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The other day I mentioned in a comment that Frankie Laine sang my favorite TV theme song. . .Rawhide. That show included one of my favorite TV characters, Rowdy Yates, which started Clint Eastwood's career. https://www.google.com/search?q=rawhide+theme+song&rlz=1C1CH...
With a little time on my hands, I assembled a list of my top TV theme songs:
Rawhide
M*A*S*H
Greatest American Hero
Bosom Buddies
The Big Bang Theory
Sopranos
Jeopardy
Twilight Zone
Mission Impossible
Friends
Mary Tyler Moore
Davy Crockett
All In the Family
Cheers
Mister Roger's Neighborhood
Dukes of Hazards
The Muppet Show
The Monkees
Dr. Kildare
Beverly Hillbillies
Hawaii Five-O
Taxi
Bonanza
Peter Gunn
The Rockford Files
Did I miss any that you would consider memorable?
Jill
Comments
Couple More...
"The Patty Duke Show", which got quoted in a comment here recently. Probably almost inevitable, given all the stories in this genre where the teenaged protagonist is supposedly her male self's cousin.
And "Gilligan's Island". That one was something of a challenge, since the full song came over the end credits and was often obliterated by a promo for whatever show was on next. (And when the reruns went into syndication, it was likely to get truncated to fit the half-hour time slot if they lengthened the commercial breaks.)
Eric
Lots more!
ST TNG
ST TOS
Mannix
Fall Guy
Magnum PI
The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show
The Flintstones
Charlies Angels
St Elsewhere
Dr Who
Hill Street Blues
Laverne And Shirley
Airwolf
MacGyver
Different Strokes
One Day at A Time
Batman
Wonder Woman
A-Team
Charles In Charge
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Hogan's Heroes
Murder She Wrote
Speed Racer
Get Smart
Green Acres
The Munsters
The Brady Bunch
Scooby Doo
F Troop
The Beverly Hillbillies
Not my favorite shows. but these are memorable:
Dallas
Love Boat
And how can we forget
Gilligan's Island
If you've never heard it,
"Tank!", IE the theme song to Cowboy Beebop, is 100 percent one of the greatest theme songs from any show ever. Fantastic jazz production on the soundtrack throughout that show.
Here it is, if you wanna check it out.
A few others I would recommend as truly wonderful:
"How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths, as the theme for the original Charmed series
Inspector Gadget
Doctor Who
The Incredible Hulk (for real, that piano is just fantastic)
I Dream of Jeannie
Bewitched
Kim Possible
Goosebumps
"You Can't Take the Sky From Me" from Firefly
Phineas and Ferb
And countless others. What can I say: I love me some TV.
Melanie E.
Just a few...
Like the lists above, the themes below are memorable enough that I 'heard' the music just by reading the title. Here are a few of my favorites (sorry for the duplicates)
Lalo Schifrin for Mannix,
Edwin Ashley for The Saint.
Laurie Johnson for The Avengers.
Jerry Goldsmith for Star Trek: Voyager.
John (Johnny) Williams for Time Tunnel.
Pat Williams for Love is All Around (Mary Tyler Moore).
Earle Hagen for The Dick Van Dyck Show,
Joe Hamilton for I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together (The Carol Burnett Show).
Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo for Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Cheers).
Love, Andrea Lena
Memorable
Ok hilarious house of frightenstien.
80s French version of captian harlock.( very catchy memorable tune)
Any early James Bond film music by John Barry( he could take title sequence and make it just more) hey they played on tv often enough!
Lots of bbc/cbc odd tv series. Beachcombers, prisoner, the avengers, the nature of things.
60s,70#,80s shows buck rogers, battlestar galactica, twilight zone, night gallery, man from uncle, partridge family, six million dollar man, bionic woman, Wonder Woman, falcon crest, this old house, Woodwright shop, knight rider, blue thunder, riptide, automan, gijoe, He-man/she-ra, thunder cats, silverhawks(remakes of these beloved cartoons are horrible)
X files, Babylon five, hard castle and McCormick,
M.a.s.k. Gem
The memorable list is huge because as soon as you hear the theme song you remember the show. Doesn’t mean the show was good, but the theme was very memorable.
Getty up rawhide!
I'm getting ...
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - his mystery series,
Masterpiece Theater
The Addams Family
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And now YouTube is going to wonder "Why are we getting search-bombed for 60's and 70's TV shows ...?"
some more...
The Nanny
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1980's)
The X-men 90's cartoon
Welcome Back Kotter
The Bill (British cop show)
The Drew Carey Show
Family Ties
Alf cartoon
Happy Happy Joy Joy
Too many great theme songs to list but here's an uplifting ditty that, while not the actual theme song from Ren and Stimpy, is its alma mater -- "Happy Happy Joy Joy." Here it is "lip-synced" by Ash Ketchum, the original protagonist of the Pokemon franchise. Enjoy joy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpoOyYsUyY.
Hugs,
Sammy
More
Secret Agent
If this is the theme I'm thinking of ...
... It took me a long time to stop hearing:
"... taken away your name and given you a number // Secret >Asian< Man". ("Agent")
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But them I'm the guy who walked into a restaurant in Florida, and was told "We only serve Asian food." - That's OK, I like Asian food."
After being puzzled by the menu, placing my order, and hearing the people at a nearby table speaking not-quite French ...
Oh.
>Haitian< food ...
It Was Written...
...by PF Sloan, using the British title of the show, Danger Man. His demo recording, doing his best Johnny Rivers impression, turned up on a CD a while back; it's been posted on YouTube.
The odd wording, "Secret Agent Man", came when the U.S. importers of the show decided to change its title. It did sound a lot like "Asian", which would be sort of ironic if one reason for the title change had been because "Danger Man" seemed awkward, as if it were a literal translation from Japanese.
Eric
Some few
The Pink Panther - Theme
Benny Hill Show - Theme
Some from another world:
Seventeen Moments of Spring - Theme Song (1973)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson - Theme (1979)
A few more
Wild Wild West
Black Sheep
Both starring Robert Conrad, though that's a coincidence.
Though the theme song for Undergod is fantastic.
This *should* be a theme!
Picard and Data
Great song!
I have an absolute love of TV
I have an absolute love of TV theme tunes and play a lot of quizzes on Sporcle (and would love some recommendations). Being a millennial I also grew up in the era of amazing cartoons and their amazing theme tunes, the best being Mysterious Cities of Gold, Thundercats, Around the World with Willy Fog, Bucky O'Hare and Ulysses 31 (especially when lipsynced by Philip Schofield). Other classics from my childhood include Blockbusters, Bullseye and (of course) Countdown (I'm something of a quiz show nerd as well). And the theme tune of the Great British Bake Off is, IMHO, the national anthem of happiness. :-)
And the official F1 theme is suitably epic- https://youtu.be/YLFVD8xaD3U
Memorable......
I will suggest the opening music to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which will now be an earworm stuck in my head for a day or two...
Sousa
I wonder if any other Sousa marches were ever used as TV theme songs?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Most of the above...
Got the Sesame Street in my head today...!
Peace tmf
Mike Hammer (Harlem nocturne)
Mike Hammer (Harlem nocturne).
The Persuaders!
I don't think anyone has mentioned one of the best.
John Barry's 'The Persuaders!' theme.
With Lord Brett Sinclair and Danny Wilde, aka Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. Only one series as Roger Moore was already being approached to play James Bond.
The Persuaders!
Oh! and of course Barry Gray's brilliant theme for Gerry Andersons 'Thunderbirds' My 69 year old sister still has it as her mobile phone tune.
Thunderbirds
Not a series as such
But the peanuts specials had the best music. Also, no one has mentioned the And Griffith show with it's theme doing a remarkable job of evoking the mood of the show.
Andy Griffith Theme
I was surprised to learn that song has words,
and the Henry Kaiser Band did a version of it
that sounds like the Grateful Dead at their finest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJgDE7frhXg
Also, keyboard virtuoso Jimmy Smith did a whole album
of 60s TV show theme songs that's pretty amazing too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IiZV1mQP5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na9K3A61hdk
The latter of which I made up my own lyrics to:
Bewitched, Bewitched, you sexy little bitch
Bewitched, Bewitched, runnin' round without a stitch
On top of Old Smokey I sing karaoke
So tell me you love me do
Cuz Baby I'm bewitched by
My circuits have been glitched by
My life has been enriched by
You, You, You, You!
Badoobi-wahhhhhhh...
(Oh well, it worked in the shower)
~hugs Veronica
And because you can never have too much Jimmy Smith:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1iT-4IKq4
"Government will only recognize 2 genders, male + female,
as assigned at birth-" (In his own words:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lugbpMKDU
The William Tell Overture
I don't even have to say what show, do I?
Who Was That Masked Man?
Thanks, Kemosabe!
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
As a geek growing up in the 60's & 70's, not ...
... not a theme song, but a theme (and every single one gives me happy sniffles to this day):
"5 ... 4... 3 ... 3 ... 1 ... ZERO-Ignition and we have Lift-off."
And one-time only:
"The Eagle has landed. ... ... One small step for a man, one giant leap for all Mankind."
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We are going back to the Moon: see NOAA/Artemis.