Best TV Show Theme Songs

^so awesome on many levels

pray girl

Edd Kalehoff's Price is Right queue's motherfuckewrs

Oh, yes!

"Sanford And Son" theme vs. "Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids" theme

whatever happened to predictability........the milkman the paperboy, evening TV

Golden Girls?

hm.. no jeffersons.. is it too obvious?

Actually come to think of it, Amen was better..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTMF8gxnL50

Holy hell, y'all! The best one ever is Good Times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s3sRJCRW-k

Whoever noted that the Duck Tales theme song was a rewrite of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is my favorite poster ever.

Also, anyone else know that the theme for the US "the Office" is based off of the coda for ELO's Mr. Blue Sky? They used the original song in the pilot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbnLYROCj8

Van der Valk Simon Park Orchestra

Department S Cyril Stapleton

Der Kommissar Herbert Jarczyk

Captain Scarlet and the MysteronsBarry Gray

Stingray Barry Gray

Raumpatrouille Orion Peter Thomas

The Odd Couple Neil Hefti

Also, anyone else know that the theme for the US "the Office" is based off of the coda for ELO's Mr. Blue Sky? They used the original song in the pilot.

― Cunga, Wednesday, December 23, 2009 1:46 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

They used "Mr. Blue Sky" in a rough cut of the pilot, but not the actual pilot itself. This rough cut also contains alternate scenes that were never included on the DVD, and different actors for some of the characters. I would seriously pay like $3,000 to see it.

The Buford Files:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1uo8wC9Ctk

"Here comes help! Here comes action! Here comes Buuuuffffooooorrrrddddddddd..."

Action News Theme ("Move Closer to Your World")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrrVhHBI-K0

Hockey Night in Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByKu8BwT5K4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo3lTbYFK6A

The original Randall and Hopkirk theme takes some beating

Callan, another one Portishead must have noticed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDdSWjpPJDg

Whatever happened to the likely lads?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJ4C0pTGDw

> Randall and Hopkirk

awesome, there should be an ITV music thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SfG_f-quqk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqg-U1iTuF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOqT3A5tpPc

Dig the theme to The L Word. It must be heard to be believed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6pZ-JRsYh0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRyQkkJdNI

correct answer is dr. who

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF2x5IKxmAQ

This should have been a poll. There are several fantastic submissions above, but it's "The Jeffersons" for me.

Denise Nicholas and Karen Valentine...sigh; I'm a '70s guy.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pcaUluahdwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pcaUluahdwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

I always forget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcaUluahdwM

Wow, "Room 222" is all in 7/4 time and prog-rock jazz-flute mellowness!

Anyway, can't believe nobody's mentioned my all-time theme song fave. Mike Post FTW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPSulCDZ1rA

Pretty much everything by Ron Grainer belongs here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVQzxuYpHpE

>Anyway, can't believe nobody's mentioned my all-time theme song fave. Mike Post FTW!

ha! which leads us to gotcha - Tom Scott (cheating intended).

Love this funky harpsichord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOkN8AU_XXA

Oh the harmonies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHpV0F2xx4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHpV0F2xx4

Oops, one of those was supposed to be the closing theme (maybe better than the opening):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHpV0F2xx4

Zoo Gang from the mid-70s - music by Paul McCartney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4EdVmJOLfo

Slowed down, this sounds a bit like the theme for 80s series Bergerac

Suicide Is Painless is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics). Mike Altman is the son of the original film's director, Robert Altman, and was 14 years old when he composed the song's lyrics.

:o
true?

Closing credits to Monkey Magic, possibly best theme song EVER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfwcbexkHpk

Opening theme equally awesome: just ride out the minute of non-singing for the awesomeness to kick in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfl7LqvxxDw

thanks for the far-east cue!
*stunned by the 1 minute intro in the opening theme*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-anabfAg06U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3U2qO4f1_k

That Manga intro is beautifully animated.

best intro intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1NiNKwueE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPAt4pAF46Y&feature=related

lollest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuCAQnWyAiQ

Kingswood Country represent!! (Lex Marinos in the house yall)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsEzk66T4PY

<3<3<3 Room 222 theme for all time

And don't forget MINDER...Arfur Daley, lads!....used to watch it JUST for the song when i was little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=280-jLL1u78

I forgot how awesome the Equalizer opener is. Damn.

Was going to rep for Famous Five theme being one of the best ever, but listening now...were those kids on valium? They sound so fragging bored! In my mind it was a lot more 'up'...yeesh

But i still love the "...George and Timmy the doh-ohhhh--OG"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPkh0lxFOhE

I think the Succession theme may have entered the club. I recently watched a documentary on US capitalism and the soundtrack was clearly influenced by Succession !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G29EyeGzm9w

villa alegre owns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZDhkcJQoFU

zoom not so bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq01f7pbzCc

x files

taxi theme song is such a gorgeous mood setter for not just the show but an evening
it really does it for me lately

I always loved the Taxi outro, especially the very last shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VY9HSjFdh0

Look how young the cast looks!

15 years and nobody's mentioned The Mary Tyler Moore Show yet?

there are some great western tv themes but damn y'all these anime themes are next level. just some random ones:

venus line (theme to Birdie Wing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA7dgQl1nso

the theme to gakko no kaidan (notorious for its us comedy dub "ghost stories"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGI0g8xX-VY

and if we're gonna get really obvious "a cruel angel's thesis", the theme to evangelion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIZL5qeEKj0

you mean "goodnight mr walters! (groan)"? xxp

i had bob james's 'touchdown' on an old ipod. i also meant for it to be a mood setter but it didn't work out that way because walking around manhattan with the cues from taxi as an overlay is actually pretty funny.

Yes, that part. For some reason, it always made me laugh when I was a kid.

xp to Kate: Thanks for those anime themes. Those are great. I don't watch a lot of anime, but binge-watched bootlegs of Rurouni Kenshin on CD-ROM a few decades ago. Grew very partial to its theme song, Sobakasu.

Full version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DBkXcDU270

Freckles, the English dub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSen97C496M

Sorry (Remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmL-OT4Q3sc

Young Ones (outro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4n_sfkcUo

In terms of putting me right back on the sofa, thirty years ago

Boon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6mjSAgxusM

The Taggart intro and (especially) outro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k6RF7nBxX8

The Denton/Cook Tomorrow's World theme is a huge slapper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sSxz9ojrI8

My favorite w/lyrics is “Diff'rent Strokes” (an Alan Thicke banger). There are too many instrumentals to rate… many of the best ones by Mike Post.

I loved the Boon theme as a kid. I have no memory of what the show was actually about

Michael Elphick did stuff, on a bike, sometimes he was a fireman?

Yeah, it's a tricky one

Magnum PI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBIgXhiOpeQ
Also in about 10 years if I grow a moustache I'll look like Higgins.

As recommended by Alan Partridge himself. "The Adventures of Black Beauty" ("Galloping Horse" by Denis King).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hasBJ1Gkjy8

Another classic. "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (by Robert Mellin and Gian-Piero Reverberi).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNsV1BUb9mc

I did bring up the subject of Boon with my older brother a while back, thinking he might have a clearer memory of it, and he was like "um, he was a bodyguard...or no, hold on, he was a fireman I think...?" Hi ho Silver!

I do remember my 10yo self thinking it was a lot like Lovejoy. Shows about these guys who did stuff.

As for anime themes, I've always loved the Outlaw Star opening. The show itself was only so-so (Cowboy Bebop on sugar pills, basically):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoDUxs3rlRU

Forgot about how much Knight Rider theme was a Carpenter/Moroder-esque banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00gX_5iAG8

I hate 99.99% of anime but who among us could hate on both the opening (and closing!) theme(s) of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gciVpfFh9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9ZiYaYaFcU
bbc ice skating = james last - mornings at seven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=526OsPdSlxk
ski sunday - the cavendish orchestra . pop goes bach

i wanna _garage_ band that does just gr8 tv themes now. at first i was "i wanna band that...," but i searched, found and now i see it MUST be a garage band, because otherwise it turns out kinda gross

the anime opening rabbithole goes _deep_, there are like a _billion_ anime shows every season now and a lot of them have absolute banger theme songs. one of the niches i get into is when people put up pirate comps of all the anime OPs from a year or a season. here's four i just picked now from 2020... that's four out of 175 total.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjdvgI_jVP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOoYcBoj0W0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q7wY3K0cm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kpK_SwJ12w

the first is from an anime called "darwin's game". no idea what it's about. the second is from an anime called "food wars". i don't know if i've talked about it here. it's an "ecchi" anime, which is like hentai but not as explicit apparently, and also a cooking anime, which ... on paper, that sounds to me like a good way to ruin a cooking anime. but it's surprisingly likeable. basically it's about a cook who makes dishes so good that people experience sexual pleasure from eating them. i enjoy a good meal more than i enjoy sex - asexual people don't all experience it the same way, but that's my experience. i kind of like the central hook of the show. if other people want to see it as dirty, that's fine... all i see is people who are really enjoying their meals. it's the opening sequence to the fifth season of the show. oh, the other thing to know about anime theme songs is that they tend to have a new theme song every season... sometimes two new ones a season, like with the next selection. the weirdest one i've seen is that one of the opening sequences to the classic '80s anime "maison ikkoku" uses gilbert o'sullivan's "alone again, naturally" as the theme. well, ok, then.

the third is from an anime called "fruits basket", the remake. like a lot of anime "fruits basket" is based on a manga, and the first time they made an anime adaptation the manga wasn't done yet. so they kind of made up an ending. this remake adapts the full manga, including the ending. it's really highly acclaimed and people like it a lot. it's also my ex-wife's favorite manga and anime ever, so i'm never going to watch it. the fourth is from an anime called "sleepy princess in the demon castle", which i've watched some of. it's a funny deconstruction of rpg tropes where the kidnapped princess basically terrorizes the entirety of the demon castle in her quest to get a good night's sleep. it's not, like, the best anime ever, but it's fun.