A Search for the Theme from "Inside / Out"

Memories from the 1972-73 Public Broadcasting Service instructional program

Until the mid-1980s in the United States and Canada, before the belief in budget destruction and “trickle-down economics” became the official religion of the United States, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) featured a treasure trove of instructional programming during school hours. They were mostly fifteen-minute segments (or shorter ones grouped together), designed for in-classroom use, with a broad spectrum of subjects for different ages.

For many shows, a wide variety of music (and even the occasional well-placed sound effects) was produced. The era, which I argue was the height of instructional television (late 1960s to early 1980s), coincided with the rise of the synthesizer and other electronic instruments, so a limited budget was no obstacle to create occasionally awesome pieces, sometimes only seconds in length, years before legions of producers would do the same in the commercial sphere. On the non-electronic side, there were even albums’ worth of tracks of theme music produced especially for soundtracks.

With the large number of stations and programs, a huge catalog of sound emerged, both in theme music and for idents, the latter being the very short visual (and sometimes aural) pieces that identify the television station or instructional technology agency that produced the show. For me, some of the most memorable themes and idents were even more so than the programs themselves.

One of them was the theme for Inside / Out, and the show itself has remained an exemplar to this day, long after its original 1972-73 run. An anthology series, each episode focused on a topic relevant for its preteen (and younger) characters and audiences. What I also recently learned was the actual subject area: health education. This is part of the rationale for the program and its pedagogy as outlined in the Teacher's Guide:

“The lessons are not even called mental health or social health; the emphasis in the series is on helping the whole child develop a personally effective life style [sic]. The difference is that "Inside/Out" teaches mental health instead of teaching about it. The programs and lessons deal with situations that, if poorly handled, often cause the human hurts that appear to underlie many kinds of self-defeating behavior.” (Emphasis is mine.)

Notably, each episode had an unresolved ending, and students in class would be prompted to give answers. Topics could be inferred from the titles, such as “Bully” and “Just Joking,” the latter being about the potential effects of pranks. There was even an episode on the topic of death, called "In My Memory," produced a decade before the passing of Wil Lee, who played shopkeeper Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, which inspired one of the show’s most famous episodes.

For Inside / Out, the ident is simply an introductory narration for the National Instructional Television Center (NIT), which produced programming for PBS, and it was the last program NIT produced before transitioning into the Agency for Instructional Television (and later, Agency for Instructional Technology). Upon watching the ident that fades into the theme, you might understand why PBS has been long criticized - and rightly so - as being the “Petroleum Broadcasting Service.”

The theme is a gentle opening: the airy acoustic guitar weaves with the keyboard accompaniment. It was, and still is, always a treat to hear, especially with the trippy animation, which was very likely Scanimate, a then-cutting edge analog video-synthesizer system.¹ The side profiles of three children -- one Latin, one Black, one White — are at a distance from the noises of children playing while a bird chirps closer by.

Listening to it again over the past several years, I did some research on the show and, ultimately, the theme tune. About 2 years ago, a web search was revelatory: new information that I had not seen before: the music credits. I learned that the tune had a title, “Ripple.” Simon Haseley was the composer. Soon after, I learned about the musicians, who had the curiously generic name The London Studio Group, which recorded the instrumental for their 1971 album, Sifting Shades one of several released on the Music De Wolfe label. (Was the album title an attempt at a tongue-twister?)

I also found out how long “Ripple” actually was. Before then, all I knew was that the thene ran for about 30 seconds. I had no idea it clocked in at just under 2 ¼ minutes!

For me, to listen to all of “Ripple” required an open mind. I didn’t approach this as I usually would, for example, toward a a cut that ran longer than the “single edit” or an alternate take. Over 40 years of memories were about to be, as I believed it, unimaginably transformed. No matter how I was going to receive this, this was a case where the song would not remain the same!

I realize now that the feeling I had was, after many years of hearing a particular version of a composition, to be mind-blowing, as I had no idea what would emerge from the speaker.

I was elated by the growing intricacy of the instrumentation, with more guitar variations on the theme. The beginning riff is repeated at the 1:22 mark. The ending switches to a keyboard-percussion interplay, just as pleasantly awesome. With a cool, easy title.

Listening now to the edit as I had long known it to be, I remembered that the last few seconds had what sounded like a slightly-noticeable clip in the sound, resembling a broadcasting glitch. Hearing the entire song, I realize now that I had been hearing a remix. In the original, there’s no fade out from the guitar. For the theme, the strumming was looped until the fade.

I mentioned earlier about albums of instrumentals that were produced in that period that were intended to be used as themes. On the rear album jacket of Sifting Shades, which you can see in the video, each song is assigned a mood. “Ripple” is listed as “easy going, glistening.”

As I give gratitude to the producers of the original Inside / Out, I extend my gratitude to Simon Haseley and The London Studio Group for the memories – memories made even better, decades later.

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1. Watch episodes of the original PBS production of The Electric Company to see Scanimate in action.