Like it or not, the television landscape has changed. Reality TV and its “stars” seem to be here to stay, which is bad news for nostalgia freaks like me, who’d rather watch repeats of old shows than spend half an hour with a real housewife, a top chef, or a Boo Boo of any kind. While the number of reality shows are on the increase, an integral part of TV viewing has quietly been disappearing; that simple melody that you waited to hear with anticipation once a week coming from your living room, aka a theme song.
If you’re under a certain age (like say, 25 or younger), you might not get my gripe. I can’t really blame you; most likely you’ve grown up with slim pickings as far as theme songs go, and by now watch everything online anyway, commercial and theme song free. But shocker: there was a time when a show without a theme song was unheard of. Yep, it’s true. Crazier, still, clips from the show were shown while the theme played. Madness! From the mid 90’s on though, TV theme songs have all but disappeared. There are, of course, a few current exceptions; Mad Men, with an ever falling Don Draper, Game of Thrones and their 3D mechanical map of Westeros, and the scientific intro of the Big Bang Theory.
I always considered the theme to Friends a last of the Mohicans of sorts. Fun lyrics, easy to recite, there was an instant classic feel to it, with the catchy nature making it the last great theme songs of this genre. But we shouldn’t forget The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Nanny, The Drew Carey Show (both versions), Perfect Strangers, American Hero, Welcome Back Kotter, Happy Days, WKRP, One Day at a Time, Full House, Family Matters, Growing Pains, The Flintstones, and The Jeffersons, to name a few.
Lyrics aren’t always necessary for a theme to be memorable, though sometimes a little voice-over à la The Six Million Dollar Man, Knight Rider, or Charlie’s Angels helps create the mood. The Simpsons, Sex and the City, Seinfeld, any generation of Star Trek, Beverly Hills 90210, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues, Little House on the Prairie, Taxi, Newhart, Hawaii Five-O, My Three Sons, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie — all sans lyrics, all great nonetheless.
Sometimes it’s not so much the theme, but the intro’s images that hold the magic and eventually become iconic. The best of this kind of theme managed to let you know exactly what you’re in for before an episode’s even begun. Dynasty’s theme song and intro somehow captured the show’s opulence, while the clips chosen for Miami Vice summed up Miami’s excitement in a nutshell. Baywatch made us all wish we could run in slow motion and look good doing it.
All this to say, if it isn’t clear to you yet: I miss theme songs. Partly because they now seem to belong to a golden age of television, and partly because I know a ton of them from start to finish and can recite them with more ease than my Nation’s Anthem (scary and sad, I know). Without them, I wouldn’t have learned that love can be exciting and new (thanks Love Boat!), that “the world don’t move to beat of just one drum” (according to Diff’rent Strokes), or that “fish don’t fry in the kitchen and beans don’t burn on the grill”.
The importance of a theme song should never be underestimated. It adds to the bond viewers feel with a show and its characters. Cheers made us feel welcomed, while Frasier never knew what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs. Mary turned the world on with her smile, and The Golden Girls thanked us for being a friend. And then there’s Maude, and who doesn’t love Lucy? Only a few bars from a melody and just like that, we’re transported back to a decade gone by. Just 5 seconds of the theme from Taxi, and I’m 5 years old again, lying on my parents’ 70s era green and white plaid sofa, surrounded by darkness save for the light of the tv screen, my eyes fixed on a big yellow taxi as it crossed the Brooklyn bridge in one continuous loop. Archie and Edith sure had it right.