I’m turning on the TV for an escape, not to be reminded of the world pushing the pedal to the metal on the path to dystopia.īut hang on. “Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got”? Yikes, we’re off to a depressing start here. But even though I could effortlessly sing along with the theme despite not having seen the show in years, I took a listen again to try to discern the exact qualities that made this song so great. The first theme song I came up with when we were initially discussing greatest theme songs of the 80s was Cheers, because A) it’s one of the best sitcoms ever and B) it was once parodied on The Simpsons, and even that parody was memorably great. “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” written by Gary Portnoy, Judy Hart Angelo, Julian Williams. We also considered doing a category for children’s shows (AKA the ones you millennials may actually remember), but then I decided that only one of them could stand up to the others, and it didn’t need to be segregated into a different category. The theme had to be an original song written for the show, not a borrowed pop song (disqualifying The Wonder Years, Life Goes On, Bosom Buddies, and China Beach, among others). First, the show had to exist primarily in the 80s, with a preference for themes that started in or near the decade (thereby disqualifying The Jeffersons, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley for beginning in the mid-70s and A Different World for not debuting Aretha Franklin’s theme until 1988). That said, there were also some classic instrumental themes that demand mention, so we’ve decided to break this up into two parts and let you vote on which was the best representative of each category.īefore we could do that, we had to establish some ground rules. For me, it’s the lyrical themes that best represent the era, with bonus points if they describe the plot. There you could find some classics and some classically cheesy themes side-by-side, with or without synthesizers.
While the form of original theme songs continued into the 90s, I truly believe that they peaked in the 80s (which I’m sure has nothing to do with the fact that I was a child in the 80s).
Hell, we’re so thirsty for theme songs that many of us couldn’t listen to the Parks and Recreation theme without singing “Jabba the Hutt” over and over again. But listen to some of the best songs on this list and tell me they wouldn’t be value-added to a sitcom or even a cable dramedy. And sure, I get that a lot of today’s prestige television would feel odd with an accompanying jingle that explained the premise of the show. Nowadays, if a show even HAS an opening sequence (and some don’t have more than a title card), it’s either instrumental or a repurposed previously-existing pop song.
The first thing you notice when listening to a bunch of TV theme shows from the 80s is that they exist in the first place.
This was a debate that couldn’t hope to be settled in comments or on Twitter. In doing so, I kicked up a whole lot of nostalgia for the entire genre of 80s TV theme songs and it wasn’t long until we spent the better part of a Sunday deciding which was the best.
For our summer rewatch series on Survivor: Philippines, I decided to end Emma and Matt’s most recent podcast with The Facts of Life theme song to celebrate the history of contestant Lisa Welchel.