TV Themes

Apologies for not posting anything last week. Things have been crazy here for the past few months, particularly in terms of stuff needing repair in our house. For those of you playing “Problems with Andrew’s House” Bingo at home, you can now fill in the “water main needed replacing,” “sewer main needed replacing,” and “water heater broke and needed replacing/water damage to garage” squares. This would be in addition to the “turns out most of the wiring in the house needed replacing and probably caught the attic on fire at one point” and “water leak in dining room ceiling with evidence of previous, undisclosed leaks from previous owner” squares you could have filled in earlier.

Also, last weekend, we attended the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con, for basically the sole purpose of meeting Skottie Young, the creator of I Hate Fairyland. Little did I know that Mr Young would surprise us all the following Wednesday, when it turned out that the latest issue of I Hate Fairyland was to be the (unannounced) conclusion to the series. I met him and Jason Aaron, and they turned out to be two of the nicest guys around. Anyway, all this stuff added up to not having time to write anything last week.

This weekend is the first one I can remember in the last couple of months where we haven’t had anything scheduled, so I wanted to relax. So this week’s post is a little different. It’s mostly a collection of YouTube videos of favorite TV series theme songs. 

To give credit where credit is due, this was inspired by a post on Twitter from major Hollywood screenwriter and junior high school classmate Zack Stentz, who posted the title sequence to The Fallen, an ABC Family series based on a series of books I actually read at least one of. He praised it for its use of classical art, and for the way it encapsulated the series mythology into its opening narration.

Seeing Zack’s post reminded me of my youth, when I was fascinated with TV opening themes. I used to record as many as I could onto cassettes. In hindsight, most of the ones I loved were written by Mike Post. Anyway, through the magic of YouTube, I thought I would take a stroll down memory lane, and share some of my favorites.

An early favorite show of mine—and my first introduction to the heartbreak of early cancelation—was QED, a pre-WWI-era adventure series starring the great Sam Waterston. I’ve had a soft spot for historical adventure series ever since, and this may have paved the way for my appreciation for steampunk. 

A personal favorite show—not just for the music—was Tales of the Gold Monkey. It clearly made it on the air because of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it kept me hooked by broadening its influences to Warner Brothers movies of the 30s and 40s, Milt Caniff comic strips, and so much more. While I never wrote any of them down, I imagined stories teaming up Indiana Jones and Jake Cutter.

Bring ‘Em Back Alive aired around the same period. Even at the time, I probably liked Tales of the Gold Monkey better. Bring ‘Em Back Alive was broader and sillier and more camp. But I had a huge crush on Cindy Morgan.

I loved the themes from the detective shows of the period, but my favorites were Spencer: For Hire and Magnum PI. As it happens, both seem to be getting revivals now: Magnum on CBS and Spenser on Netflix. Neither sound particularly good, and I bet they won’t have theme music.

Early dramas that I watched were St Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, each with their own memorable theme music.

I didn’t watch a lot of prime time soap operas, but I always felt drawn toward Falcon Crest. Part of the appeal was it was set in Northern California, but most of it was the theme music.

The Wizard was a short-lived series starring David Rappaport as a genius inventor and toymaker who has adventures. I only vaguely remember watching it, but the theme music stuck with me for years, so I’m including it here.

MacGyver is another series featuring a genius inventor/adventurer that found considerably more success than The Wizard. And it had a great theme. There are a number of reasons I don’t like the new MacGyver show, but one of my initial disappointments came when I saw they weren’t using the original theme.

An early favorite was The Greatest American Hero. I think I bought a whole Joey Scarbury album because it had the theme song from this show on it.

Another favorite action show was Airwolf (like Tales of the Gold Monkey and Magnum PI, created by Don Bellisario). The theme changed slightly between the first and second seasons; I prefer the second season, but I’m including both here.

Of course, what would a list like this be without one of the greatest themes from one of the greatest shows ever: Mission: Impossible? The original theme is fantastic, and I feel that the updated version from 1989 actually is a decent version in its own right.

I’m going to finish up with perhaps my all-time favorite TV show opening, both in terms of music and visuals. The show is the relatively short-lived police series, Boomtown, created by Graham Yost. The series told its stories through multiple points of view, and had some pieces of dialogue that were absolutely beautiful. It looks like all the episodes are available on YouTube—at least for now—so I recommend checking it out. In the meantime, here is the opening, which pairs a beautiful piece of music with images that encapsulate the whole history of Los Angeles. 

Please enjoy, and I will see you next week!