Law & Order - Special Victims Unit [Dong-DONG!!]

My original title for this post was "I Like Figuring Shit Out." Because it's true. But not so much in the puzzle-solving sense where someone has contrived a piece of left-brained arcana devised to stump you, nor in the high-value technical sense of minimizing catastrophe by repairing a damaged bridge.

It's more like the stuff that stoners compulsively contemplate watching episodes of Breaking Bad whilst bogarting a bag of Cheetos. The motivational factors—the why component of how people create things the way they do. Maybe it's just me...

But even in the absence of Aunt Dotie* my mind seems to perpetually undergo these conjectural gymnastics. It was instantly clear to me, for example, that Charmin's ad executives elected to use a smiling cartoon bear for their mascot, because we all know where bears go to take a dump. And of course they wipe with Charmin.

Anyway, Law & Order: SVU. Now in its 15th year, I recently caught a few episodes and applauded its script, acting, direction. I like it... in spite of usually detesting dramas (and TV shows in general). But like many, since the beginning I have been intrigued by the trademark sound that opens each new scene—the transition between settings—in each of the series' spinoffs and iterations. My girlfriend from many moons ago was hooked on Law & Order, and even though I never watched it with her, we had nicknamed the show after its own inimitable sound effect. E.g.:

Me on phone: "Hey, what are you up to?"
Her on phone: "Sitting on the couch, getting ready to watch Dong-DONG."

So I like figuring shit out, and the other night I was finally able to articulate what I'd long suspected to be true. I announced to my wife that the sound effect evoked for me two things: (1) a judge's gavel striking the block, accompanied by (2) the clang of a jail cell door—the bars slamming shut. This is the perfectly palpable sonic marriage of both law (gavel) and order (jail cell), I told her. Justice served up on your tympanic membrane.

Imagine my pleasure when I looked it up and found:

"The Clang" is an amalgamation of nearly a dozen sounds, including an actual gavel, a jail door slamming, and five hundred Japanese monks walking across a hardwood floor. The sound has become so associated with the Law & Order brand that it was also carried over to other series of the franchise. All in all, the Law and Order brand has seven different series. All of which have been successful. Currently, Law and Order: SVU is in it's 15th season. It, too, uses the sound to mark scene changes.
Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/Fun+Facts/The-trademark-sound-effect-in-Law-and-or/57894#ZYrC31dsbm0ZLEJc.99

"The Clang" is an amalgamation of nearly a dozen sounds, including an actual gavel, a jail door slamming, and five hundred Japanese monks walking across a hardwood floor. (Source:  http://www.omg-facts.com/Fun+Facts/The-trademark-sound-effect-in-Law-and-or/57894)

I don't know about that Japanese-monks-on-a-hardwood-floor part, but upon reading this, my decryption was enough to declare myself Number One! and indulge in a fist-pump or two, like this guy:

*Aunt Dotie:  Mary Jane Dotie, a.k.a. cannabis sativa

"The Clang" is an amalgamation of nearly a dozen sounds, including an actual gavel, a jail door slamming, and five hundred Japanese monks walking across a hardwood floor. The sound has become so associated with the Law & Order brand that it was also carried over to other series of the franchise. All in all, the Law and Order brand has seven different series. All of which have been successful. Currently, Law and Order: SVU is in it's 15th season. It, too, uses the sound to mark scene changes.
Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/Fun+Facts/The-trademark-sound-effect-in-Law-and-or/57894#ZYrC31dsbm0ZLEJc.99

"The Clang" is an amalgamation of nearly a dozen sounds, including an actual gavel, a jail door slamming, and five hundred Japanese monks walking across a hardwood floor. The sound has become so associated with the Law & Order brand that it was also carried over to other series of the franchise. All in all, the Law and Order brand has seven different series. All of which have been successful. Currently, Law and Order: SVU is in it's 15th season. It, too, uses the sound to mark scene changes.
Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/Fun+Facts/The-trademark-sound-effect-in-Law-and-or/57894#ZYrC31dsbm0ZLEJc.99