Jim Karpen Tips

December 2000

Most of you are out of your childhood. And most of you have TV sounds and images from the past stored in your brain from that precious time of growing up. As I do. So I can't tell you the waves of nostalgia I felt when I went to SoundAmerica and listened to some recorded snippets from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon.

The Internet is amazing. And Sound America is amazing. They have a huge database of sounds that you can listen to if you want shivers of nostalgia--sounds not only from TV shows but also from movies, ads, comedy, and more. I went to the movies section and randomly clicked on the link for Airplane. Each movie link has a list of sounds to choose from, and I chose the hilarious "jive" scene: two guys on the plane are speaking in jive and the movie uses subtitles to "translate" their unfamiliar brand of English. Another wave of nostalgia.

Under the Miscellaneous category I found some recorded bits from popular ads and again heard the famous line, "Where's the beef?" There's also a Spoofs category that has sendups of many familiar cultural artifacts, including Barney the Dinosaur, cartoons, commercials, music, politics, Star Trek, Star Wars, and more. The Comedy section ranges from Abbot & Costello and Jack Benny from days past to current comedians such as Steve Martin and Robin Williams.

The TV shows represented range from Andy Griffith and the Addams Family to Seinfeld and Xena. All of the files use the "wav" file format and range in size from 10K to 500K.

If you're really into TV, you may also want to check out the EpGuides.Com, which contains episode lists for over 1,550 TV shows. Each episode listing gives information on the season and show number, production number, original airdate, and title. For 375 of the TV shows, there is a more detailed guide containing plot summaries and guest stars.

The listings go back to old programs like "Hogan's Heroes," which is one of the 375 that include episode-by-episode summaries. Also many current TV series are included. The site has a guide to network TV programs, so you can look at the schedule and click on your favorite program to see a listing of all the episodes that have appeared. Look at the Monday evening schedule, for example, and you'll see "Ally McBeal." Click on the link to see a listing of all the programs that have appeared in the series.

Other links include one titled Theme Tune, which takes you to SoundAmerica so that you can listen to the theme from your favorite programs.

© 2000 by Jim Karpen, Ph.D. (#244)