”
“Corn Maiden” is one of the
pieces now on display at the Noyes
Art Gallery, 119 S. Ninth St., and it
will be one of the featured works at
the gallery’s Valentine’s Day party
Feb. 14.
If Midwesterners were designing
a pagan goddess to worship, they
would likely choose Negmat-Zoda’s
modem Demeter.
The stoic maiden looks a Tittle
like a blond Crystal Gayle in her
’70s styled country-western attire as
she stares to the left of the painting
into Nebraska’s past. Balancing an
enormous stalk of com on her hatted
See ARTIST on 10
Gallery
puts on
big party
By Patrick Hambrecht
Art Critic
Cuteness is the word at the Noyes
Art Gallery’s Valentine’s Party on
Feb. 14.
The gallery party will feature art
in keeping with the Noyes’ theme of
the month, “Soft Enlacing.”
Other festivities include a guest
appearance by Aphrodite, tempo
rary marriage licenses, silhouette
portraits of visitors, horse drawing
See NOYES on 10
Band finds its roots in gospel
By Emily Wray
Staff Reporter
Soul Support, an a cappella group,
will bring sounds of close harmony
to Nebraska Wesleyan’s O’Donnell
Auditorium tonight at 8.
The contemporary Christian
group has some close ties to UNL.
All five of the group’s members
have been students at UNL at one
time or another, said Todd Boesiger,
one of the group’s members.
Other members of Soul Support
include Wayne Boesiger, Nathan
Nelson, Jon Matthews and Brian
Quade.
“The groupactually starjedatUNL.
Wayne had been singing gospel with
a couple of other guys at Varsity Glee
concerts, and we decided to form a
group,” Boesiger said.
In fact, all of the group’s mem
bers, with the exception of Matthews,
were in Varsity Glee, Boesiger said.
In its five-year history, the group
has had two releases. Their latest
release, “Strength Beyond Your
Fears,” is independent and being
considered by major recording la
bels, Boesiger said.
The group writes original com
positions or arranges hymns to per
form, too.
Soul Support is focused on de
veloping its own style but has been
influenced by both a cappella and
other contemporary Christian per
formers, he said.
“We’re influenced by Michael
W. Smith and D.C. Talk. We started
out doingtunes by Glad, but we also
like Take Six and 4 Him,” Boesiger
said.
For tonight’s concert, Soul Sup
port will be singing contemporary
Christian music but will be mixing
different styles.
“Our focus is ministry, and it will
be lots of message and lots of fun.
We’ll sing mostly contemporary
Christian stuff, but we’ll also be
singing a couple of gospel tunes
because gospel is our roots,”
Boesiger said.
Tonight’s concert is sponsored
in part by the Fellowship of Chris
tian Athletes. Tickets are $2 and are
available at the door, which opens at
7 p.m. O’Donnell Auditorium is lo
cated in the Rogers Center for Fine
Arts, located at 50th Street and Hun
tington Avenue.
Brian Topf, a junior advertising
major, said he was going to even
more extreme measures than most
students to get his comedy fix.
“I go over to my neighbors’ room
and bug them because my TV only
goes up to channel 32,?’ he said.
But Matt Dibbem, a freshman
chemical engineering major,
summed up most students’ feelings
on the channel with three short
words.
“It’s really cool,” he said.
Enhanced
CDs gain
popularity
Editor's note: This is part two of a
series designed to take a look at
enhanced compact discs, their fea
tures, their creators and the musi
cians who have used them.
By Cliff Hicks
Staff Reporter
There is no question about the
explosion of Enhanced CDs in the
past few years. The question is who
is using this technology, what for
and what they think about it.
Boiled In Lead, a Minneapolis
based band on Omnium Records,
put out its first Enhanced CD with
“Songs From 'The Gypsy”’ in 1995
with the help of AIX Entertainment.
Drew Miller, bass player for
Boiled In Lead, talked about the
project.
It began with Steven Brust, a
Minneapolis fantasy author who
wrote a series of songs with Boiled
In Lead guitarist/vocalist Adam
Stemple. Some time later Brust wrote
a book with Megan Lindholm about
the songs.
In the book, an announcement
was made about an upcoming
soundtrack for the book. After a few
delays, the disc came out, but with
more than anyone expected. The
entire book was on the disc, read
able on both IBM and Macintosh.
“The Gypsy” began each section
of the book with a snippet of lyrics
from the songs on which the story
was based. When reading the book
from the disc, a series of buttons that
line the bottom of the screen will
play the actual clips from the com
pact disc.
“Not all of the clips are (Boiled
In Lead). There are some Cats
Laughing (another band that Stemple
is in) clips, including one off a boot
leg,” Miller said. “A couple Adam
did as a last-minute recording just a
few days before the CD went to
print.”
“Songs From' The Gypsy,” how
ever, was a special project.
“It was cool that we were able to
put the book on, but for an indie
band, it’s hard to justify the addi
tional cost, so it’s unlikely we’ll do
another (enhanced CD) for a while.”
Emergency Broadcast Network
also made its album into an En
hanced CD. On “Telecommunica
tion Breakdown,” a full three videos
and other information, which adds
up to about 150 MB, are hidden in
track 0, followed by 55 minutes of
music.
“Telecommunication Break
down” is also for both IBM and
Mac, and is packaged with a floppy
disk for Mac users who do not own
CD-ROM drives, which contains
only the liner notes, not the full
videos.
“We consider the digital portion
See CD on 10