They used to have really great theme songs to shows. How come they don’t do that anymore? The last even decent one I remember is from Friends and that one was only so-so. Feel free to correct me R3 .
There was a show called, “Duet” that had a great theme song. One of the stars was Jack Lemmon’s son, and I’m pretty sure he wrote and performed the theme song. It was a piano instrumental.
I think my sister and I were the only ones watching the show, back when it aired, but it was considered kind of edgy because it centered on a couple living together, out of wedlock. It was a well-done show. One, cool thing, it ends with them breaking up.
Rufus, the “Drake & Josh” theme song was a slice of pure power pop heaven as far as I’m concerned. Common ground with the iCarly theme is the presence of Drake Bell as writer/performer.
Another great power pop theme song is the one for Teen Titans. Extra points awarded for being sung by the groovy J-Pop superstars Puffy Amiyumi, with music performed and produced by the mighty Andy Sturmer.
However, I must announce here and now that the absolute greatest theme song of all time IMO is the one for the tv version of Gidget (pick it up at 0:59). Sung by Johnny Tillotson in a Jim-Hensen’s-Rat-Pack-Babies style that Frank Sinatra Jr. only WISHES he could approach, with a chart that so channels the spirit of the great Nelson Riddle that it makes me want to cry. Yeah, sure, a ring-a-ding-ding theme song has precious little business fronting for a show that’s all about early sixties So-Cal surfer culture. I don’t care.
Not bad, but nothing comes close to Chet Kincaid, on The Bill Cosby Show (not any of the lame, follow-ups) performing “Hikky Burr.” I cannot find the opening credits on-line (although I posted them once, a long time ago), but it is the awesomest TV theme-show song ever.
My college a capella group used to perform the Patty Duke theme. Every time we got to the line “a hot dog makes her lose control,” we’d stop and ponder that one. That alluz kill’d ‘em @ the women’s colleges. Not.
Sure, Five-Oh and Batman rock, but you can’t sing them while holding a tumbler of Jack Daniels on ice.
BTW, Fritz’ll be interested to know that my college group also used to perform the Hogan’s Heroes theme also (my own arrangement, too!). We had a guy in the group who could do a dead-on imitation of Werner Klemperer.
Not sure why, but think it coincides with the death of commercial jingles and advertisers relying on the raping of everyone’s youth/teens by using pop songs.
Big fan of the Phineas and Ferb theme, though, that’s for sure. Up till the all-around travesty of its latest season debut this past week, dug Scrubs’ short-but-too-the-point song, too.
Barney Miller was a great, great show and I regret that it has apparently gone down the memory hole. Fish and the brownies, Inspector Luger (“Enn Why Pfee Dheee”), Dietrich…to this day, when I do my imitation of Gregory Peck, I’m actually doing Dietrich doing Peck (“Go away, Beverly is busy”).
The brownie episode is one of my favorite sit-com episodes ever. Yep, Barney Miller was great: great premise for a sit-com, great acting and the writing was character and dialogue driven. Tracy is so right about the theme song too. Good jazzy theme that makes my toe tap just thinking about it.
Generally they don’t do catchy theme songs anymore because the actual running lengths of TV shows are shortening. Back when TV dramas ran about 54 minutes (The 60s) killing a minute or two for opening and closing credits wasn’t a big deal. In fact, it made things slightly easier on the writers. However, by the 80s, hour Dramas were running about 45 minutes, with about 15 minutes of commercials, and the credits were suddenly really cutting in to the storytelling time. Nowadays, your average Hour Drama runs about 40 minutes, so they mostly drop the opening titles, excepting for a 10-second flash of the show name and a bar or two of music. This is really noticeable if you’re watching syndicated 60s shows, like Trek or Mission Impossible, in which the shows have between 10 and fourteen minutes chopped out of ‘em to make room for more commercials. Entire subplots go.
The advantage of this is that writing tends to be a lot denser now, and by comparison a lot of those older shows did seem to have a lot of dead air in ‘em at times. The disadvantage, of course, is that we’re approaching a narative black hole from which lucidity can not escape. It’s even worse for sitcoms, who’ve got from about 27 minutes per episode to about 20.
I noticed that over the past year when Netflixing TV shows. I’d go from a Mission: Impossible where I couldn’t understand where they fit the commercials to a Lost where I couldn’t believe how fast everything was moving.
And yet, although I love both the shows, the Lost episodes actually had more in them. The pacing on older shows is unbelievably slow. I never made it through an MI episode without falling asleep—and I really wanted to see it!
Barney Miller ruled.
Just got back from Christmas shopping….good stuff. If you girls out there like collecting ornaments, may I suggest Old World Christmas by the Merck family. I have some awesome ones. Got two more, another Scottish Santa and a Lion Laying down with a Lamb, which goes with my VERY CHRISTmas theme on the tree. I have all kinds of Santas, Mary and Child, Angels and the Lion now. Along with the birds and ball ornaments.
@ Mike: Yep. For me, it’s the Wild Wild West. I loved that show as a kid/adolescent, and I can’t make it through an episode now. I can’t figure how a show with five major fistfights per episode (And three plots per season) can be so damn borning, but, yeah, there’s a whole lot of “Let’s show them walking down the hallway” shots, whereas in modern shows we’d cut away. A lot of very laconic “Everone please be seated” and then we watch everyone sit down for like thirty seconds, “Ok, now I’ll explain why I asked you all here. Why I asked you all here is becuase – and pay attention, because the reason I asked you all here is important – anyway, the reason I’ve asked you all here is…” kinds of scenes.
I think as a result of the hyperdense writing in dramas now, I tend to respond unusually favorably when they slow it down for some reason and let a scene linger. It gives it all kinds of crazy resonance that it wouldn’t have had in the older shows.
ANd of course then there’s shows like Castle, whcih are densely written, but *Still* feel like they incorporate about 10 minutes of dead air.
I just saw NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 and there were some flaws. Custer was most likely a parody of Boosh. But Amy Adams sexy portrayal of Amelia Earhart was fun. And the rest of the cast was fun.
Again, Amy Adams is beautiful. She is not used enough.
This reminds me of the story we had this week in my class’s Reading book called, Fun With Fish.
They used to have really great theme songs to shows. How come they don’t do that anymore? The last even decent one I remember is from Friends and that one was only so-so. Feel free to correct me R3
.
The Friends theme song was good except for this line:
When it hasn’t been your day, we can come up and pee in your ear.
What good would that do?
Well, if you had been stung by a jellyfish in your ear*, a lot. Of course, that’s rather specific.
*reference from one of the episodes
I was going to work that in, but it would have indicated a degree of familiarity with the show that makes me uneasy.
I am correcting myself, Mad About You had a pretty good song too.
There was a show called, “Duet” that had a great theme song. One of the stars was Jack Lemmon’s son, and I’m pretty sure he wrote and performed the theme song. It was a piano instrumental.
I think my sister and I were the only ones watching the show, back when it aired, but it was considered kind of edgy because it centered on a couple living together, out of wedlock. It was a well-done show. One, cool thing, it ends with them breaking up.
Tracy,
I’ve posted about this before, and, as in the post, I must first remind everyone that I am not gay, but the “iCarly” theme song is very good.
Rufus, the “Drake & Josh” theme song was a slice of pure power pop heaven as far as I’m concerned. Common ground with the iCarly theme is the presence of Drake Bell as writer/performer.
Another great power pop theme song is the one for Teen Titans. Extra points awarded for being sung by the groovy J-Pop superstars Puffy Amiyumi, with music performed and produced by the mighty Andy Sturmer.
However, I must announce here and now that the absolute greatest theme song of all time IMO is the one for the tv version of Gidget (pick it up at 0:59). Sung by Johnny Tillotson in a Jim-Hensen’s-Rat-Pack-Babies style that Frank Sinatra Jr. only WISHES he could approach, with a chart that so channels the spirit of the great Nelson Riddle that it makes me want to cry. Yeah, sure, a ring-a-ding-ding theme song has precious little business fronting for a show that’s all about early sixties So-Cal surfer culture. I don’t care.
Not bad, but nothing comes close to Chet Kincaid, on The Bill Cosby Show (not any of the lame, follow-ups) performing “Hikky Burr.” I cannot find the opening credits on-line (although I posted them once, a long time ago), but it is the awesomest TV theme-show song ever.
I’d also put The Ventures, “Hawaii Five-O” ahead of ‘Gidget,” as well as “Batman.” I’m also a fan of “The Patty Duke Show.”
The theme song, not the show. The show sucks.
My college a capella group used to perform the Patty Duke theme. Every time we got to the line “a hot dog makes her lose control,” we’d stop and ponder that one. That alluz kill’d ‘em @ the women’s colleges. Not.
Sure, Five-Oh and Batman rock, but you can’t sing them while holding a tumbler of Jack Daniels on ice.
BTW, Fritz’ll be interested to know that my college group also used to perform the Hogan’s Heroes theme also (my own arrangement, too!). We had a guy in the group who could do a dead-on imitation of Werner Klemperer.
“In the cooler!”
Sounds like a fun group.
I can sing anything while holding a tumbler of Jack Daniels on ice. How do you think I make it through Mass?
I have to sneak it from a flask. My pastor’s such a drag.
Not sure why, but think it coincides with the death of commercial jingles and advertisers relying on the raping of everyone’s youth/teens by using pop songs.
Big fan of the Phineas and Ferb theme, though, that’s for sure. Up till the all-around travesty of its latest season debut this past week, dug Scrubs’ short-but-too-the-point song, too.
Tracy,it’s because they can cram another commercial in by doing away the theme song.
Scott’s right. They’re actually phasing out theme songs altogether–valuable time that they could squeeze another nickel out of.
Which is why, when you change from one station to another nowadays, you always miss a little bit of the new show’s opening action.
I can’t like that.
Barney Miller was a great, great show and I regret that it has apparently gone down the memory hole. Fish and the brownies, Inspector Luger (“Enn Why Pfee Dheee”), Dietrich…to this day, when I do my imitation of Gregory Peck, I’m actually doing Dietrich doing Peck (“Go away, Beverly is busy”).
The brownie episode is one of my favorite sit-com episodes ever. Yep, Barney Miller was great: great premise for a sit-com, great acting and the writing was character and dialogue driven. Tracy is so right about the theme song too. Good jazzy theme that makes my toe tap just thinking about it.
And actual adults in it, not children playing dress up.
“one of my favorite sit-com episodes ever”
Good choice of wording, it still leaves room to acknowledge MTM’s “Chuckles, the Clown” as the best.
a little song, a little dance… a little seltzer down your pants….
If no one works that into a eulogy at my funeral I will haunt all in attendance, for eternity.
Was reminiscing about “Chuckles, the Clown” not long ago with the spouse just before going to a funeral.
Dietrich, and the guy who played him, were hilarious.
I liked Stan Wojciehowicz.
“You spell it like you say it: Wo-jcie-how-icz.”
Yemana in the brownie episode:
“What do you say we guys go down to the beach, and shoot some clams?”
…and now, to completely change the subject – how about a few climategate jokes:
Q: Why do lawyers like climate scientists?
A: Because there’s, finally, a profession that makes lawyers look good.
Q: What’s the difference between a climate scientist and a used car salesman?
A: A used car salesman is better at selling you a lemon.
Q: How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: I’ll have that number for you, after a few “adjustments.”
Q: How do you change a global warming “scientist” into a skeptic?
A: Withhold his grant money.
Feel free to add your own. Seems this scandal writes its’ own jokes.
Q: How many climate scientists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: You still use light bulbs? You carbon sucking cretin!
I’m a carbon sucking Übercretin! Not only do I use incandescent light bulbs – I’ve stocked up enough to last me through THIS zombie apocalypse.
Generally they don’t do catchy theme songs anymore because the actual running lengths of TV shows are shortening. Back when TV dramas ran about 54 minutes (The 60s) killing a minute or two for opening and closing credits wasn’t a big deal. In fact, it made things slightly easier on the writers. However, by the 80s, hour Dramas were running about 45 minutes, with about 15 minutes of commercials, and the credits were suddenly really cutting in to the storytelling time. Nowadays, your average Hour Drama runs about 40 minutes, so they mostly drop the opening titles, excepting for a 10-second flash of the show name and a bar or two of music. This is really noticeable if you’re watching syndicated 60s shows, like Trek or Mission Impossible, in which the shows have between 10 and fourteen minutes chopped out of ‘em to make room for more commercials. Entire subplots go.
The advantage of this is that writing tends to be a lot denser now, and by comparison a lot of those older shows did seem to have a lot of dead air in ‘em at times. The disadvantage, of course, is that we’re approaching a narative black hole from which lucidity can not escape. It’s even worse for sitcoms, who’ve got from about 27 minutes per episode to about 20.
I noticed that over the past year when Netflixing TV shows. I’d go from a Mission: Impossible where I couldn’t understand where they fit the commercials to a Lost where I couldn’t believe how fast everything was moving.
And yet, although I love both the shows, the Lost episodes actually had more in them. The pacing on older shows is unbelievably slow. I never made it through an MI episode without falling asleep—and I really wanted to see it!
Ellen Nordegren just shot up to #2 on Golf’s all-time money list.
Barney Miller ruled.
Just got back from Christmas shopping….good stuff. If you girls out there like collecting ornaments, may I suggest Old World Christmas by the Merck family. I have some awesome ones. Got two more, another Scottish Santa and a Lion Laying down with a Lamb, which goes with my VERY CHRISTmas theme on the tree. I have all kinds of Santas, Mary and Child, Angels and the Lion now. Along with the birds and ball ornaments.
@ Mike: Yep. For me, it’s the Wild Wild West. I loved that show as a kid/adolescent, and I can’t make it through an episode now. I can’t figure how a show with five major fistfights per episode (And three plots per season) can be so damn borning, but, yeah, there’s a whole lot of “Let’s show them walking down the hallway” shots, whereas in modern shows we’d cut away. A lot of very laconic “Everone please be seated” and then we watch everyone sit down for like thirty seconds, “Ok, now I’ll explain why I asked you all here. Why I asked you all here is becuase – and pay attention, because the reason I asked you all here is important – anyway, the reason I’ve asked you all here is…” kinds of scenes.
I think as a result of the hyperdense writing in dramas now, I tend to respond unusually favorably when they slow it down for some reason and let a scene linger. It gives it all kinds of crazy resonance that it wouldn’t have had in the older shows.
ANd of course then there’s shows like Castle, whcih are densely written, but *Still* feel like they incorporate about 10 minutes of dead air.
Hey,I’ve got a milk carton here..anybody have a good pic of Alfred E Gore?
I think he was last seen asking Bernie Madoff for advice on cell decorating and on how he keeps his day filled.
I just saw NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 and there were some flaws. Custer was most likely a parody of Boosh. But Amy Adams sexy portrayal of Amelia Earhart was fun. And the rest of the cast was fun.
Again, Amy Adams is beautiful. She is not used enough.
Here is some proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRYU4cqUAUs
She has a certain charm and beauty.
Thunderbirds had the best kid’s TV show theme. But then again, anything filmed in Supermarionation is bound to.