Favorite sitcom intros and/or theme songs?

[golden eagle]

WKRP in Cincinnati and Welcome Back Kotter are my favorites.

[triplemultiplex]

Firefly had an awesome theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-sp68GjYL0

The pinnacle of the expository theme song has gotta be the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Gotta shout-out some of the cartoons with great theme songs from my youth that haven't been mentioned:
Inspector Gadget
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Rocko's Modern Life

not a cartoon, but Saved By The Bell had a pretty good riff in their theme

[Mr_Northside]

Oh snap.... Don't think I've seen anyone post the Monkees theme song yet.

[mgk920]

'Cheers'.   'nuff said!



Mike

[HighwayStar]

Married With Children

I figured that one didn't count, considering they just took an existing song and used it.

Same thing with Mike & Molly, because for the first three seasons it used the ending part of Keb Mo's I See Love as originally recorded, and then for the remainder of its run it switched over to a remixed version of the same song which was made specifically for the show.

Until today I had no idea they drug that poor series out to 6 seasons.

Frasier-Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs
Cheers-Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Friends-I'll Be There For You

[Scott5114]

Soap

Best known these days for launching the career of Rod Roddy of all people, who did the voiceover summaries at the beginning of each episode. Of course, he's best known for being the second announcer of The Price Is Right.

[GenExpwy]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shooting for some food,
And up through the ground come a bubbling crude...

[abefroman329]

Drew Carey Show

Moon Over Parma or Cleveland Rocks?

Have to say that the evolution of The Drew Carey Show is evidence of Drew Carey's tenacity.  It took a long time for the show to find its groove and I don't know how he and the production team fended off calls for cancellation early on.

Don't forget Five O'Clock World as well.

Crap.  How could I?  Probably my favorite out of the bunch.

It's interesting because you can see how the show progressed in terms of its popularity and its budget - Moon Over Parma was animated and sung by Drew Carey, Five O'Clock World had some big-ish dance numbers, and Cleveland Rocks had all the crowd shots in Cleveland.

[DTComposer]

So many great theme songs up until the early '90s - largely replaced by instrumentals, cold opens and "soundmarks."

I think WKRP in Cincinnati had one of the best pairings of opening and closing themes (different songs, rather than the closing theme being a variation of the opener) - I remember thinking the closing theme was a banger of a rock tune, but couldn't decipher the lyrics. Years later I discovered that was intentional - the lyrics are gibberish.

[skluth]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Best thing about the Gilligan's Island theme song is the meter scheme is very popular with certain poets. You can sing practically all of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the Gilligan's Island theme. It's a great way to drive an English teacher mad.

[Rothman]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Best thing about the Gilligan's Island theme song is the meter scheme is very popular with certain poets. You can sing practically all of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the Gilligan's Island theme. It's a great way to drive an English teacher mad.

Common meter.  That fact made its rounds through Facebook years ago.

[mgk920]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Best thing about the Gilligan's Island theme song is the meter scheme is very popular with certain poets. You can sing practically all of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the Gilligan's Island theme. It's a great way to drive an English teacher mad.

Common meter.  That fact made its rounds through Facebook years ago.

I once heard someone sing Led zeppelin's 'Stairway To Heaven' to the instrumental accompaniment of the 'Gilligan's Island' theme.

Mike

[abefroman329]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Best thing about the Gilligan's Island theme song is the meter scheme is very popular with certain poets. You can sing practically all of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the Gilligan's Island theme. It's a great way to drive an English teacher mad.

Common meter.  That fact made its rounds through Facebook years ago.

It's even older than FB.

You can also sing Amazing Grace to the GI theme song.

[NWI_Irish96]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shooting for some food,
And up through the ground come a bubbling crude...

This song can be sung to the tune of "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.

My favorite will always be Cheers.

[kphoger]

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shooting for some food,
And up through the ground come a bubbling crude...

This song can be sung to the tune of "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.

Weird Al did that.

[1995hoo]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Best thing about the Gilligan's Island theme song is the meter scheme is very popular with certain poets. You can sing practically all of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the Gilligan's Island theme. It's a great way to drive an English teacher mad.

Common meter.  That fact made its rounds through Facebook years ago.

It's even older than FB.

You can also sing Amazing Grace to the GI theme song.

One of my high school English teachers pointed out that the boldface is almost certainly the reason why Dickinson's poetry can be sung to the Gilligan's Island tune–Dickinson presumably set her poetry to the meter of "Amazing Grace" and that means you can sing her poetry to anything else for which "Amazing Grace" also works.

You can sing "Amazing Grace" to the tune of the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling." I've never attempted to to the same with Dickinson's poetry.

[kphoger]

I still like Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun.  And actually, I sometimes sing it alternating lyric verses between the two songs.

[wanderer2575]

Not mentioned yet unless I missed it:

Mr. Ed
The Rockford Files
Sesame Street
The Dukes of Hazzard
The Muppet Show
Mission:  Impossible
Mary Tyler Moore
The Bob Newhart Show
Happy Days
Sanford and Son

[roadman65]

That Seventies Show final season where Tommy Chong was credited with his character  while he was looking up for a moment when the part of theme had a voice in the back round.   Of course you can almost here Tommy think to himself " Woah Man, what's that voice?"

[kphoger]

Happy Days

Mary Tyler Moore Show
Rockford Files
and my favorite - Mission Impossible

Sanford And Son

the first 20 years of Sesame Street.

Yep, you missed it.   

Not mentioned yet unless I missed it:

Mr. Ed
The Rockford Files
Sesame Street
The Dukes of Hazzard
The Muppet Show
Mission:  Impossible
Mary Tyler Moore
The Bob Newhart Show
Happy Days
Sanford and Son

[triplemultiplex]

Honorable mention to the originator of using the opening theme to tell people what the show is about: Gilligan's Island.

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shooting for some food,
And up through the ground come a bubbling crude...

Oh my god, how could I forget that one!  Classic.

"Californy is the place you wanna be" so they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.

'Cheers'.   'nuff said!

Oh agreed. The lyrics to the Cheers theme are amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-mi0r0LpXo

The verses are all hilarious excuses to go drinking.
It's all like, "Oh no, my therapist is on vacation" and "the coffee maker is broken", so might as well go the bar and get hammered!