Shows with Memorable Theme Songs

I did not realize until I started watching the show in the morning a few years ago that the theme song, also titled I Love Lucy, actually had lyrics to it. As a kid when I'd occasionally get to see reruns of the show I always thought the theme song was purely instrumental. But you have a birthday episode where Ricky actually sings the song as a birthday present to Lucy.

Sometimes the theme song for the show tells the story of the show itself, or at least the background story. The Ballad of Jed Clampett certainly tells us of how the Clampetts ended up in Beverly Hills. And who who has seen the show wouldn't immediately think o it when they hear "Come and listen to a story of a man named Jed."

Speaking of theme songs that tell the story or back story of a show, I'd be remiss if didn't bring up "a three hour tour." The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle is another theme song people who know the show will automatically be reminded of it when they hear the first line. Of course some changes had to be made to the song over the course of the show, and it's those changes that are the remembered version.

According to the theme song Green Acres, Green Acres may have been the place to be, but I don't really remember much of the show. And it was one of those shows I saw a few episodes of in reruns as a kid. But the song sticks with you.

The Theme from The Brady Bunch gave us the background and synopsis of the show. Ironically we could have changed some of the lyrics for later sitcoms that followed the same basic premise as The Brady Bunch but wanted to update things.

The TV series was one of those shows that took it's theme song from the movie of the same name. And just like the 1986 movie, the series starts of with an opening narration that gives way to Queen's Princes of the Universe

Before Highlander was playing Princes of the Universe on the small screen as had been done on the big screen, M*A*S*H was playing Suicide is Painless on the small screen, but as an instrumental version of MASH's theme song Would be years after the show went off the air that I both learned the title and that it had lyrics.

Happy Days is actually very interesting for having not one memorable theme song but two. It originally started out with Bill Haley and the Comets' (or Bill Haley and his Comets) song Rock Around the Clock and was then changed to Happy Days. Parts of the second theme song were actually used as the closing theme when Rock Around the Clock was the theme song. And Bill Haley and the Comets actually recorded a special version of Rock Around the Clock for the show.

I remember when this was on the air it was Billy Joel's My Life. I've found out on DVD and syndication they've gone with some other song.

At the time the show was on the air Thank You for Being a Friend seemed to be played quite a bit on radio. I only recently learned it wasn't originally made for the show.

Joe Scarbury's Believe It Or Not probably did better in the charts than the show did on TV, and I still enjoy watching the show. These days the theme song may be better known than the show, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

Action shows may be flashy, they may be gritty, they may be both, but they are still action shows. And one of the first announcements that you should get ready for a little action is that theme song, usually a bit fast paced with a tempo or a blare that says action. Magnum, P.I.'s theme was no different from other action shows of the '80s. And in some ways it does invoke not only ideas o fight scenes but driving in fast cars.

Another theme song from an '80s action series, and just as typical of the decade. The theme song evokes the idea of a war movie, appropriate given the idea of the show being a trio of military fugitives on the run and hiring themselves out as mercenaries.

The best version of Airwolf's main theme came in the first season when it was actually preformed by an orchestra. It is so interesting to listen to the theme preformed during an episode and have it be just preformed on a particular set of instruments, usually the string section. But in the 2nd and 3rd seasons the theme became the typical '80s synthesizer used for so many of the action shows that featured just an instrumental theme.

To me the theme seems to take on a light-hearted, playful nature at the beginning and end of the song while in the middle it takes a slightly darker tone appropriate to the show's murder mystery genre. But even in that darker tone there's still some hint of playfulness to it.

The Fishin' Hole theme is perhaps one of the best tunes to whistle. Probably because the tune itself is largely just that, a whistled tune with instrumental accompaniment. Though I'll be honest here, I had to look it up on YouTube cause all I can remember is the whistling. Which I think is what makes the theme so memorable. And honestly, who would immediately think of the show if they heard just the instrumental? But that whistling....

Where the whistling of The Andy Griffith Show's theme makes the theme memorable, I think the snapping fingers of The Addams Family theme do they same thing here. Of course the lyrics are just as memorable.

I never did see The Jeffersons spin-off of All in the Family so as a kid Movin' On Up didn't make as much sense as they were already living in that "deluxe apartment in the sky." But a think abut it now the theme song does give a slight background story for the Jeffersons. Even if did not known that the title family originated on All in the Family, the theme song did suggest that they had come from different neighborhood and lifestyle to how they lived here.

It's been years since I've actually heard the song, but I don't remember it being gender specific even though the show was. Of course any theme song that mentions the title of the show in the lyrics, and it was pretty much a chorus for the song, makes it at much easier for the show to be thought of when one hears the lyrics.

One of the most appropriate theme songs is perhaps Think!. Although the two previous iterations of Jeopardy! had used different theme songs, Think! brings up images of Alex Trebek and current show. Of curse the show's theme song also serves as the theme for Final Jeopardy, which really makes the name of the song even more appropriate.

Good Ol' Boys isn't one of those theme songs that tells a back story. But it does to a certain extent describe both Bo and Luke's basic characteristics. And ultimately the entire Duke clan a Cooter too. Waylon Jennings sings their like a modern day Robin Hood, it seems more like Robin and his Merry Men really.

"Wouldn't you like to get away" asks the final line of the first stanza to Cheers theme song. In 1983 Where Everybody Knows your Name won the Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics. But it's perhaps the chorus that makes this song memorable as it sets up a basic human need for companionship and understanding. And it seems to denote that the bar in the series is that place for the series regulars and even folks new to Cheers.

It was a song that gave us Hasenpfeffer Incorporated and in '76 it was a top 30 hit on the radio. Making Our Dreams Come True may not have told us who Laverne and Shirley were, but it's hard not to picture them when the song is heard.

There are actually two sets of official lyrics for the Bonanza theme song, but it was a purely instrumental version that was used for the show. And is perhaps the most memorable version of the theme.

"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-yo Silver" -- it's William Tell!" Wait, isn't that the Lone Ranger? Ironically we could say William Tell as 19th century Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture served as the theme music for The Lone Ranger. Rossini's 1829 William Tell opera would be the last opera he wrote before he retired that same year. Today the overture is so connected with the TV series that it's claimed an intellectual is a person who can listen to the William Tell Overtrue and not think of the Lone Ranger.

It just keeps on rollin', rollin', rollin' and there's the sound of a bullwhip. Rawhide's theme song, which is known by the same name, is about a cattle drive. Rather fitting for a show about a cattle drive. Folks may not know most of the lyrics to Rawhide but their likely to remember "Rollin', rollin', rollin'", "Keep them doggies rollin'", and "Rawhide!" And of course the crack of the bullwhip. It's also been covered numerous times and appeared in at least two movies not related in any way to the TV series.

In the first two seasons The Flintstones used a purely instrumental theme called Rise and Shine. Today you can occasionally still hear this theme along with the original opening to the show. But early in season 3 the show switched over to the more memorable Meet the Flintstones. As anyone who has seen the show should know Meet the Flintstones tells us where the series is largely set and that their a "modern Stone Age family."

The shows theme song tells us to meet the George and the family. In fact what few lyrics there are are little more than an introduction to the titular family. You could pretty much speak the lines and get the same effect. But it also makes the theme song's lyrics fairly easy to learn and remember.

Like Bosom Buddies, The Wonder Years used a theme song that had already been heard on the radio for years. John Lennon and Paul McCartney had originally written With a Little Help from my Friends for Ringo Star to sing on the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But it would be Joe Cocker's cover that the show would use.