Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs

[micropolitan guy]

It's a good list -- not a great one, but a good one. And I'm with MisterCreosote in wondering how "Cheers," if not No. 1, is No. 13? No. 13?!

There were many in there that I wouldn't have included, not based on the songs and the recognizability or quality of them, anyway.

And there were several I was actually surprised were there at all. Like, "Star Trek"? I might be among the biggest Trek fans on this site, and the Star Trek Original Series theme song isn't even the best one in the franchise. That honor actually goes to "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Star Trek Enterprise Intro - YouTube

Love it!

Another candidate for the list that, in my opinion, was glaringly missing would have been from "St. Elsewhere."

I loved "St. Elsewhere" yet can't even remember half of the Season I cast. They had a lot of turnover and some of the better characters (Harmon, Furst, the guy who played Luther) came on later.

 

[Big Circus]

I did a CTRL-F for "Community" and it didn't turn up any results, so I'm satisfied.

Also, this seems relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIOM8mCS1fk

 

[misterbc]

Don't know where it ultimately ranked but no theme song made an impression like "The Untouchables" with Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra. For me, number 2 would be "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson. Shows you how old I am!

 

[Slacker]

Rolling Stone lists exist to pish people off. And they always succeed.

Also, their website sucks when you're on a tablet.
Good luck trying to scroll up and down those lists.

 

[Oggiedoggie]

They have the theme for "Succession" at 25.



But they fail to mention that it's just a recomposed, more heavily orchestrated "Bojack Horseman" theme.

 

[Slacker]

WKRP was so good. The opening credits track and the underrated end credits track, too.

That ending track was solid gold.
And the garbled lyrics were bonus gold.



The closing theme, "WKRP In Cincinnati End Credits", was a hard rock number composed and performed by Jim Ellis, an Atlanta musician who recorded some of the incidental music for the show. According to people who attended the recording sessions, Ellis didn't yet have lyrics for the closing theme, so he sang nonsense words to give an idea of how it would sound. Wilson decided to use the words anyway, since he felt that it would be funny to use lyrics that were deliberately gibberish, as a satire on the incomprehensibility of many rock songs. Also, because CBS always had an announcer talking over the closing credits, Wilson knew that no one would actually hear the closing theme lyrics anyway.

The 'WKRP in Cincinnati' closing theme lyrics are all gibberish | Boing Boing

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

If you really want to summarize 1980s sitcoms for someone who didn't live through the era, you just show them the intro to Perfect Strangers and walk away.

The Tonight Show with Carson, The Partridge Family, the Flintstones and Golden Girls are severely underrated.

How you leave off themes from Who's The Boss, Barney Miller, Family Ties and friggin Night Court while adding one-season wonder shows like Terriers is beyond me.

 

[BTExpress]

I always liked this one . . . produced by the same guy who produced Kotter.

 

[playthrough]

If you really want to summarize 1980s sitcoms for someone who didn't live through the era, you just show them the intro to Perfect Strangers and walk away.

The Tonight Show with Carson, The Partridge Family, the Flintstones and Golden Girls are severely underrated.

How you leave off themes from Who's The Boss, Barney Miller, Family Ties and friggin Night Court while adding one-season wonder shows like Terriers is beyond me.

It's like RS uses their trusted old people for best albums and "important" stuff like that while the office help is told to do TV theme songs. And the office help wasn't born when Family Ties aired.

 

[RonClements]

This list includes Lost, which doesn't even have a theme song, but doesn't have Black Sails, which in my opinion, has the best theme song of all time. It's brilliant, catchy, and just all-around awesome.

 

[swingline]

The music for TWIB was outstanding.

How about that!

 

[Songbird]