Last time, we covered theme songs for television shows that were adapted from previous works. This week, we’ll go over theme songs that originated specifically as theme songs. Joining me once more is the lovely and talented Thea Rettical, whose input is much appreciated. Note: I crowd-sourced some songs from one of my Discord servers (shout out to VRTLPROS), because they were vociferous in reminding me of some good ones. (For example, I whiffed on number two in my first draft, to my unrelenting horror.) Let’s get started for our year-end piece with number twenty. Take it away, Thea!
20. George of the Jungle
Thea: I never realized that this show only had seventeen episodes! I somehow remember it having much more, and not just the 2007 reboot. This show was so fun and campy and dumb (in a good way!). I would watch George on Cartoon Network with his friends Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Mr. Peabody… who were all made by the same team. Childhood in the late Nineties and early Noughties was the best, hands down.
Plus we can’t forget the Brendan Fraser movie.
…Watch out for that tree!
19. I Dream of Jeannie
Thea: The intro to this show is awesome. I love the animated sequence and theme music. So cute and kitschy and quintessentially ‘60s. However, I don’t think this is a series I’d be able to rewatch. Tony is a jerk and I’m not about that life.
Sidney Sheldon was a triple writing threat. Broadway shows, film, and novels. I’m lucky if I can get my half of an LK article done, and this guy did everything!
18. The Simpsons
LK: I don’t think I need to expound upon my love of The Simpsons more than I already have in my previous articles, but I would like to focus on the theme specifically. Matt Groening asked Danny Elfman to compose it when the show was picked up for a full series run, and he wrote it in the car on the way home. That evening he recorded a demo, then made it into the full arrangement once it was approved. The most famous version is actually the re-recording and re-arrangement provided by television music legend Alf Clausen beginning in season three. In 2017, the producers fired Clausen from his role as composer, allegedly due to his large contract and his increasing age. Clausen sued, though later dropped the suit in 2022.
17. The Partridge Family
LK: Bernard Slade, the creative genius behind Sally Field’s The Flying Nun, wanted to build a show around Broadway and musical star Shirley Jones. He took the idea from the actual family band The Cowsills and adapted it to incorporate Jones. Originally, the Cowsills themselves were considered as actors, but by the time the pilot came around they had aged out of the roles. The producers cast Jones’ stepson David Cassidy as the male lead and intended heartthrob teen idol. The music was at the forefront of the show, with Shorty Rogers writing the pilot’s songs and Wes Farrell composing for the rest of its run. The best song by far is thirteen year old Danny Bonaduce’s take on “I’ll Be Your Magician”, heard here:
16. The Jetsons
Thea: According to lore (and Wikipedia) the Jetson’s patriarch was born last year, meaning this version of the future is rapidly approaching. If we don’t have our flying cars and robot maids and two hour work weeks in 2062, I’ll riot. While there’s always comparison between The Jetsons and The Flintstones (mentioned later), The Jetsons are usually on the lower end of the TV show spectrum. This was definitely a fun show to watch, but rewatching some of it as an adult is a little cringe.
I think Stephen Downs from Slate said it best:
In the end, The Jetsons was a rather tame, pedestrian sitcom about a family that reinforced traditional gender and family roles, knew little of the social issues of the time (it was, for example, unbearably white), and effectively glorified the consumerist, suburban lifestyle. But as a template for a technology-driven American future, it was no less than iconic.
15. Good Times
LK: Composed by award winning music producer Dave Grusin with lyrics by the Bergmans, the Good Times theme song was recorded by two unheralded Motown legends. The male voice is Jim Gilstrap, who began his music career working with the Doodletown Pipers before signing on as one of Stevie Wonder’s backing singers in Wonderlove. His other most notable vocal is from "You Are the Sunshine of My Life”. The female voice is Sandra “Blinky” Williams, who started out with the COGIC singers alongside gospel legend Andrae Crouch. She was signed to Motown as the duet partner of Edwin Starr (of “War” fame), but was always seen as the second best duo for the label behind Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. After that album flopped, her contract was cancelled and she returned to gospel music once more.
14. Family Matters
Thea: Not gonna lie, I didn’t watch Family Matters that much, and when I did it was because of Urkel. He’s clearly the standout character of the show. Iconic style. Great catchphrase. Cute alter ego. That’s all you really need. I did identify with the show more than I expected, mainly because it was centered around a law enforcement family. I enjoyed that it wasn’t super serious and there was a lot of levity to it.
13. Hill Street Blues
LK: I could do an entire article on just Mike Post theme songs, but I’ll try to contain myself to just this one for now. Post became the musical director for The Andy Williams Show at the tender age of twenty-four, and had steady work in television thereafter. His big break for themes was The Rockford Files (a late cut from this list), leading to roles providing music for all of the shows from the production offices of Dick Wolf (Law and Order), Stephen J. Cannell (The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, Hunter), Donald Bellisario (Quantum Leap, NCIS), and Steven Bochco (L.A. Law, Doogie Howser M. D.). It was for Bochco that he composed the mellow, jazzy theme for Hill Street Blues, with tasty licks from smooth jazz legend Larry Carlton.
12. The Jeffersons
LK: There’s more than one connection between Good Times and The Jeffersons. Both came from the production offices of the recently departed Norman Lear, but their themes are linked as well. Lear was struggling to come up with additional roles for Ja’Net Dubois, who he felt he was underutilizing in her role as Willona on Good Times. She suggested she could contribute to something musical, so he gave her a brief description of his forthcoming series The Jeffersons and asked her to devise a theme song. She not only co-wrote the tune with Sixties pop maven Jeff Barry (“Chapel of Love”, “Leader of the Pack”, “Be My Baby”), but also led the choir as primary vocalist.
11. Beverly Hillbillies
Thea: Now this is a theme song I can get behind! Bluegrass is a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine, and I love narrative music. I feel like older country did a great job of telling a full story in around four minutes, and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” does it well. I didn’t realize that this song made history by being the first bluegrass record to top the Billboard country charts. Very impressive for a comedy theme song!
10. Friends
LK: “I’ll Be There For You” was not the original choice for the theme song to Friends. The producers wanted R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People”, but the band refused to license it. (Michael Stipe in particular was vocal at the time about not being proud of the song, believing it to be too lightweight to be representative of the band.) Marta Kauffman and David Crane (the creators of Friends), teamed up with songwriter Allee Willis (famous for “September” by Earth Wind and Fire and “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” by Dusty Springfield and Pet Shop Boys) to throw together a song. However, they didn’t have a band to play it. Since Warner Brothers was financing the show, the producers had to use the only Warner Bros. Records artist available: the Rembrandts. The band (a duo consisting of Danny Wilde and Phil Solem) had a minor hit in 1990 with “Just the Way It Is, Baby”, which is a much better song. Listen here:
9. Full House
Thea: Surprising fact about me: little Thea LOVED Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. I pretty much watched every movie they ever made (Double, Double, Toil and Trouble is my favorite), and I even had their fashion dolls. So of course, I watched Full House. I remember taking a trip to San Francisco and seeing houses that looked like the opening credits. This song is such a good ear worm. I haven’t stopped humming the tune all day. This show might deserve a rewatch for me. Plus, it created one of my most used GIFs of all time.
8. Star Trek: The Original Series
Thea: You’re either a Star Wars or a Star Trek fan, and I’m definitely a Trekkie. While I’m more of a Next Generation girlie, TOS is also amazing and paved the way for so much in the science fiction genre. And to think, Gene Roddenberry thought it was risky… so much so that he wrote secret lyrics to the theme song so he could get royalties in the future. “Hey, I have to get some money somewhere. I’m sure not going to get it out of the profits of Star Trek.”
Those lyrics?
Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand’ring in star-flight
I know
He’ll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.
Yeah… stick to writing shows, Gene.
7. The Flintstones
Thea: I asked LK the other day if he was more of a Flintstones or Jetsons person, and he voted The Flintstones because it felt more like a traditional sitcom, while The Jetsons felt more like a traditional cartoon, and the inspiration seems to reflect that (look at LK being right again):
Soon Dan Gordon, a brilliant artist and storyboard man, turned up with a drawing in which the characters came out of the Stone Age, dressed in leopard skins. Suddenly it became possible to visualize all the splendid gag possibilities in sending a typical suburban family back into the dawn of history — to give them all the creature comforts (and problems) of any family, but with a prehistoric twist.
— Ted Sennett, The Art of Hanna-Barbera: Fifty Years of Creativity
The Flintstones was definitely more fun to watch. I loved Fred and Barney’s friendship and how goofy they were. Kinda reminds me of some of my friendships.
6. The Andy Griffith Show
LK: Earle Hagen invented the role of the modern television composer when he began working with producer Sheldon Leonard on Make Room for Daddy. Leonard didn’t like the then-standard practice of using stock audio (think the orchestra hits in Looney Tunes cartoons) for his television shows, so he hired Hagen and Herbert Spencer to be the full-time composers for his shows. When Leonard was tasked to create a show around actor/comedian Andy Griffith in conjunction with co-creator Danny Thomas, he needed a theme song, so he turned to Hagen (who had split from Spencer). In Hagen’s own words:
One day I got up and I just thought, here's a guy who's a simple character. And I started whistling a theme. I called a bass guitar-and-drum session at a little studio on Fairfax Avenue, and I whistled the theme. My son, who was eleven years old at the time, did all the finger snapping. I played the demo for [Leonard] and he said, "That's perfect. I'm going to shoot the main title next week and I'll just have Andy and Opie walking by the lake with a couple of fishing rods". That was it. And I've never whistled since.
The theme was originally an instrumental, but clamor for a commercial release meant that the producers put out a version with vocals and lyrics by Everett Sloane. The re-written version was titled “The Fishin’ Hole”.
5. Gilligan’s Island
Thea: “…and the rest!”
That one little line irritated me SO MUCH as a kid. Seriously, the Professor and Mary Ann didn’t get any recognition? My favorite people, just pushed to the side? Not cool! Bob Denver personally asked CBS executives to add them to the theme song after season one. When they refused, Denver showed his solidarity by saying he wanted his name removed from the song if they weren’t included…so they ultimately corrected their grievous mistake. Gilligan’s Island is one of those iconic shows that will never truly go away. You’ll always be able to find reruns playing somewhere, and who knows…you might even find that some characters make appearances where you’d least expect them.
4. Night Court
LK: I am barely old enough to have seen the end of the original run of Night Court as it aired, so my experience with the show was mostly through syndication on A&E, before it became the home of weird reality shows about too many possessions or not enough naloxone. Yes, I remember Nero Wolfe and An Evening at the Improv. The theme song for Night Court was composed by Jack Elliott, who ironically worked as a musical director for The Andy Williams Show alongside Dave Grusin and before Mike Post. Small world, huh? The bass-forward song was dying to be used as a sample, so Cam’ron (b-b-b-byrdgang) obliged in 1998 with “Horse & Carriage” heard here:
3. Scooby-Doo
Thea: Everyone has a Scooby-Doo character that they identify with the most. For me, it’s Velma (to no one’s surprise at all). If you’re more of a Scrappy-Doo person, I don’t know if we can be friends (LK, please tell me you’re not a Scrappy-Doo…). I remember one of my friends was obsessed with the show, which means I watched it a lot as well. She was also a Velma, go figure. This show might have been one of my first introductions to the idea of a cozy mystery.
Amateur sleuths? Check
Solving crimes in a small town? Check
Know-it-all character that helps out the sleuths? Check (looking at you, Velma)
Cute animal sidekick? Check
Crime is always solved by the end of the episode? Check
As far as the theme song goes, I enjoy the juxtaposition of using a more happy and bouncy-sounding theme with a more “dark” show. “Dark” is used very, very loosely here. A show with a talking dog can’t be that dark.
2. Cheers
LK: Sometimes it takes several tries to get it right. In this case, Gary Portnoy (songwriter for Air Supply and Dolly Parton among others) was asked by his friend Judy Hart-Angelo to compose a song with her for a future musical called Preppies. Portnoy had never written for a musical, while Hart-Angelo had never written a song period. They wrote the opening number, titled “People Like Us”. After a couple of years, Hart-Angelo heard that Glen and Les Charles were looking for a theme song for their new show set in a Boston bar. The Charles brothers were enamored with “People Like Us”, and with a few lyric changes they were ready to buy the song. Unfortunately, the producers for Preppies were resolute that they owned the rights to “People Like Us” and would not license it out. Portnoy and Hart-Angelo were then asked to compose something original that felt like that song. The result was “My Kind of People”, which is very much a reinterpretation of the original.
The Charles brothers hated it. They asked Portnoy and Hart-Angelo to start from scratch, maintaining the feel without aping anything from the other two themes. “Another Day” was another bust, but there were two glimmers of hope. One line resonated with them: “There are times when it’s fun to take the long way home.” Even though they couldn’t find a song that fits, the Charleses wanted to keep the songwriting duo working, believing that it was just a matter of time.
After feeling like he wanted to pound his head against a wall for weeks, Portnoy had a breakthrough with this demo. The producers thought it was almost perfect, but they thought it needed to be more universal. They asked the songwriters to tweak the lyrics, making them more generic and less about Boston; NBC had given them the impression that the show was going to be a hit, so they were already thinking about reruns and syndication. Broadening the appeal now would pay dividends later. Finally, the finished song you heard at the top of this section came to be. Just a month before the show premiered, NBC was still considering hiring an outside singer to perform the theme, but ultimately selected Portnoy himself as the singer (multitracked and sweetened). With weeks to spare, the iconic theme was complete and ready for primetime.
1. Barney Miller
LK: The theme for Barney Miller was cowritten by Allyn Ferguson and Jack Elliott (of later Night Court fame as seen above), while the iconic bassline was improvised by studio musician Chuck Berghofer, best known for his work on film soundtracks and his status as one of the legendary Wrecking Crew of Los Angeles based instrumentalists. Berghofer’s bassline for Barney Miller directly inspired Cliff Burton to play bass, so we have this song to thank for everything Metallica has ever done. (Praise and blame accordingly.)
Barney Miller, for those who haven’t watched it, is perhaps the best representation of actual police work depicted on screen. The entire show (with less than a dozen exceptions over almost two hundred episodes) is set in the police squad room, where detectives and suspects float in and out as the plot dictates. The series is filmed as a stage show, with three unchanging principal sets linked to one another (the squad room, the jail cells, and Barney’s office). Every episode is a “bottle episode”, meaning that stunt staging or special effects can’t cover for poor writing. It is the writing and characterization that shines through every second, as these people exist within their shared universe and interact with one another in meaningful realistic ways.
The unity of staging also means that the plot must come to the set rather than going on excursions. After eight years, creator Danny Arnold shut down production not because ratings were declining or actors were growing restless, but instead because he didn’t want to risk repeating plots through inertia. Arnold singlehandedly wrote many of the episodes, usually writing or rewriting as the cast performed the scripts on the soundstage. Taping sessions could last sixteen hours or more, with constant revisions and retakes necessary to craft the perfect show. More often than not, they succeeded.
Despite my lack of enthusiasm for copaganda, Barney Miller is more palatable than most. With few exceptions, the officers are consistently portrayed as fully realized humans rather than iconic superheroes or larger than life caricatures. The suspects are humanized as well, as most are shown to be regular everyday people in a tight situation. The show was unafraid to tackle social issues; Wojo’s girlfriend was a former sex worker, two recurring characters were shown to be openly gay, and Fish’s spinoff showed the struggles of the foster care system to accommodate the needs of vulnerable children. If I have to watch a show with police protagonists, this is my choice. (I also want to see a touring company stage productions for dinner theatre with a repertory cast. Somebody license that for me.)
Thank you for joining us on this piece to end the year. I will see you in the new year, and with a new schedule. Rather than committing to a weekly basis, I will publish new articles every other week. This allows me more time to drill down and focus on longer pieces, and to branch out further into more esoteric topics than I can cover in a week turnaround. I have some lovely ideas that are begging to be fleshed out further. Won’t you join me?
If you liked what you’ve read, please send it to a friend, or even an enemy. Of course, subscribe if you haven’t already done so. Thank you once more for reading. You’re all very precious to me. (Except you. You know what you did.)