The 10 Best TV Theme Songs of My Lifetime....With Lyrics
I've recently been consuming hours and hours worth of retro TV theme songs on a spectacular series of You Tube videos where some glorious bastard recorded the intros to hundreds of shows, including some that had been forgotten by just about everybody for more than 30 years. I always found my boyhood years in the 80s to early 90s to be the heyday of the TV theme song, although I acknowledge that the 70s, 60s, and even the 50s had some outstanding songs as well. But at some point in the mid-90s, the addition of more commercial time per hour and a general changing perspective on the utility of a lengthy musical introduction to TV shows led to the truncation of the theme song or the complete contraction of it on most shows. Some hourlong shows today still have the theme song, but it doesn't serve as the same means of branding a series' identity the way it did a generation ago, and in my opinion, the medium has lost some of its soul because of it.
To be fair, the majority of shows in the 80s and 90s had less than inspired theme songs as well. In more cases than one would expect, the sophistication of the theme song was a pretty telling indicator of how much inspiration was behind the show overall. Most mediocre or bad shows had unmemorable theme music while most well-executed shows had high-quality theme music, but there were a number of exceptions in both directions. NBC's 1990 sitcom "Grand" was an absolutely terrible show, but it had such a good theme song (at least the season 2 iteration of that song) that it was nonetheless a contender for my top-10 list. On the other hand, the police drama "New York Undercover" was one of the best series of the 1990s, but despite music being part of the series' overall soul more than just anybody other show, its theme song was about as mediocre and low-budget as they come.
I'd heard so many good songs that I decided I just had to commemorate the best of them with a list, but as I started to stack up worthy entries, I decided it wasn't fair to categorize theme songs with lyrics alongside those without lyrics...so I settled upon two different lists! In addition to the quality of the song, the imagery accompanying the music should be compelling. In most cases, they go hand in hand, and if a series has a longer run, it tends to incorporate more footage from the show into the theme music after its first season. The oddest counterexample I found was the 1990-91 CBS sitcom "The Family Man" which had a mediocre song set to amazingly impressive beach-side production values.
When it came to isolating a top-10, I felt as though I should exclude series that repurposed rock classics as their themes. "Crime Story" (1986-88) had a glossy intro set in early 1960s Las Vegas set to Del Shannon's "Runaway", but it felt like cheating when your theme song isn't an original composition so I disqualified it. Ditto for both of the Vietnam War dramas of my era. "Tour of Duty" (1987-90) had a great opening sequence set to the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" while the "China Beach" (1988-91) theme song sung by The Supremes was equally worthy of acclaim both audibly and visually but doesn't meet the guidelines I've imposed.
If I had expanded this list to a top-20, I'd have probably included the likes of catchy jingles for shows like "The Facts of Life"(1979-88) and "Family Matters" (1989-98), but those songs didn't strike me as iconic or defining the franchise and including them would lessen the impact of my top-10. And I will only give an honorary #11 ranking for the theme song widely heralded as the greatest TV theme song..."Cheers"(1982-93). It's a poignant but simple song set to low-budget graphics. Comparing it to the more sophisticated arrangements and better visuals of the songs in my top-10, I simply don't find it worthy. The fact that everybody else seems to think it's the best of all-time only reinforces that my brain is wired much differently than those of the consensus makers.
With all that pretext out of the way, here's my top-10 list...
#10. "Growing Pains (1985-92).....My favorite family sitcom of my childhood was the Seaver clan whose run overlapped with my all-time favorite series "MacGyver" down to the same week (premiered the same week, ended the same night). Country crooner BJ Thomas sung most iterations of the "As Long as We Got Each Other" theme song, singing it solo for season 1. That first season version was my favorite version of the song, but the weird and Gothic imagery that served as a backdrop was off-putting. Thankfully, they cleaned up the visuals for season 2 with the images most people remember from the "Growing Pains" theme song, featuring the actor introductions as they aged from childhood. However, BJ Thomas' vocals were diluted by mixing in background vocals from female crooners such as Jennifer Warnes and Dusty Springfield in season 2 and years thereafter. And then they really messed things up in season 6 when some unidentified group sang an acapella version I didn't care for. But I'll accentuate the positive and link the first season version where I liked the song best AND the second season version where the visuals improved.
Season 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7Z61wdttE
Season 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blpwNN5k79U
#9. "Masquerade" (1983-84).....Crimefighters dominated the airwaves in the mid-80s and there was a bit of an arms race in search of the coolest action show vehicle on TV. As a lifelong connoisseur of action shows, this was a wonderful era to come of age. Unfortunately, there were some stinkers among this action show tidal wave, and one of the biggest howlers was Glen Larson's "Masquerade" where everyday Americans were recruited for one-time international spy missions. The concept was intriguing but the execution was usually as tacky as the average episode of "The Love Boat". With that said, the series knocked it out of the park with the atmospheric theme song, featuring a litany of glossy Cold War-era spy images set to the unmistakably smooth vocals of country singer Crystal Gayle, a perfect choice to capture a theme song that comes as close as any TV show has to the iconic tunes that open James Bond movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW4FBUGOHDc
#8. "Moonlighting" (1985-89)...I really should revisit the highly rated action-comedy "Moonlighting" as an adult, but the cutesy silliness was a turnoff to me when I was a boy. Perhaps the critically acclaimed dialogue that annoyed me or went over my head as a boy would seem more clever today, but I suspect my long-standing grudge against the series wouldn't disappear quite that quickly. I have nothing but great memories of "Moonlighting's" theme song though, a smooth light-jazz number by the recently deceased Al Jarreau that flowed nicely with the vibe of the glossy visuals in the show's introduction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkOsFhenalk
#7. "Happy Days" (1974-84).....Now that's how it's done! In its first season way back in the mid-70s, the long-running retro-trip sitcom lifted its theme song from the old 50s song "Rock Around the Clock". While that was plenty catchy, the series took a gamble by crafting an original song that fit the series perfectly. The imagery of the spinning turntable with the photos of the cast members in the middle of the records gave the introduction an extra layer of atmosphere to go along with the fitting 50s rock-style groove. My mom will sometimes remind me how I would take to the floor to dance as a very young boy when the "Happy Days" theme song came on, so I took a shine to this one at a very young age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W6y7YhHdVE
#6. "WKRP in Cincinnati"(1978-82)....It's only fitting that a show about a top-40 station have a great theme song and "WKRP in Cincinnati" certainly nailed it with a smooth 70s soft-rock number composed by Tom Wells accompanied by some great images of the Midwestern city. I was too young to remember the show (but know a lot of people who really liked it) but some of my earliest TV memories involve humming along to the theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8exUJ-Cmfc
#5. "Hardcastle and McCormick" (1983-86)....The majority of 80s action shows either had charm or soul to help distinguish them from many of their present-day crime drama counterparts, but only a few managed to combine charm and soul the way "Hardcastle and McCormick" did, featuring immensely likable characters played by great actors that helped sell what began as a fairly ridiculous elemental gimmick. It didn't hurt that it had a great rock-fueled theme song set to action-packed images from the series, getting the blood pumping for a fun hour of mostly lighthearted action to come. Interestingly, producer Stephen J. Cannell attempted to replace the original theme song with a light-rock tune sung by staff vocalist Joey Scarbury at the beginning of season 2, but fans were outraged and the series returned to the original theme song halfway through the second season. By no means did I hate Scarbury's theme song, but it wasn't a great fit for this series the way the "Drive" song was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZDRAlrgK-c
#4. "Full House" (1987-95)....A few years ago, I posted a lengthy writeup romanticizing the late 80s and early 90s "TGIF" sitcom lineup on ABC, acknowledging that most of the shows were pretty bad but were nonetheless marketed into ratings gold. Part of that great marketing included impossibly catchy theme songs with slickly produced imagery in the series intros. They knew what they were doing, soliciting singer-songwriter Jesse Frederick for several of TGIF's biggest hit shows, most of which he nailed to some degree. One of the most popular series of TGIF was "Full House", a show I never cared for personally, but made sure I never missed the earworm title sequence with its iconic shots of San Francisco even if I could have walked away from the sapfest that ensued over the 27 minutes of the series that followed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVWvLqgHkE4
#3. "Perfect Strangers" (1986-93)....What songwriter Jesse Frederick did for San Francisco in "Full House" he and vocalist David Pomerantz did even better for Chicago in "Perfect Strangers", a TGIF sitcom that was a bit of a throwback to the classic comedy acts of decades past that was always a bit polarizing but orders of magnitude better done than "Full House". But even if the series content was a bit silly for your tastes, it's impossible not to like the theme song with its strong melodic hook and the visual backdrop of two "fish out of water" moving to the exciting big city. The original theme song leaned heavier on the imagery of moving from the small town to the big city but I preferred the vocal performance of the song used in the series' later seasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPyc7dH28KE
#2. "The Fall Guy" (1981-86)....Before "MacGyver" came along, my favorite TV series was "The Fall Guy", a fun action-adventure series about a professional stuntman who moonlights in the bounty hunter business and brings some of the tools of the stunt business to his second job. It wasn't until I was 30 years old and got the DVD set that I had heard the story how musician David Somerville and producer Glen Larson went to ABC to pitch a series based entirely on the stuntman song Somerville had written. The ABC programming executive thought the song was clever and lent itself to an interesting series premise and asked Larson to "write me a pilot". It was a crazy opening salvo leading to what would become a very ambitious series, and although the countrified tune sung by series star Lee Majors is dorky as hell it's clever enough to bring a smile to your face every time despite the dated pop culture references. Furthermore, the montage of aggressive stunts and other action sequences accompanying the vocals made for one of the most visually stunning TV show intros the medium has ever seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9ev40C30M
#1. "The Greatest American Hero" (1981-83).....It's not every TV theme song that finds its way to the top of the pop charts months later but that's what happened in the summer of 1981 following the abbreviated first season of Stephen J. Cannell's new superhero series "The Greatest American Hero". The imaginative and catchy title song was sung by Joey Scarbury, a staff musician for Stephen J. Cannell Productions who Cannell attempted to turn into a star by infusing dozens more Scarbury songs into Cannell's other shows throughout the 80s, but he will go down in history as a one-hit wonder with "Believe it or Not", still featured in TV ads 37 years after its original release. The show itself was not great and not at all in keeping with the more mature vision Cannell had for the series. ABC had a reputation for massively micromanaging its shows in the 80s and insisted on the cornball, childish product the series would eventually become. Still, it lasted three seasons and ABC at least had the sense to make the classic theme song the series' front-and-center feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYUXnVxCoS4
In the near future, I'll be back with a list of my favorite TV theme songs from my lifetime without lyrics. I'm anticipating that will be a top-20 list because there are so many great songs to pick from.
To be fair, the majority of shows in the 80s and 90s had less than inspired theme songs as well. In more cases than one would expect, the sophistication of the theme song was a pretty telling indicator of how much inspiration was behind the show overall. Most mediocre or bad shows had unmemorable theme music while most well-executed shows had high-quality theme music, but there were a number of exceptions in both directions. NBC's 1990 sitcom "Grand" was an absolutely terrible show, but it had such a good theme song (at least the season 2 iteration of that song) that it was nonetheless a contender for my top-10 list. On the other hand, the police drama "New York Undercover" was one of the best series of the 1990s, but despite music being part of the series' overall soul more than just anybody other show, its theme song was about as mediocre and low-budget as they come.
I'd heard so many good songs that I decided I just had to commemorate the best of them with a list, but as I started to stack up worthy entries, I decided it wasn't fair to categorize theme songs with lyrics alongside those without lyrics...so I settled upon two different lists! In addition to the quality of the song, the imagery accompanying the music should be compelling. In most cases, they go hand in hand, and if a series has a longer run, it tends to incorporate more footage from the show into the theme music after its first season. The oddest counterexample I found was the 1990-91 CBS sitcom "The Family Man" which had a mediocre song set to amazingly impressive beach-side production values.
When it came to isolating a top-10, I felt as though I should exclude series that repurposed rock classics as their themes. "Crime Story" (1986-88) had a glossy intro set in early 1960s Las Vegas set to Del Shannon's "Runaway", but it felt like cheating when your theme song isn't an original composition so I disqualified it. Ditto for both of the Vietnam War dramas of my era. "Tour of Duty" (1987-90) had a great opening sequence set to the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" while the "China Beach" (1988-91) theme song sung by The Supremes was equally worthy of acclaim both audibly and visually but doesn't meet the guidelines I've imposed.
If I had expanded this list to a top-20, I'd have probably included the likes of catchy jingles for shows like "The Facts of Life"(1979-88) and "Family Matters" (1989-98), but those songs didn't strike me as iconic or defining the franchise and including them would lessen the impact of my top-10. And I will only give an honorary #11 ranking for the theme song widely heralded as the greatest TV theme song..."Cheers"(1982-93). It's a poignant but simple song set to low-budget graphics. Comparing it to the more sophisticated arrangements and better visuals of the songs in my top-10, I simply don't find it worthy. The fact that everybody else seems to think it's the best of all-time only reinforces that my brain is wired much differently than those of the consensus makers.
With all that pretext out of the way, here's my top-10 list...
#10. "Growing Pains (1985-92).....My favorite family sitcom of my childhood was the Seaver clan whose run overlapped with my all-time favorite series "MacGyver" down to the same week (premiered the same week, ended the same night). Country crooner BJ Thomas sung most iterations of the "As Long as We Got Each Other" theme song, singing it solo for season 1. That first season version was my favorite version of the song, but the weird and Gothic imagery that served as a backdrop was off-putting. Thankfully, they cleaned up the visuals for season 2 with the images most people remember from the "Growing Pains" theme song, featuring the actor introductions as they aged from childhood. However, BJ Thomas' vocals were diluted by mixing in background vocals from female crooners such as Jennifer Warnes and Dusty Springfield in season 2 and years thereafter. And then they really messed things up in season 6 when some unidentified group sang an acapella version I didn't care for. But I'll accentuate the positive and link the first season version where I liked the song best AND the second season version where the visuals improved.
Season 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7Z61wdttE
Season 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blpwNN5k79U
#9. "Masquerade" (1983-84).....Crimefighters dominated the airwaves in the mid-80s and there was a bit of an arms race in search of the coolest action show vehicle on TV. As a lifelong connoisseur of action shows, this was a wonderful era to come of age. Unfortunately, there were some stinkers among this action show tidal wave, and one of the biggest howlers was Glen Larson's "Masquerade" where everyday Americans were recruited for one-time international spy missions. The concept was intriguing but the execution was usually as tacky as the average episode of "The Love Boat". With that said, the series knocked it out of the park with the atmospheric theme song, featuring a litany of glossy Cold War-era spy images set to the unmistakably smooth vocals of country singer Crystal Gayle, a perfect choice to capture a theme song that comes as close as any TV show has to the iconic tunes that open James Bond movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW4FBUGOHDc
#8. "Moonlighting" (1985-89)...I really should revisit the highly rated action-comedy "Moonlighting" as an adult, but the cutesy silliness was a turnoff to me when I was a boy. Perhaps the critically acclaimed dialogue that annoyed me or went over my head as a boy would seem more clever today, but I suspect my long-standing grudge against the series wouldn't disappear quite that quickly. I have nothing but great memories of "Moonlighting's" theme song though, a smooth light-jazz number by the recently deceased Al Jarreau that flowed nicely with the vibe of the glossy visuals in the show's introduction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkOsFhenalk
#7. "Happy Days" (1974-84).....Now that's how it's done! In its first season way back in the mid-70s, the long-running retro-trip sitcom lifted its theme song from the old 50s song "Rock Around the Clock". While that was plenty catchy, the series took a gamble by crafting an original song that fit the series perfectly. The imagery of the spinning turntable with the photos of the cast members in the middle of the records gave the introduction an extra layer of atmosphere to go along with the fitting 50s rock-style groove. My mom will sometimes remind me how I would take to the floor to dance as a very young boy when the "Happy Days" theme song came on, so I took a shine to this one at a very young age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W6y7YhHdVE
#6. "WKRP in Cincinnati"(1978-82)....It's only fitting that a show about a top-40 station have a great theme song and "WKRP in Cincinnati" certainly nailed it with a smooth 70s soft-rock number composed by Tom Wells accompanied by some great images of the Midwestern city. I was too young to remember the show (but know a lot of people who really liked it) but some of my earliest TV memories involve humming along to the theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8exUJ-Cmfc
#5. "Hardcastle and McCormick" (1983-86)....The majority of 80s action shows either had charm or soul to help distinguish them from many of their present-day crime drama counterparts, but only a few managed to combine charm and soul the way "Hardcastle and McCormick" did, featuring immensely likable characters played by great actors that helped sell what began as a fairly ridiculous elemental gimmick. It didn't hurt that it had a great rock-fueled theme song set to action-packed images from the series, getting the blood pumping for a fun hour of mostly lighthearted action to come. Interestingly, producer Stephen J. Cannell attempted to replace the original theme song with a light-rock tune sung by staff vocalist Joey Scarbury at the beginning of season 2, but fans were outraged and the series returned to the original theme song halfway through the second season. By no means did I hate Scarbury's theme song, but it wasn't a great fit for this series the way the "Drive" song was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZDRAlrgK-c
#4. "Full House" (1987-95)....A few years ago, I posted a lengthy writeup romanticizing the late 80s and early 90s "TGIF" sitcom lineup on ABC, acknowledging that most of the shows were pretty bad but were nonetheless marketed into ratings gold. Part of that great marketing included impossibly catchy theme songs with slickly produced imagery in the series intros. They knew what they were doing, soliciting singer-songwriter Jesse Frederick for several of TGIF's biggest hit shows, most of which he nailed to some degree. One of the most popular series of TGIF was "Full House", a show I never cared for personally, but made sure I never missed the earworm title sequence with its iconic shots of San Francisco even if I could have walked away from the sapfest that ensued over the 27 minutes of the series that followed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVWvLqgHkE4
#3. "Perfect Strangers" (1986-93)....What songwriter Jesse Frederick did for San Francisco in "Full House" he and vocalist David Pomerantz did even better for Chicago in "Perfect Strangers", a TGIF sitcom that was a bit of a throwback to the classic comedy acts of decades past that was always a bit polarizing but orders of magnitude better done than "Full House". But even if the series content was a bit silly for your tastes, it's impossible not to like the theme song with its strong melodic hook and the visual backdrop of two "fish out of water" moving to the exciting big city. The original theme song leaned heavier on the imagery of moving from the small town to the big city but I preferred the vocal performance of the song used in the series' later seasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPyc7dH28KE
#2. "The Fall Guy" (1981-86)....Before "MacGyver" came along, my favorite TV series was "The Fall Guy", a fun action-adventure series about a professional stuntman who moonlights in the bounty hunter business and brings some of the tools of the stunt business to his second job. It wasn't until I was 30 years old and got the DVD set that I had heard the story how musician David Somerville and producer Glen Larson went to ABC to pitch a series based entirely on the stuntman song Somerville had written. The ABC programming executive thought the song was clever and lent itself to an interesting series premise and asked Larson to "write me a pilot". It was a crazy opening salvo leading to what would become a very ambitious series, and although the countrified tune sung by series star Lee Majors is dorky as hell it's clever enough to bring a smile to your face every time despite the dated pop culture references. Furthermore, the montage of aggressive stunts and other action sequences accompanying the vocals made for one of the most visually stunning TV show intros the medium has ever seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9ev40C30M
#1. "The Greatest American Hero" (1981-83).....It's not every TV theme song that finds its way to the top of the pop charts months later but that's what happened in the summer of 1981 following the abbreviated first season of Stephen J. Cannell's new superhero series "The Greatest American Hero". The imaginative and catchy title song was sung by Joey Scarbury, a staff musician for Stephen J. Cannell Productions who Cannell attempted to turn into a star by infusing dozens more Scarbury songs into Cannell's other shows throughout the 80s, but he will go down in history as a one-hit wonder with "Believe it or Not", still featured in TV ads 37 years after its original release. The show itself was not great and not at all in keeping with the more mature vision Cannell had for the series. ABC had a reputation for massively micromanaging its shows in the 80s and insisted on the cornball, childish product the series would eventually become. Still, it lasted three seasons and ABC at least had the sense to make the classic theme song the series' front-and-center feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYUXnVxCoS4
In the near future, I'll be back with a list of my favorite TV theme songs from my lifetime without lyrics. I'm anticipating that will be a top-20 list because there are so many great songs to pick from.
posted by Mark at 5:32 PM
4 Comments:
Great idea for a post. I like your list and listened to a few from shows I hadn't heard of. I'd heard the "Believe it or Not" song before but didn't realize it was from a tv show. Of the ones you mentioned, I think the best two are Cheers and Happy Days. A few other memorable ones that you didn't mention are A Different World, The Golden Girls, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
You also didn't mention my top 2, which quite frankly is an oversight on your part for which I'm sure you'll admit the error of your ways! #2 is Charles in Charge -- there are two versions, both of which are great. And #1 I wrote about on my blog -- the transcendent Gummi Bears theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HCjQbKowUo
The "Gummi Bears" song is pretty catchy. There are actually a number of cartoons with great theme songs. Some of the Nickelodeon cartoons of my boyhood such as "Mysterious Cities of Gold" and "The World of David the Gnome" had great songs. Nonetheless, I believe I will leave my current top-10 intact.
Yeah what was the deal with the images in the intro of the first season of Growing Pains? How did that intro have anything to do with the actual show?
I think those images were meant to convey the "growing pains of society" but it was awkward and disconnected to the show. Definitely glad they changed the intro for season 2.
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