Best TV Show Theme Songs

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

No White Horses, no credibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6z8GUywyc

i dont like to reduce the whole OST to one theme.
so i will not mention Cowboy Bebop.

I liked the opening music Red Dwarf used for its first two series, and the visuals are cool too. Quite haunting for a comedy programme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY_nkBU4Wjk

These two songs are a jam and the opening titles are sharp. The Rookies has a better tune, but they are both classic.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJu17fAnKU

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

Flashing Blade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZEDNkZ2L4

Kaiki daisakusen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NILgqy_paJk

The Onedin Line (Aram Khachaturian)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx7RWW36wes

The MERE idea of using that Adagio from Spartacus theme for the Onedin Line plus giving the audiences a customized, fuller lush Hollywood-like orchestration deserves already an Oscar.
The TV orchestration is even better than the original. It was the spineshiverer of our childhoods. Gooooorgeous!!

(remember remember)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZh4DDl5wfk

Rick Springfield:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e5NlaM8bgI

mr. belvedere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IUSSrldd0U

Seitz goes Newhart

http://www.vulture.com/2012/05/seitz-asks-whats-your-favorite-tv-theme-song.html

Love these:

Blockbusters
Animal Hospital
Quantum Leap
Hill Street Blues
Taxi
Cheers

thanks to netflix I've rediscovered this fucking brilliant theme song. Love it, love it, don't care what anyone says. Love the little instrumental solo between verses too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzccLTr7gJA

(in case you're wondering why it doesn't sound like the theme song you remember, this show had two theme songs, and this one was the second (and better) one.)

Derek Scott Orchestra - girl in the white dress - 'General Hospital (UK) 1973, 'drama theme tune'

The Tracey Ullman Show, written by George Clinton (!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDbATFVoof4

ctrl-f "The Rockford Files"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1Cx26-928

the correct answer and also a top 10 pop hit.

Sorry!

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

The Crystal Maze (90s)
Grandstand (tho it is Keith Mansfield library music)
Sorry! (like Woo doing Cardiacs' Insect Hoofs on Lassie, which did not yet exist)
Big Brother (UK)
Joe 90
The Gaffer (the world's only Britfunk theme tune?)
The Bill ('Overkill' by Morgan Pask, 1984 versions and 1988 versions)

haha touche

Have to add Art of Noise's Krypton Factor theme to that list

Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World, and the variations in the two follow-up series.

the original theme song to Newton's Apple was a modified version of Ruckzuck by Kraftwerk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWIrDST8TcY

I can’t find any mention of MASH.

Theme from S.W.A.T (1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHDg96-ZN_U

Lodge 49:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfZUBo9OuTk

more tv show themes should have been like 3-2-1 Contact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kypt0mAL2TA

World In Action (opening & closing themes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95qLDc7zwYY

In Search Of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_SAKcOuTpU

Im really into the Taxi theme tune lately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DL8SGEyhZE

Has this been mentioned yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bd5j18N0s

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends!
I am surprised at how rarely this gets mentioned as a great TV theme - maybe the connection with the programme is too strong. I am biased because it's probably the first music I remember adoring, but I honestly think it is a bit of a masterpiece - Roland ragtime on a railway rhythm! It's so warm but so unusal - I think the piano part is sped up (those trills are not possible to replicate in real time) and though many fans I've tried, I've never heard a recreation of the theme that gets close to the quality of the original recording. I'm not five anymore but it's always gonna be musical ambrosia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70prkddO7w

My favorites are Hawaii Five-O (original recipe) and Sanford and Son, both mentioned in the OP, and I don’t know if it was here or somewhere else but I was turned on to the UK series themes for The Champions and The Persuaders which are also great.

I don't think I've ever noticed how ska the Thomas theme is. Or maybe how Madness-ish it is. Or how "Mr. Soft"-ish it is.

learned a rather dainty fingerstyle guitar arrangement of the Taxi theme last year, kinda hard.

tv themes were maybe the first songs that i heard and needed to make them recallable, i used my dad's little dictaphone to tape the intros to Charles in Charge, Who's The Boss and others so i could listen to them more than once a day.

this one is my favorite, i think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQllBwL8gZc

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