Another Opening, Another Show

Back in October of 2014, I did a couple of posts that were devoted to the opening credits of television shows. One was about my own personal ten favorites (with some bonus material) and the other was a follow-up, based on the reaction the first post received, with a raft of more themes. As I continue to be pummeled with work, which prevents me from writing as much as I'd like, I'm returning to this, er, theme, for another go round. I hope you enjoy watching and listening to a few more of my picks! (Apologies in advance if any of the videos have ads appear part-way through...just x them out if you can!)

First up is a show whose theme song really took off, so to speak! The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983) starred William Katt (real life son of Perry Mason's Barbara Hale) as a teacher who inherits a special suit from aliens that endows him with quite an assortment of powers. However, he loses the instruction manual to the suit and never has a clear idea how to make anything work properly, so he's often flinging, flailing and falling in between acts of heroism. Robert Culp costarred as a helpful FBI agent, an update of his famous role on I Spy, while a pre-Hotel Connie Selleca was Katt's attorney girlfriend. The easy-going, yet gently soaring theme song, sung by Joey Scarbury, reached the  #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. This publicity shot shows a surprisingly weary-looking Katt. If you look at the picture full size, his emblem is really shoddy around the edges, too! The series lasted three abbreviated seasons (only 44 episodes in all.)

Next is another fantasy series, this one starring one of the most handsome men who has ever lived. Voyagers! (1982-1983) only ran one season, but no little gay sapling who ever saw it could completely shake the vision of Jon-Erik Hexum as a handsome time traveler (or the sound of his resonant deep voice as he explained things to his "tween" sidekick Meeno Peluce. They'd appear at key moments in history and have to "correct" issues that were out of sync in the continuum. We always enjoyed the show, but none so much as the time Hexum was stripped down and placed in the ring as a gladiator! I think seeing him in action helped more than a few impressionable youngsters figure out which side their bread was buttered on.

Another sci-fi show we watched (we and maybe seven other people!) was Logan's Run (1977-1978), based upon the hit 1976 film of the same name. It only lasted 14 episodes, but starred young, handsome Gregory Harrison and the now-grown Heather Menzies, who played Louisa in The Sound of Music (1965.) Also on board was Randy Powell as Harrison's relentless pursuer. (None of these folks, by the way, resembled his or her movie counterparts in the least in looks or personality.) The series, filmed mostly outside and made rather on the cheap with recycled costumes and props from the parent film, had precious little to do with the original story, but was captivating to a young kid. The biggest problem was CBS' repeated pre-emptions of the show after a promising start, thus depriving it of ever gathering a regular audience.

Thanks to a deal I couldn't pass up, I not too long ago burned through season one of The Rat Patrol (1966-1968), a WWII-era adventure show set completely in the African desert. The exploits featured four men (two per Jeep) forever seeming to butt up against the same villainous Nazi.  Christopher George, Gary Raymond, Lawrence Casey and Justin Tarr were the soldiers and Hans Gudegast played their frequent adversary. (Gudegast would later change his name to Eric Braeden and enjoy a lengthy, highly-successful stay on The Young and the Restless!) Each episode started with a prologue only to be interrupted at a key moment by the bursting strains of the theme song as the Jeeps bounded up over sand dunes, making for a pretty exhilarating kick-off. (This link contains the one-minute prologue and the theme as the video quality was better than the link I had with only the theme song. For your trouble, you get a shot of pretty Casey popping some bubble gum!)

I have no idea how, but I made it all the way through my childhood and far into my adulthood before ever seeing even one frame of the long-running western adventure series Daniel Boone (1964-1970) starring Fess Parker. For whatever reason, my local syndicated channels never carried it in reruns and it was only a few years ago that I saw it on a current "over the air" channel. The series kicked off in black & white, soon turning to garish color. The theme song was a fun, campy, bouncy number with some offbeat lyrics sung in low baritone. By the end of the run, it had somehow morphed into an even zanier pop-like rendition! Incidentally, Boone never wore a "coonskin cap" in real life. That was added for the TV-series in order to draw in fans of Davy Crockett, who Parker had previously played to great acclaim, but who'd been killed in accordance with history!

Skip to the 5:50 (or not, if you wish to see the beginning of the show) to hear the 1970 version!

Speaking of westerns, most of us are familiar with Chuck Connors famous stint as The Rifleman from 1958 to 1963, but when that series ended at his own request, he eagerly shucked his Levis and boots for the legal drama Arrest and Trial (1963-1964), a precursor to the much later and more successful Law & Order (1990-2010.) Despite some degree of quality, it didn't catch on, so Connors was back the next season in another western, this one called Branded (1965-1966.) A mid-season replacement, its first 16 episodes were in black & white, but the full second season was in color. I love the way the theme song features male vocalists telling the story of what happened to Connors character prior to his roaming the west and encountering all sorts of situations.

Another western series I've come to enjoy every so often is The Virginian, which ran from 1962 to 1971 and went through quite a few cast permutations over those years. James Drury (as the title character) and Doug McClure were with the series all the way through its run while others came and went. Often, the draw (apart from boyishly adorable McClure) is the caliber of guest stars who were drawn to the show, from Myrna Loy to Joan Crawford to even Joan Collins. One reason this one didn't find an easy home in syndicated reruns is that it was always a 90-minute show, almost like a mini-movie each week. Like many western shows, the theme song is pretty rousing and sweeping to befit the wild, open land in which the story is set.

The ninth and final season saw significant changes in format as the show was subtitled "The Men from Shiloh" and usually had only one or two of the four leads featured in a story and a new "spaghetti-western" flavored theme song by none other than Ennio Morricone.

TV themes are interesting animals. They are necessarily limited in terms of time and yet have to either tell a story or grab the viewer's attention. (This can also be freeing for a composer because a great germ of a musical idea has no need to be padded out to "song" length.) Our next theme was also put together by a famous film composer, this time Maurice Jarre, famed for his scores of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), to name but two. The series was Cimarron Strip and starred Stuart Whitman as sheriff of the troubled borderline area named in the title. Like The Virginian, it ran 90-minutes each week, but high production costs and low ratings did it in after one season. The credits play up the expansive terrain of the show.

Switching gears completely, I now bring you the theme from Angie (1979-1980), a series that starred Donna Pescow, who'd made an impression off-Broadway and in the movie Saturday Night Fever (1977.) Robert Hays played her boyfriend, the only male member of the female-heavy cast, while Doris Roberts, later to work on Remington Steele (1983-1987) and achieve considerable success (including four Emmys!) on Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005), was her mother. The first (mid)season credits are hooty, thanks to the decision to have each performer step into frame (a circle looming over a Philadelphia cityscape) as his or her name is shown (while a giddy theme song by Maureen McGovern "Different Worlds" hurtles along!)

Season two kicked off with the marriage of Pescow and Hays and offered a more conventional, yet corny and more slapsticky, set of credits, set to the same song. Ratings declined after the leads were wed on the show and so it was cancelled after its second season.

I wonder how many of you have ever even heard of this next show, though it ran four years. I certainly never saw it in its initial run being six the year it was cancelled (and am not able to record it when it plays on "over the air" stations as it sometimes does now.) The Bold Ones ran from 1968-1973 and was made up of rotating segments in the areas of medicine, law, police and politics (though there were three segments per season, some being swapped out along the way.) It had a dramatic musical, which I always like, and a stalwart cast of reliable actors. I figure this series probably contains many awesome guest stars, so I'd love to actually see more of the episodes than the fleeting bits I have so far.

I never even saw one episode of this next show (and, if the truth be told, I don't even like the theme song, though it counts among its prolific composer Mike Post's own personal favorites!), but I couldn't resist sharing it simply because of the surprising roster of people who were featured on the short-lived series. Keep your eyes peeled for an array of folks who later when on to success on the small (and sometimes big) screen. (And a few who seemed to sink into oblivion after this!) Bay City Blues (1983) was a drama centered around a minor league baseball team called the Bay City Bluebirds, created and produced by Stephen Bochco. Bochco was hot from Hill St. Blues (1981-1987) and would go on to L.A. Law (1986-1994), but this show was yanked after only four episodes had aired!

One show I enjoyed a lot as a kid and have enjoyed watching some of on DVD as an adult is Vega$ (1978-1981), starring Robert Urich. While it's similar in some ways to other private eye shows such as Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988) and Matt Houston (1982-1985), with a hunky guy driving a great car in a famous location, it came before those other two at least. Urich had quite a collection of characters in support from police detective Greg Morris to legman Bart Braverman and girl Friday Phyllis Davis to bimbo back-up Judy Landers, to name only several. Tony Curtis was also on hand as his employer.

I try always to leave you with something way out there or eye-boggling and this time out is no exception. This eye-popping opening credit sequence is from a Saturday morning serial called Danger Island (1968), that was presented in chapters on Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Directed by Richard Donner (!) and costarring Jan-Michael Vincent, it revealed the adventures of a five-person team in search of the leader's missing brother and a mythical lost city while fending off modern-day pirates and three (count 'em!) different tribes of cannibalistic natives! The "song" is darn near unbearable after a while and check out those quick-cut, zoom-heavy visuals... The show was intended to be a live-action answer to the animated hit Jonny Quest. That's it till next time, friends!  Take care.

Extra Credits

My very last post, devoted to some of my favorite TV series opening credits, received a hearty welcome from guests and regular visitors to The Underworld, even though I really just tossed it in as filler until I could complete another of my typical posts. And many of you wanted some more where that came from, so here it is! As before, I apologize in advance if any pop-ups or other ads interfere with viewing.

One set of credits I can't believe I omitted from my favorites is this pulsating, funkalicious opening from The Rookies (1972-1976.) A great cast (love the way Kate Jackson looks here at left with Sam Melville), a savvy idea for a cop show and the sure-handed talent of Elmer Bernstein for its theme music add up to a winner. (BTW, I'd have almost bet my life that Quincy Jones wrote this music!) Oh, and who could forget that famous police academy in the opening moments, which would make another memorable appearance in a later Aaron Spelling show?!

Now The Rookies had a spin-off with its own awesome theme song; one that went on to hit status on the radio! That was S.W.A.T. (1975-1976.) Now don't let that short-looking run mislead you into thinking that the series wasn't a hit. It was. It ran for the early part of 1975, then came back that fall for another season, but was ultimately cancelled in a response to a backlash against increased TV violence.

Some TV themes I loved back in the day were not necessarily because of the music! I had no great love for the theme song from Cagney & Lacey (1981-1988), but I most certainly did for supporting player Martin Kove, whose credit in the show was shirtless! In those early (or for many of us pre-!) VCR days, we longed for that fleeting glimpse of the burly-looking hunk. It happens around the 0:37 mark if you're the impatient type...

(If you want a real shocker, check out this first season set of credits, from before Sharon Gless's hiring to replace crystalline-eyed Meg Foster, who herself had been a replacement for Loretta Swit after the pilot movie! This theme song is just agony to me, though I enjoy the time-capsule, oddball aspect of this practically unknown credit sequence.)

Another beefcakey intro I was sure never to miss was for Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1986.) I liked the bouncy, busy theme okay, but the real draw was the presence of cutie-pie Gregory Harrison who, at about 0:27, was shown finishing up and exiting from the shower! If you ever see the pilot episode for this series, make sure you watch for the scene this was culled from in which Pernell Roberts carries on a conversation with dripping wet and toweling Harrison. (For another show opening - with a wonderfully funky-jazzy theme song - that also paired an older and a younger doctor, click here!)

I really can't say I watched the show when it was on (and it didn't last long),but another skin-baring credits sequence came courtesy of Patrick Duffy's water-based action show Man from Atlantis (1977-1978.) Fans of his ought to enjoy this one greatly.

One more opening credits sequence with a nod to beefcake is the failed 1985 show Street Hawk, starring Rex Smith. George Clooney was the show creator's first choice for the lead, but that was vetoed by ABC. It's at about the 0:30 mark that Sexy Rexy is spotted in just some dark briefs. This music is so "porn-y" as to be unintentionally hilarious.

If you thought that last show seemed cheesy, check out this VERY obscure series that starred Desi Arnaz Jr. from 1983-1985. I can honestly say I have no memory or prior knowledge whatsoever of Automan.  I do recognize Chuck Wagner, the co-lead, because he originated the role of Rapunzel's Prince on Broadway in "Into the Woods" and that was the role I had when I did that show, 

Of course few shows can claim the camp/cheese satisfaction that the short-lived Manimal achieved in its brief 1983 run. The sadly-departed Simon MacCorkindale played a gentleman who could assume the form of a variety of animals, but the show was never able to form any significant fan base or ratings and so it swiftly disappeared, its title becoming a catchphrase for shoddy sci-fi.

I've mentioned it before here (I think in a post devoted to campiness), but since we're on this subject, I have to include the ever-hooty initial credits for The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-1978.) They were only used for a couple of instances, but thank God for them! The song is as hysterically funny as it is completely catchy and captivating with vocals by the immortal Dusty Springfield. I'm including the closing credits, too, because she keeps on going... It seems like there won't be a song as it begins, but wait for it... Wait for it...

As you all know, nothing for me beats a show with the guest stars announced during the opening credits. One of the shows mentioned in the comments from the previous post was Cannon (1971-1976), a detective series about the exploits of rotund William Conarad as the title character. My dream is to be inside one of those animated cannonballs!  LOL

Who among you, however, remembers this other Quinn Martin-produced show starring a humpy young Burt Reynolds? This cop show, Dan August (1970-1971) was before his movie career really took off with Deliverance (1972), aided by the publicity atom bomb of his semi-nude centerfold appearance in Cosmopolitan. I love the way he looks in this series, sans his trademark mustache.

One of the other fondly remembered themes people mentioned was for Here Come the Brides (1968-1970), which started as an instrumental only to have voices added to it for later episodes. Strange that neither Bobby Sherman, nor David Soul, both singers in their own right, had anything to do with the vocal version of the theme song. As a side note, I met Mark Lenard, who was the resident antagonist on this show, around 1987 and he couldn't have been nicer. (Fans of these three gents really need to click on the photo and view it in its larger splendor!)

The 1973-1976 detective show Harry O starred David Janssen, who'd earlier enjoyed terrific success with The Fugitive (1963-1967.) The first video below is from the early episodes of the series in which, to my delight, the guest stars are depicted. The second, more familiar, opening retools the music and visuals and (along about the time Susan Strasberg's name appears onscreen) we soon realize that guest stars are only to be named and not shown now...

Of course the aforementioned The Fugitive had its own memorable credit sequence in that revered Quinn Martin style. A lengthy prologue recaps the series' concept of a man ever on the run from the law, followed by glimpses of that week's guest stars. Stay tuned for a lovely looking Vera Miles in this one!

Many people fondly recall Mike Connors' hit show Mannix (1967-1975), shown first below, but how many of you recall his short-lived 1981-1982 show Today's F.B.I. (complete with lantern-jaw-serious Carol Potter, later of Beverly Hills 90210 fame?) I absolutely loved that show's theme music (available below Mannix) and would often tune in just for that and then depart before the series was over.

Long before Today's F.B.I. was the long-running series The F.B.I. (1965-1974) which wondrously included the announcer speaking all the names of the stars and guest stars (in this case the deliriously beautiful Jeffrey Hunter, a hysterically be-bowed Estelle Winwood and the always divine Dina Merrill.)

If you recall my #1 favorite TV theme of all time (from The Colbys), you might be interested to hear this one from another failed prime-time soap by the same composer, Bill Conti. Emerald Point NAS (1983-1984) has to count as a dress rehearsal, musically, for Conti's Colbys theme. But look at the attractive cast that was assembled here! (This one, annoyingly, wouldn't let me embed, so please click here to watch.)

And here we find Flamingo Road, a prime-time soap that limped along from 1980-1982 before cancellation. (NBC had quite a bit of difficulty launching a successful evening soap opera, but tried several times. This one was probably the one that stuck around the longest.)

In researching this round of credits, I had intended to dig up a show I watched pretty faithfully as a teen, thanks to its Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) sort of vibe (read: it was a rip-off!) Then I found out that its star was recently revealed to have been involved in sexual misconduct with underage girls over the course of several years! That was quite a shocker as I had always liked Stephen Collins. (And it gives heretofore sexy/mysterious head shots like this one a now-creepy vibe!) Despite this, I still want to share the opener because it's very well-edited and includes a precious little doggie sidekick and you know how I love dogs. Tales of the Gold Monkey ran from 1982-1983.

Of a similar vein, and running the same single season, was Bring 'Em Back Alive, starring Bruce Boxleitner. These sort of "take a moment and look into the camera" credits were/are so cheesy, but I love them!! The leading character of this series, Frank Buck, was a real man who collected animals for a living and wrote about his exploits in a book of the same title as the show. Despite his many exotic adventures, he was actually felled in 1950 by lung cancer. Mr. B. seems to be packing more than crates, though, in this publicity photo! I'm going to go out on a limb, so to speak, and guess that the real Buck didn't have some Daisy Duke-ish clad bimbo with him in the jungle, though......

My previous post ended with an eye-boggling Sid & Marty Krofft program and I'm going to do the same again. Though some of you cited H.R. Pufnstuf as a favorite, I'm going to dig deeper into obscurity than that. This lunatic Saturday morning show is probably unknown to many (most?) of you, but I had to serve it up because I love - I mean LOVE - the theme song. The Lost Saucer (1975-1976) starred Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi. I'm actually linking to an episode of the show because the clips of only the credits have an annoying announcer drowning out the groovy, Partridge Family-esque music and this is one time I don't welcome that. See if you like it enough to listen twice!  Till next time, my loves...

Credits Where Credits Is Due...

Life keeps not only catching up with me but overwhelming me! So in order to keep things rolling around here I'm going to break away a bit from the usual and offer up a rundown of my favorite television show opening credits. These aren't necessarily the ones I say are THE BEST, they are just the ones that are my own favorites for reasons I will likely state as we go along. Apologies in advance if any of these contain pop-up ads or worse yet make you sit through a brief one in order to hear see and hear them.

10. Considering how nutso I am over guest stars, I really have to include the credits sequence from Arthur Hailey's Hotel (1983-1988) even though the lush, elegant music isn't really my usual bag. (I tend to go for more exciting sounds.) Each week after the regular cast was depicted, the animated elevator grids would cough out an array of guests and I couldn't wait to see who they would be each time.

9. Lost in Space (1965-1968) is a series I wasn't into very much at all. While I recognize some of the creativity and chemistry within the relationship, I just never could get fully on board with the Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), Will Robinson (Billy Mumy) and Robot (Bob May) triumverate that dominated the bulk of the episodes. However, the season three theme music is another story. The first two seasons featured a great little bouncy number with animated figures of the cast. The third season was far more zestful and dramatic, thus I love it. (Both of the themes and all the ones for Irwin Allen's other 1960's series - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants - were composed by the masterful Johnny Williams, who later became film composer John Williams, possessor of five Oscars.) If I'm being honest, I actually like the season two opening music from Land of the Giants best of all these, but couldn't locate a video of them...

8. As I've mentioned many times here over the years, one thing any show can do to win favor with me is to show the photos of the guest stars within the opening credits. Virtually all of the Quinn Martin produced programs did this, often with the person's name being spoken by an announcer (which earns extra credit!) My favorite of all is the theme for Barnaby Jones (1973-1980), with the shifting puzzle pieces coming together and that week's round up of actors being announced over some jazzy, but ominous, music.

7. The British import Space: 1999 (1975-1977) was always a little difficult to find in the U.S. because it came in syndicated rather than picked up for regular viewing on a network. This meant a wide variety of time slots across the country, many of them horrible. The first season had a grand, foreboding (at times amusingly pretentious - such as when the series' stars are shown) credit sequence that morphed midway into a funky disco ditty as scenes from the current episode were flashed on screen. (This last aspect was a nod to the credits for Mission: Impossible, a show on which Martin Landau and Barbara Bain costarred previously.) For the second season, the show was overhauled and a more action-oriented, faster theme was called for. I like them both, but the second one is my favorite!

6. When the theme song from Hawaii 5-O (1968-1980) came pounding on, 1960's viewers knew they were about to be swept away to a whole new place, one they could only hope to visit someday. (Never mind that there was far more crime depicted on the show than ever truly occurred there at that time!) Innovative editing and a can't-miss piece of music from Lalo Schifren combined to make an arresting opening sequence.

5.  It's been played a thousand times, tweaked here and there and parodied, but it's still tough to beat the wonderful, throbbing opening theme music for Mission: Impossible (1966-1973.) I happen to dislike spoilers, so it's always hard for me to watch these before the episode because I'm afraid they'll give something away (though the plots were often so complex/complicated that one could never truly figure out what was happening from the snippets alone.) The version shown here is what I consider about the best one musically. Below it, I attached a version I like because Peter Graves looks good, Leonard Nimoy and Lesley (Ann) Warren are in it and the hunky Sam Elliott is there, too, but the music has been messed with and isn't as effective,

4.  I enjoyed watching Falcon Crest (1981-1990) for a significant part of its run, but it was never quite as much of an addiction as a few of the other prime-time soaps. It did, however, boast a really great opening theme, complete with the type of posed cast visuals I have cherished ever since I was a little boy. This rendition below is probably my favorite, if perhaps the strings do get just a bit shrill at times. Like many long-running shows, the credits and music would be tweaked and not always in a good way. This grand theme would eventually by season nine be fiddled with and synthesized until it completely lost its luster.

3.  Dallas (1978-1991) was on for a long time and had a truly wonderful theme song (that also endured quite a few permutations along the way.) The early seasons kept the all-important sweep and grandeur as the camera swung across the city and then the iconic three-part cast photos came into view. As the years went on, the music went through periods of twang and disco and the key and tempo were augmented. When the redux came out a couple of years ago, they made the surprising (in this day and age of highly limited credit sequences) to use the theme music (slightly trimmed), but didn't show the cast's faces along with the names. They later, much to my relief, remedied this, creating a great sense of nostalgia for longtime fans of the show.

2.  No series was as important to my childhood than The Big Valley (1965-1969.) I only saw it in reruns (weekdays at 4:00), never in its original run, but the appeal of the upstanding, closely-woven family to a latchkey, only child like myself was staggering. I never got unduly attached to eldest son Jarrod (Richard Long), though I liked him okay, but I admired rough & tumble Nick (Peter Breck), swooned at the sight of Heath (Lee Majors), stood in awe of Audra's (Linda Evans) beauty and downright worshiped Victoria (Miss Barbara Stanwyck.) After two seasons, the intro was revamped and made more visually and aurally appealing. In a strange occurrence, the credits for seasons two and four (my very favorite one) have been removed from view in syndication, with season one and three credits put in their place. The difference between three (seen below) and four is minor indeed, but it's mystifying nonetheless. (Beneath season three's opening I give you RARE season two credits from Germany with visuals that haven't been seen on American TV in decades. I used to think I was crazy for ever thinking I'd seen them as a kid, but I couldn't forget scowling Peter or Linda and Barbara in those different clothes and hairstyles.)

1.  As long as I live I will never forget the night that Dynasty II: The Colbys (soon to be known simply as The Colbys) premiered in the fall of 1985 (lasting until 1987.) I was so curious as to what the opening credits would be like, especially knowing that still considerable stars such as Charlton Heston, Katharine Ross, Ricardo Montalban, Barbara Stanwyck and others were going to be featured in them. As the visuals began, I was immediately horrified because the musical trill was exactly like that of the parent series Dynasty and it looked as if someone had made the heinous decision to use precisely the same music for both shows! However, it swiftly became clear that they had cleverly used only the opening notes and that an all-new, very sweeping theme song had been developed for the spin-off. I loved it then and I still love it now!

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And now for a little Bonus Material. I also wanted to share a couple of my favorite TV miniseries themes. Now you know that if I love TV series credits that show the actors' faces, then I'm bound to love miniseries ones in which the parade of stars is typically even longer! Take a look at the run down of celebrities on The Moneychangers (1976), one of my favorite miniseries, and see if your jaw doesn't drop! (EDITOR'S NOTE:  The video I had embedded here turned out to be incorrect and I cannot get the one I want to load in...  Please visit this link for the right opening sequence!)

Another lovely miniseries theme (with a parade of stars sporting some hooty facial hair) comes from 1981's East of Eden. This one came to my attention after the music was used in a figure skating program by Michelle Kwan and it quickly became a favorite. This program, by the way, contains a positively feral performance by Jane Seymour. (I could NOT get this to embed for some reason. So this one is linked, too. Sorry!)

Speaking of Jane Seymour, Queen of the Miniseries, the follow-up to The Winds of War, War and Remembrance (1988), featured what I consider to be the most incredible performance she ever gave. I love the music (the same for both miniseries), but put forth the second program because I just cannot do Ali MacGraw in the first one (whose role was inherited by Seymour for the sequel.) Remembrance was a staggering undertaking, a truly mammoth production, that ended up not performing up to expectation and helped to spell the end of the epic miniseries made for network television, despite being of very high quality.

Back to soaps for a minute, the long-running Knots Landing (1979-1993) always had a rather bouncy, upbeat theme that was fine. But when the show came back for season nine, a crazy new approach was taken in which the music was slowed down and pretentiously dramatic black and white ("oooooh!") disembodied heads of the cast members struck meaningful poses over an arty painted backdrop. The rendition below contains a 30-second preview prior to the credits, but it was the best example I could find. After horrified reactions from the public, the faces were redone in color the following season and then the experiment was over with the theme reverted to an up-tempo one for the rest of the series' run.

Another of my other favorite TV themes was the one for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), but I didn't include it in my countdown above because they cheated a little by using music made for the feature films rather than something created especially for a weekly television show. In case it isn't clear by now, I tend to prefer rousing music over more sedate themes.

Similarly, when the underwater sci-fi series Seaquest DSV (1993-1996) came about, I was enthusiastic about its credits which borrow some of the ooh-ahh bombast of Trek, but pair that with multiple cast visuals (including the underused Stephanie Beacham in a woefully un-glamorous role.) The show floundered (pun intended) in the ratings and went through a couple of cast and concept overhauls before its demise.

Who remembers this hooty animated program from 1972-1974, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home? I can remember watching it sometimes as a pre-teen and enjoying it. The family dynamic (pudgy husband, short-haired wife, doofus older son, bespectacled daughter, younger son) almost looks as if it could have partially inspired The Family Guy! Even the house is vaguely similar.

An honorable mention when it comes to favorite TV themes of mine is the catchy one for Maude (1972-1978), starring the incomparable Bea Arthur. This is the first season rendition, but I'm including a later version afterwards because some of the visuals of Bea were changed (note how she became more glam as it went along!)

And finally... This is by far the weirdest set of credits in this post. I had just the vaguest, vaguest memory of seeing the Saturday morning kids show Lidsville (1971-1973) as a tyke. Several years ago, I got a DVD set devoted to the works of Sid & Marty Krofft and an episode of the show was on it. Needless to say I went completely nuts over them and watched them over and over (and over!) You just cannot beat crazy stuff like this from the '70s... and they are close to two minutes long! Can you imagine such a thing today?!