I've been having so much fun with fellow Asterians Claypits and Greg on this one, I wanted to rope you all in.
The debate: Is the story-telling TV theme song a dead art? We're talking literal plot descriptions, like Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. It's sparked interesting debate over on my favorite ad blog.
Within my circle, it has apparently lit a fire under the aforementioned Claypits-Greg union. Greg sent me this list of shows that he and C-Pits came up with sans-Google:
1. The Jeffersons
2. Green Acres
3. The Addams Family
4. Petticoat Junction
5. The Monkees
6. Good Times
7. Can we argue for Batman?
8. Family Guy
9. Beverly Hillbillies
10. Mr. Ed
11. BJ & the Bear
12. Boy Meets World
13. Silver Spoons
14. Patty Duke
15. Daniel Boone
16. Davy Crockett
17. Dukes of Hazzard
18. Flipper
19. The Greatest American Hero (Believe it or not, George isn't at home . . .)
20. Welcome Back Kotter
21. Larry Sanders Show (our favorite on the list
22. Spiderman
23. Wonder Woman
I subsequently disputed the Jeffersons, Good Times, Batman, Silver Spoons, Greatest American Hero and Welcome Back Kotter. I'm not arguing they didn't HAVE theme songs specific to their show, but the songs didn't spell out the plot on a first-grade level. (I mean, do you really have to point out that no one can talk to a horse?)
So I leave this open-ended debate with you. And yes, yes, I know that Family Guy, American Dad and probably a bunch of other cartoons still use this device. So let's skip past those.
And while we're here, what's your favorite TV theme song of all time? I'm not sure for me. I really like the original British Office song..."Handbags and Gladrags." A friend told me once that was Joe Cocker singing, but apparently not, if you follow that link. It's not really clear from there who sings the Office version, but apparently it's been covered quite a few times.
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6 comments:
From the BBC page: The version of Handbags and Gladrags used on the show is arranged by famed TV composer Big George. It is sung by a session musician called Fin.
And also, we were thinking about lots of TV show theme songs last night and started to come up with various trends: the late 70s, early 80s instrumentals + voiceover explaining what was going on in the show (Charlie's Angels, A-Team, on to even Hercules); the mid 80s themes that just decided to take the title of the show and make a song about it (Silver Spoons, Gimme a Break); to the later 80s shows that just made a bad song that didn't have much to do with anything (Who's the Boss, Growing Pains, Perfect Strangers, Full House, well pretty much all your TGIF shows). It sems like it wasn't until the mid 90s with Seinfeld that shows started really cutting back on the theme songs. And yes, our favorite is still The Larry Sanders Show (the "this is larry's theme song, how do you like it so far" one, not the instrumental one).
And of course I just confused the Larry Sanders show with the Gary Shandling show. Oops.
Still wrong, buddy. It's "Garry."
Sonuvabitch.
MST3K = my favorite theme song. I know I'm a week and a half late with this comment but oh well. I'm talking the original MST3K with Joel, although both could be added to the list.
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