Tee Vee Theme Songs

Via Ace, who got it from Garfield Ridge, comes a site that purports to count down the 100 Greatest Tee Vee Theme Songs. They haven't released the Top 20 yet, but the other entries are highly entertaining. God knows how they're coming up with these rankings, however, because I sure don't see a pattern. It might have been more effective to split this list up into different genres.

Some individual observations:

The Lone Ranger - Just to be an utter nerd about this, the theme from this show is based on the hunt finale of Rossini's "William Tell" Overture, not the whole thing. The entire overture must run a good 12 minutes - huge compared to others - but the finale is only, what, 3 minutes long.

Lost In Space - As noted, there were two themes, both written by John Williams. Particularly with the second one, you can hear a number of ideas that later become part of his signature style for big movies like Star Wars. I always thought this was kinda cool.

Cheers - This is exactly the kind of music that makes its way into children's piano recitals, leaving audience members forever scarred.

M*A*S*H - I don't know what the guy means by the theme remaining unchanged over the 11 seasons of the show. In fact, it was re-orchestrated and re-recorded several times, each new performance getting steadily blander. Even a casual student of the show can identify which era a rerun is from (Blake/Potter, Trapper/B.J, Burns/Winchester, Radar/Klinger) just by the first few bars of music in the opening credits.

As Ace notes, there are some serious lapses in this list - Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" from Monty Python's Flying Circus and the original Star Trek theme come to mind. I can only assume they'll be in the Top 20.