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The Top 10 TV Theme Tunes
Yes, it’s a drunken pub talk staple but it’s also a good excuse for a few minutes of harmless nostalgia. Dip in.
‘Don’t talk to us about The Crystal Maze…’
There’s a lot of crap TV out there; reality TV, focus groups and a lack of risk-taking means that we’re currently very definitely NOT enjoying a golden TV age. But even if the programmes are rubbish there should be good theme tunes, there’s always been good theme tunes. The paucity of decent title music was brought home recently when I caught the end of The Sweeney on one channel and switched over to hear the QI theme tune – from the sublime to the chintzy co-reggae ridiculous. There was a time when even bad (or boring) TV shows had cool music, so here’s a list of 10 of the very best.
(I have applied a few rules, by the way. These are theme tunes, not title songs – so no lyrics – and every one of them was written specifically for the show, not appropriated from other sources – thereby ruling out stuff like the BBC test match theme, the Odd Couple, M*A*S*H and many others.)
The Sweeney
An obvious choice but, let’s face it, magnificent. This foot-stomping cross between Slade and Jimi Hendrix was actually written by jazz maestro Harry South, which explains the laid-back, melancholy, equally-superb end title version. Be interesting to see how Nick Love bollockses this up when he forces his bound-to-be-shite-remake on us.
Opening titles:
End titles:
Sorry
Crap programme, ace music. Fortunately the theme to this poo Ronnie Corbet-starring sitcom was by Ronnie ‘theme tune wizard’ Hazlehurst – writer of Last of the Summer Wine, Are You Being Served?, Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘Em and many others – otherwise history would have erased it from the memory banks.
Robinson Crusoe
Alright, you’ve got to be over 40 to remember it but if you are then hearing it again will bring on a Proustian rush of 70’s summer holidays memories. A stately, sumptuous theme which deserves to be rediscovered.
The Office: An American Workplace
A really neat little modern theme featuring the marvellous and much-underused melodica (that plastic piano thing you blow through). Goes from zero to sixty in 30 seconds. Interesting fact: the shots of Scranton in the titles were shot by Jim Krasinski, who plays Jim in the show.
d
The Money Programme
No-one, not even boring bastards who care about money, watched this programme beyond the opening titles. Menacing horns and a big fat bass preface the arrival of a massive King Curtis covering Led Zep-esque mega-blast. Fuck knows what it had to do with money.
King of the Hill
Similar to The Office but madder. A full on US bar band instrumental, a headbanging thrash performed by a band called the Refreshments.
Ski Sunday
Pure class. The sound of early Sunday evening was written by Sam Fonteyn and is called ‘Pop looks Bach’ (see what he’s done there?). It always accompanied thrilling shots of loonies dressed in rubber johnnies flinging themselves off mountains at high speed, you’d watch it praying that this would be the week where one of them went spinning off into a pine.
Taxi
Probably my favourite theme tune of all, this starts with that lovely whistle, the drums kick in deliciously and the inclusion of the Fender Rhodes piano was a masterstroke. It’s actually called ‘Angela’ by jazzman Bob James and was originally intended for use as incidental music. Interesting fact: Tony Danza drives the cab in the opening title and that’s Queensboro Bridge, not Brooklyn Bridge.
Roobarb
Wobbly green dog, sneering pink cat, Richard Briers, mental fuzz guitar and the best harmonica playing outside of the New Orleans delta. All at teatime.
Hill Street Blues
Could easily have been written by Springsteen. If you told me it was a rejected instrumental from Darkness on the Edge of Town I’d find that perfectly believable. Actually it was written by US TV legend Mike Post, the bloke who also gave the world the themes for the A Team, Magnum, LA Law, the Rockford Files…….oh shit……I’ve forgotten to include the Rockford Files. Which one can I scrub?
OK, there’s enough there to get you talking; let’s have your suggestions for other top TV themes. And, yes, I know I’m a tit for forgetting the Rockford Files.
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COMMENTS
Banana Splits. Morph. Rainbow. Bod. I could go on...
V good. I'm gonna have to deduct a point on a technicality though, bro. The money Programme theme tune wasn't written for that programme. It was written for a 1964 George Peppard film called The Carpetbaggers. Jimmy Smith's cover was used for the Money Programme. It's still a banging tuuunnnneeeee though.
Never mind who wrote the theme tune. I want to know more about Nelson Bunker Hunt who brought down the world silver market then I want to watch the Onedien Line.
I'd also add everything Joe Fagin ever did, which then appeared in Aufweidersehen Pet. His back catalogue includes; Oooo ooo Breakin' away, That's livin' alright, Get it right, Back with the boys again, Bonus track - What goes up, must come down on the superfresco ad.
Banana Splits, Rainbow and Auf Weidersehen, Pet all have lyrics. Read the rules, instrumentals only.
Taxi and Hill Street Blues: ace. Can I add Juliet Bravo and Reggie Perrin? Oh, and the Flumps.
Reggie Perrin! Damn you Dina, I already felt bad enough about the Rockford Files and you remind me of Reggie Perrin. *whips himself with an aerial lead*
Great list but i'd add Johnny Briggs...
I'm putting Johnny Briggs in my next list. Top 1 Actors To Have Played Mike Baldwin.
The Prisoner.
Black Beauty, Blake’s Seven, Secret Army, Cagney & Lacey...
Great stuff, Dave - still can't get over the fact that Ronnie Hazlehurst's theme for Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em spells out the show's title in morse code.
Richard. Hazlehurst = the master. Fact.
Tim, Black Beauty and Cagney are in the top 20.
Nice list but you're missing the best of them all, by the great John Barry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99QQIXez4M (Plus Dr Who.)
Robinson Crusoe theme in the 70s? You must have been watching a rerun, I remember it from the previous decade, bang on the nail with the summer memories though.
Danger Man. Possibly my favourite theme tune ever, even though I wasn't actually born when it was on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gke6R5ChyZ4
That's a slightly different version to the one they used on the TV show. They often did that with theme tunes. Even my 8-year old ears could tell the difference.
How about Jason King. Class Library Music from the great Laurie Johnson.
What about the Man in A Suitcase theme, later appropriated by Chris Evans for one of his Friday night shows? Also Hawaii Five-O and Starsky and Hutch. Actually, there are scores worth mentioning. Scores, ha ha.
This subject never bores me. Great choices Dave. I also love the Superstars theme, Jacki Lee doing White Horses (she also did Rupert the Bear), Barbapapa, Dexy's doing Brush Strokes, Jim Diamond doing Boon. Ah the memories.
Murphy's Mob....."find another place coz you can't play 'ere" etc.
Simon, agree on Superstars (should have put that in) but you've fallen into the 'lyrics' trap with the others. Rules is rules.
Does Owen Blackhurst mean Johnny Todd which the Z Cars tune was based on and is now of course used at Goodison Park when Everton run out?
Right, no lyrics is it. Aufweidersehen Pet is out as is White Horses. That music from Midnight Cowboy that later appeared on Animal Magic. Was it Las Vegas by Lawrie Johnson?
Simon, are you doing it on purpose? You won't rattle me. NO LYRICS NO RE-PURPOSED TUNES! LOOK AT THE RULES. OK, you did rattle me a bit.
hazell - the start of it has no lyrics, the ending has. its a belting tune tho!
hazell with nicholas ball i mean not the crappy us show
The Hanged Man - alan tew 1975 starring colin blakey
Knight Rider Dukes of Hazard Mission: Impossible Airwolf
As a kid I shared a bedroom with my brother and we'd lie in our bunks humming to one another, playing name that theme tune. Still my favourite game ever, and this article takes me back to it, so thanks, Dave.
John, what a delightful (if strangely disconcerting and slightly melancholy) picture you paint of your childhood years. Glad to have sparked happy memories.
Great list but how about an imports list to go with Robinson Crusoe. For starters White Horses, Belle and Sebastian, the Flashing Blade. Great track but crap series. American Hero (believe it or not),thirty something, Then Gerry Anderson fireball xl5,stingray, Joe 90 and terrahawks
Ha ha, never liked rules. Hazel was written by Terry Venables, just thought I'd mention that.
Great article. I'd add Randall & Hopkirk, Twin Peaks, Steptoe & Son, The Professionals, Man in a Suitcase, the closing titles of the Flintones, The Munsters, Star Trek, Bridehead R, Between The Lines, Jason King, Bewitched, Hawaii 5-0, Kojak, The Avengers, Randall & Hopkirk and then I would add Randall & Hopkirk again.
Airwolf and Sportsnight. Definitely
Has to be the Doctor Who theme used during Tom Baker's time on the show. The version used from 1975-1979 is probably the best, closely followed by Peter Howell's version from 1980.
Many thanks to @tedloaf for this link to the full length, amazing version of the Money Programme theme. http://youtu.be/NucINKPRt4E(Shame it proves that I broke my own rule)
Great piece, Dave. It's the Steptoe theme for me, every time. Slightly jaunty but uncut with deep melancholia, preparing you for the grim hilarity to follow. Was there ever a greater sitcom? No.
Agree with airwolf, but, out of left field, what about chorlton and the wheelies?
Jon. You're right, Steptoe. And while we're there what about Rising Damp's jovial piano theme offsetting the grime or the triumphant end theme for Porridge? I've been blind.
Curb Your Enthusiasm without question for me. It's not just the theme that's great but all the incidental music as well.
JLF. Chorlton and the fucking Wheelies? What are you, 6?
Kickstart n Match of the Day ffs!
Killie! Bugger! Kickstart! I'm properly distraught now.
My personal favourite - The Pink Panther theme. Also my favourite cartoon.
ATV's Star Soccer, followed by Hugh Johns on the mic, the perfect symbiosis of sport's theme tune and commentator. Can't believe no one's mentioned the original Grange Hill tune either. Flippin' 'eck Tucker!
Can anyone remember the theme tune to Rugby Sunday, BBC (probably regional, North)? It was a kind of jolly moog workout. Its doing my head in. Also Miami Vice theme tune makes me hot, still.
@ Dave Lee lighten up; it's a list on a website
Approaching Menace? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZZc4zA7Lsg
I sit up and apply my serious face the moment the Panorama theme tune kicks in. Strange, though, that after hearing it a squillion times, I couldn't begin to hum it to you.
Right, you lot, the Top 10 TV Theme Songs are now online: http://bit.ly/lidRsV Let's have your thoughts on them as well.
when the boat comes in,sandbaggers
the a team, nypd blue, & blue peter
It was almost like the crapper the programme the better the intro theme to make up for it. Taxi was rubbish. Bergerac used to do my head in too, but the slightly wah driven guitar hit the spot just enough to hook me for the first 5 mins.
i cant belive i missed out , star trek.
and with lyrics, mash, cheers and fraiser, and the office.
again with lyrics that i missed , top cat and the addams family
"history would have erased [Sorry] from the memory banks" Not in our household - "Language, Timothy!"
The old BBC boxing theme was great. Also, Angel. With lyrics (though I couldn't make out what they were - they were like children's chants), what about Rockliffe's Babies?
A-Team and Knight rider are in my top ten for sure, although I'm not sure I can seperate the music from my nostalgia (and maybe that's the point). But what about Men Behaving Badly! Its bloody brilliant.
true blood
You've all missed out an absolute classic. Van Der Valk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0O-2oAvNTo
Plenty great choices already on this thread.Not noticed a mention for The Littlest Hobo though.
Forgot to mention the following:It's A Knockout;The Fall Guy;Starsky & Hutch;The Streets Of San Francisco and The Persuaders..
The Persuaders, Dept S, The Avengers, Man in a Suitcase, The Baron, The Prisoner...you get the idea. Of course Hill Street Blues, The Rockford Files, Law and Order (the US ones obviously - not that UK shite that sounds like Jerusalem being played by a French horn player on a charging unruly horse) another forgotten Mike Post classic was the UK show Roughnecks, St Elsewhere, Cheers, Quantum Leap, Van Der Valk, Moonlighting, Bergerac, Juliet Bravo and Casualty. The trouble with theme tunes now is no show has anything longer than 30 seconds to announce or conclude a show (along with witless announcers jabbering over it and squeezed down credits going at a rate of knots) This is why such theme tune greats like Casualty now actually sound like crappy polyphonic ringtones of the real version; all speeded up and at an awkward jazzed up pitch. Just dreadful
Oh and..The original Taggart theme, Between the Lines, Rebus with Ken Stott, Danger Man, Miami Vice, One Man And His Dog, A Very Peculiar Practice (great unreleased song by Elkie Brooks), The Sandbaggers (Roy Budd) Big Deal (sung by Bucks Fizz's Bobby G, randomly!) and Shelley-who didn't whistle along to Shelley by the great Ron Grainer?
Dunno about the music to Chorlton and the wheelies, but what I do know is that when watched whilst indulging in a Moroccan Woodbine or two it's fucking mental...as incidentally is 'trapdoor'
2 words. Quantum Leap.
The Sweeney - bloody classic!
Saturday nights, late 70's (I think). Scottish football (fitbaw) highlights. Sportscene tune was Run Like Hell from Pink Floyd. Set you up to watch some really mediocre games. Great topic.
Everyone will yell at me cos there's no lyrics and yes I kn ow the rules state there have to be lyrics but rules are made for raping, so "the Chain" by Fleetwood Mac, for the old BBC motor-racing tv show IS and will always be the greatest tv theme song. Bar none.
Well, I fucked that up didn't I?
Taxi wins hands down of course, but the outro on The Wire deserves a quiet nod. Hauntingly beautiful.
The persuaders has got to be the best tv theme tune ever,also remember weekend world theme tune which was part of a song by mountain called Nantucket sleigh ride..
Check out some of the TV theme tunes we have on our site. There's thousands! http://www.televisiontunes.co.uk
I want the depressing end music from The Sweeney played at my funeral.
Great post. Haven't noticed anybody mention Morse, which had the name Morse played in code. Not a tuneful classic but as clever as Some Mothers...
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