Best TV Show Theme Songs

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.