I love TV theme songs. I play old science fictions standards in the car or fast roads, funky 70s cop and public service show themes when I drive around big cities, and children’s television workshop themes touch my heart. Walks down Memory Lane can be fun, when they aren’t terrifying acid flashbacks.
Here is a list I kept as I lost 30 minutes this afternoon, feel free to add more to the comments below.
3-2-1 Contact (top) was the best kids science show of my youth. The theme song continues to inspire and I admit to singing along, very loudly. You can watch them recording it, it was the intro of their first episode.
The Bob Newhart Show‘s big band jazz theme contrasted with the mundane, but brilliant, Bob Newhart walking around opening.
Gimme a Break‘s Nell Carter sure could sing.
The Patty Duke Show‘s theme always struck me as just ridiculous, but I can remember ALL THE WORDS. I mean how much convincing does it take? Those cousins are awfully similar.
Charles Gounod’s The Funeral March of a Marionette (Marche funèbre d’une marionnette) very distinctly means Alfred Hitchcock Presents is on.
The Electric Company sure had a trippy intro.
If you made it this far, this video of Sammy Davis Jr. singing the theme song to Baretta, “Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow” is amazing. The several minutes of Sammy, on stage and being his incredible, generous, loving, and just genuine self brings tears to my eyes as I type this. Sammy singing the funkiest television theme song of all time? Really an absolute masterpiece of music, let alone TV music, and a masterpiece of a human being.