A Lame List

Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The best-ever TV theme songs

Prediction: he will pick "Hawaii Five-0" as the best ever. Morsch has particularly atrocious taste in pop culture, so this should be good.

A Facebook conversation this week touched off a discussion of the best television show theme songs of all time.

I'm guessing that this conversation involved the same three people he references in every other column. I guess the whole "you, my audience, will decide my topics" post really meant "you, the handful of people who actually talk to me, will decide my topics."

A couple of friends chimed in that the “Dr. Who” intro is the best TV theme song. A lot of sci-fi fans share that feeling. Part of the reason is that when Delia Derbyshire created the theme, it was innovative electronic music for its time.

No way is this original knowledge on his part. A Google search for "Dr. Who theme" brings up Wikipedia: The original 1963 recording... is widely regarded as a significant and innovative piece of electronic music. What a dope.

I was not a “Dr. Who” fan,

How much do you want to bed that Morsch doesn't "get" The Far Side either?

so I was unfamiliar with the theme song until listening to it on YouTube. It’s OK if you like that kind thing, but it really didn’t do much for me in the way of supplanting my favorite television theme songs.

I am so excited to hear this. I'm hoping "The Beverly Hillbillies" appears somewhere.

A few other favorite themes mentioned in the discussion included “Law and Order: UK,” “The Prisoner,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Green Acres” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

I swear to goodness I didn't skip ahead and read that. "Dukes of Hazzard" is great, though.

My top five, in order, are “Hawaii Five-0,” “Cheers,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “M*A*S*H*” and “The Partridge Family.”

BINGO. I know this man backwards and forwards. My only disappointment is that he doesn't specify whether he likes the "And the rest" version of the Gilligan theme or the "Professor and Mary Ann" version. On second thought, he probably doesn't know the difference.

I also liked, in no particular order, “The Flintstones,” “Love, American Style,” “Bonanza,” “High Chapparral,” “Bullwinkle and Rocky,”

It's "Rocky and Bullwinkle."

the original television version of “Mission Impossible,” “The Odd Couple,” and, I take a lot of ribbing for this one . . . “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

This has to be the lamest list in history.

It seems like there are fewer memorable television theme songs these days. In fact, I have to think hard just to whistle one. But I can still sing all the words to “Go Go Gophers.”

Off the top of my head, I'd guess that's because most shows already have barely 20 minutes to tell a story and can't afford to waste time on a 3-minute song introducing the characters.

Go figure.

Was that a joke? Working off the "Go Go Gophers" theme? If so, it's the only one in the entire post.

Labels: Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield