Week of 4/30: YesterTube's Best TV Theme Songs (Lyric, Instrumental and More)

By Sylvia Gurinsky

In a similar fashion to the NCAA basketball championships, Yahoo! had a selection bracket for top television theme songs. The winner in their poll was "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle."

TV Themes

Incidentally, theme songs (with lyrics) were taken together with instrumentals. Frankly, some of the choices have to be questioned. ("Saved By the Bell" is there and "Hawaii Five-O" and "Mission: Impossible" aren't?)

Here are the YesterTube selections for top songs with lyrics, top instrumentals and top miscellaneous themes (memorable introductions to shows that don't quite fit the other two categories for apparent reasons). All have to be original. Shows with pre-existing themes ("Thank You For Being a Friend" for "The Golden Girls," for instance) wouldn't qualify since the song existed independent of the show.

In some cases, shows have been bundled under the heading of a single producer.

Theme Songs With Lyrics

1. The Norman Lear Collection (All In the Family/Maude/The Jeffersons/Good Times/One Day at a Time): It really wouldn't be a fair fight, because so many of the theme songs are so good - Archie and Edith Bunker singing "Those Were the Days" at the piano as the introduction for "All In the Family" and their Queens neighbors George and Louise Jefferson "Movin' On Up" to Ja'net Dubois' theme song in "The Jeffersons," for starters. Lear took as much care with the theme songs as he did with what came after:

Archie & Edith

2. "Love Is All Around" from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show": Sonny Curtis wrote and performed this theme song, which actually got better after Season 1. Perfect for describing the experiences of a single woman in a new place.

3. "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" from "Cheers": Gary Portnoy performed the song he co-wrote with Judy Hart Angelo. It mixed in perfectly with the old-time titles to take you right into the bar:

Cheers

4. "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from "The Beverly Hillbillies" by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs: "Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed....." and you'll be heading to Beverly Hills for the benefits of that "Texas Tea" he discovered.

5. The Sherwood Schwartz Collection (Gilligan's Island/The Brady Bunch): While the comedies aren't my favorites, the theme songs certainly knew how to tell the stories involved:

The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle





Instrumentals

1. "Mission: Impossible": Lalo Schifrin wrote what I consider the best television theme song, period, of all time. Wonderfully mixed with snippets from that week's episode to get the heart racing:

Mission: Impossible (Season 1)

2. "Hawaii Five-O": Series creator Leonard Freeman wanted a Hawaii that was more than ukelele players. Boy, did composer Morton Stevens ever provide it in the fast-paced theme song.

Hawaii Five-O

3. "The Mod Squad": Undoubtedly the coolest theme ever written by television theme show king Earle Hagen. I just want to know what those kids were running from.

Mod Squad

4. "Peter Gunn": Henry Mancini's television success; the recording session also included a pianist named John Williams, who later went on to his own great success with movie scores and the Boston Pops.

5. "The West Wing": W.G. Snuffy Walden came up with an absolutely majestic theme, perfect for a show about the White House:

The West Wing

Miscellaneous

-60 Minutes: Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick........... That stopwatch has marked America's changes - and "60 Minutes" constancy for journalism and ratings excellence:

1997 episode intro

-"The Andy Griffith Show": Another Earle Hagen work (with Herbert W. Spencer) is "The Fishin' Hole," which mixes music with Hagen's whistling. Come on out and join Andy and Opie:

The Andy Griffith Show

-"The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson": Paul Anka, at the height of his teeny-bopper success as a singer, wrote "Johnny's Theme," which continued through Carson's 30 years of hosting the show:

Johnny's Theme

See you next week. Until then, Happy Humming - and Viewing!