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Ira Newborn - Mr. Naked Gun

Ira Newborn - Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - soundtrack CD cover Ira Newborn (sometimes credited as James Ira Newborn) seems to have built a film music career from the scoring of light-hearted comedies, although it has to be said that some of these comedies have a deep side to them too, and his output includes some scores for other genres. Not only has he scored the Naked Gun series based upon his TV theme for Police Squad, but he has also had a significant involvement in the movies of people like Steve Martin, John Candy, Jim Carrie and Dan Aykroyd, including for the latter the musical supervision and conducting honours for the iconic Blues Brothers movie.

You might say that the Dragnet and Police Squad themes emerge from a parody of the mood set by Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme, also used in the Blues Brothers movie. The theme for Dragnet itself uses a four note motif borrowed from a "Film Noir" movie called "The Killers" scored by Miklos Rozsa.

Films by Ira Newborn:

    The Blues Brothers - soundtrack CD cover
  • The Blues Brothers - conductor and musical supervisor on this iconic song-fest
  • All Night Long
  • Sixteen Candles
  • Into the Night
  • Weird Science - effectively scored by Newborn but with a title theme by Oingo Boingo, produced by Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek
  • Wise Guys
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
  • The Secret of My Succe$s - scored by David Foster, and Ira Newborn writing the song "Geek Boogie"
    • Ira Newborn: Caddyshack 2 - soundtrack CD cover
  • Dragnet
  • Amazon Women on the Moon
  • Planes, Trains and Automobiles
  • Candyshack 2
  • Naked Gun 1, 2, 3 - "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!", "The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" and "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult"
  • Collision Course
  • Uncle Buck
  • Short Time
  • My Blue Heaven
    • Ira Newborn: Dragnet - soundtrack CD cover
  • Brain Donors
  • Innocent Blood
  • The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them
  • Ace Ventura, Pet Detective
  • The Jerky Boys
  • Mallrats
  • High School High
  • Bad Manners
  • BASEketball

TV themes by Ira Newborn:

  • Police Squad - later reused in The Naked Gun series
  • Tales from the Crypt - an episode of this series
  • The Late Shift - TV movie
  • Angels in the Infield - TV movie

Ira Newborn - music recommendations:

Most of these albums include a mix of film score and song tracks, so please check the details before buying.