Fun item inspired by watching some Bob Newhart Show reruns— I watched it a lot as a kid, and the drumming on the theme music made an impression well before I started playing.
In the fourth season they did a funkier arrangement of the theme song, that had a cool fill at the end, with a ruff on the tom toms, ending on the bass drum. They used the toms differently then, and very effectively:
I say “they” used the toms differently, maybe it’s just John Guerin, the drummer here. Any time I hear a lot of concert toms on some 70s movie or TV music, he’s my first guess. There’s a real school of using the tom toms there. Somebody should write a paper. Thanks to David Crigger for sharing that credit.
It was a hip item at the time, and one of the first licks I tried to figure out on the drums. Now it seems a little dated, and ripe for revival.
Play the warm ups, then work it out with Reed, as a variation on the right hand lead system. You fit the ruffs into any quarter note (or longer) length space in the book rhythm— where there are two or more filler notes. On the three 8th note long spaces, play the first filler note normally, then the ruff on the last two— that’s illustrated with warmups 4 and 5. Notice also the added flams there, which you can do after getting the system together. They sound cool.
For more of this, see my transcription of Deep Purple’s Lay Down, Stay Down, played by Ian Paice, from way back.