The 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs of All Time

BY DAVID BROWNE, SEAN T. COLLINS, JON DOLAN, ELISABETH GARBER-PAUL, ANDY GREENE, JOE GROSS, TATIANA KRISZTINA, MICHAELANGELO MATOS, NOEL MURRAY, MOSI REEVES, ALAN SEPINWALL, ROB SHEFFIELD

We apologize in advance for all the TV theme songs we are about to lodge back into your heads. Or maybe we should preemptively accept your thanks?

Despite periodic attempts to contract or outright eliminate them, theme songs are a crucial part of the TV-watching experience. The best ones put you in the right mindset to watch each episode of your favorite, and can be just as entertaining in their own right as any great joke, monologue, or action sequence. So we’ve decided to pick the 100 best theme songs of all time — technically 101, since there are two as inextricably linked as peanut butter and jelly — and attempted to rank them in order of greatness.

How did we figure this out, beyond just arguing about it over Slack, Zoom, ham radio, etc?

First, we assembled a massive list of great songs from throughout the entire long history of TV. We then pared that down by looking for diversity in terms of style of music, style of show, and era. (Honestly, the entire 100 could have been made up of shows from the Seventies. Apologies to The White Shadow, What’s Happening??, and many more that did not make the final list.) Some were written expressly for that show, while others were pre-existing songs given new life through their association with a particular series.

Then we considered two main factors: 1)How great is it as a song? 2)How well does it prepare you for the show that follows, in terms of mood and/or an explanation of the premise? Sometimes, one factor weighed more heavily than the other, and many bitter fights were fought. (There are still hurt feelings regarding which of ABC’s T.G.I.F. family sitcoms got the nod and which ones didn’t.) Like any attempt to quantify art, there was ultimately a lot of gut feelings involved: On its own, Theme Song A is an objectively better piece of music than Theme Song B, but Theme Song B is a much more perfect match for its show. 

This list — with many of the blurbs owing a debt to the wealth of theme song history in the book TV’s Greatest Hits by Jon Burlingame — is our attempt to explain why we chose these 100 over any or all of your favorites.

Enjoy, and get to humming.

100. ‘WandaVision’ | Disney+, 2021

Several shows on this list changed their theme songs over the years. WandaVision changed its theme song for every episode — twice in one episode, in fact! As the MCU’s first Disney+ series morphed into tributes to various classic sitcoms, the Frozen songwriting team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez continually figured out clever pastiches of iconic TV themes that became as earworm-y in their own way as the originals. And in the case of the Munsters-esque “Agatha All Along,” the parody turned out to be more memorable than the original. —A.S.

99. ‘Terriers’ | FX, 2010

Some theme songs wind up long outliving the show they were in, like Harry Nillson’s “Best Friend” from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. Sometimes, though, a great song gets doomed to obscurity right along with the short-lived show it introduced. Case in point: “Gunfight Epiphany,” Rob Duncan’s laid-back surf guitar theme to Terriers, an absurdly charming detective drama that almost nobody watched. —A.S.

98. ‘Three’s Company’ | ABC, 1977-84

The Boogie Nights of sitcom themes. Three’s Company is the hijinks of three swingin’ singles sharing a 1970s Santa Monica, California, party pad: John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, and Suzanne Somers. The network wanted to keep it clean, but the show’s humor depends on tantalizing viewers with hints that the next coke orgy was just an ad-break away. So “Come and Knock on Our Door” is a playfully flirty invitation to a decadent ménage à trois, disguised as a wholesome Tupperware party. (“The kisses are hers and hers and his,” eh?) It was written by Joe Raposo, the Sesame Street genius who gave us “Somebody Come and Play,” “Bein’ Green,” and “Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco.” The vocals are credited to “Ray Charles,” but not the real one — just a white-guy imposter. As the song suggests, everybody got lucky in this house — except, tragically, the long-suffering Mrs. Roper. —R.S.

97. ‘Rescue Me’ | FX, 2004-11

The Denis Leary firefighter drama needed intro music to match the anguished pain of its FDNY characters in the aftermath of 9/11. Enter garage rockers the Von Bondies, whose “C’mon, C’mon” was the exact kind of furious howl the series needed. —A.S.

96. ‘CHiPs’ | NBC, 1977-83

For NBC’s youth-aimed police drama starring the blandly handsome blonde no one remembers as straight man to the easygoing macho of breakout star Erik Estrada, composer John Parker put together a glossy piece of synth-y triumphalism reminiscent of florid disco hits like Le Pregunta’s “Shangri-La.” The CHiPS tune’s instant kid appeal would also pave the way for Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson’s Knight Rider theme. —M.M.

95. ‘The Partridge Family’ | ABC, 1970-74

Let’s be honest: There are better songs in the Partridge catalog than the ditty that opened this sitcom about a fictional family band. “I’ll Meet You Halfway” and “I Woke Up in Love This Morning,” fronted by series star David Cassidy, were as good as anything on AM radio in the early Seventies. But “Come On Get Happy” captured the bubbly, beyond-wholesome vibe of the series, and you just have to love the opening harpsichord riff. (The song was also co-written by Wes Farrell, a titan of bubblegum pop who also had a hand in writing Sixties hits like “Hang On Sloopy,” “Come On Down to My Boat,” “Come a Little Bit Closer,” and some of those Partridge singles, including “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted.”) An alternate version of the song — with the line “Danny got Reuben to sell our song” — also gave TV viewers an inside look at the machinations of the music business: Danny Partridge, publishing hustler! —D.B.

94. ‘New Girl’ | Fox, 2011-18

Of course the quirky queen of twee would write and sing her own theme song. But did the pilot also have to feature a scene where her character, Jess, comes up with it? The opening sequence works, though, because it doesn’t just set the tone for the show — Jess’ mini-dress style and cut-out craft aesthetic are on full view — it also reveals the dynamic of the foursome at the show’s center. The cutesiness apparently turned off male viewers, though, so starting with Season Four, they swapped in an electric-guitar rendition instead. “I was kind of sad [about that],” Zoey Deschanel later told EW. “They were like, ‘We think men are going to think the show is too female if it’s this way.’” —E.G.P.

93. ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ | NBC, 1965-70

A flouncy, brassy bit of bossa nova with a belly-dance vibe that perfectly evoked all the playfully exotic possibilities of having a live-in full-time genie at your place, the classic I Dream of Jeannie theme was written by the prolific Hollywood bandleader Hugo Montenegro. It worked in much the same way that Montenegro’s version of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” did: His Jeannie jingle is both a little square and a stone gas. The show’s creator, Sidney Sheldon, would later become the author of a string of romantic-adventure bestsellers. —M.M.

92. ‘All That’ | Nickelodeon, 1994-2005, 2019-20

A great song sung by an iconic group, the great R&B trio TLC. Nickelodeon’s child-friendly version of a Saturday Night Live-type sketch-comedy show started the careers of Amanda Bynes, current SNL member Kenan Thompson, and Nick Cannon (years before his current gig repopulating the world). The original run was from 1994 to 2005, with a short-lived revival in 2019 that came to an end during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Thankfully, the revival kept the Nineties R&B theme song (with the new addition of Thompson’s voice in the beginning), so kids and parents alike could groove to its nostalgic throwback track — that is, before mom ran to grab her CrazySexyCool CD and started telling stories about the good ol’ days. —T.K.

91. ‘Have Gun, Will Travel’ | CBS, 1957-63

The aptly-named actor-singer-songwriter Johnny Western (née Westerlund) was guest-starring in an episode of the Richard Boone Western at the time his wife was giving birth to their daughter. Anxious about being away from his family at such an important moment, Western would later say, “I picked up my guitar for something to do, and started playing and singing ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky.’ And this ‘Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?’ started coming out, to exactly the same beat as ‘Ghost Riders.’” He dashed out the rest of the song in 20 minutes on a yellow legal pad, and later presented it to Boone and Have Gun co-creator Sam Rolfe as “a musical thank-you card for having me on the show.” Both liked “The Ballad of Paladin” so much — and contributed a few suggestions that led to them having a shared songwriting credit — that they made it the series’ closing theme starting in the second season. It’s both one of the most memorable songs — from the most dominant genre of TV’s early years — and one of the more famous examples of a show saving its best theme for the end of each episode, rather than the beginning. (Many years later, River Phoenix and the other kids from Stand by Me would sing “The Ballad of Paladin” to buoy themselves early in their journey.) —A.S.

90. ‘The Walking Dead’ | AMC, 2010-22

Composer Bear McCreary, who honed his comics-and-sci-fi chops writing music for Battlestar Galactica, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Outlander, admitted that the opening music for this zombie-world epic “is among the simpler theme songs out there.” And he’s right: At 34 seconds, it’s essentially the same overcast symphonic riff played over and over, with some modulation and additional strings. McCreary says he was inspired by the work of legendary scorer Bernard Hermann. But McCreary became the new master of suspense with this piece of music, which evokes what it must feel like to be chased by a zombie that’s getting closer and closer by the second, until the music — and your life — comes to an abrupt stop. —D.B.

89. ‘The Olympics’ | ABC/CBS/NBC, 1956-Present

An indelible sports broadcasting theme like Monday Night Football’s classic four-note fanfare or John Tesh’s basketball-boosting “Roundball Rock” can make even an unexceptional regular-season game feel like a special event. But there’s never been a grander intro than the one that signals another day of Olympics coverage. ABC started using Leo Arnaud’s booming “Bugler’s Dream” in 1968; and in 1984, John Williams expanded its heralding blare into a longer composition that’s been an Olympiad staple ever since, across multiple networks. The song is triumphantly symphonic, sounding like a thrilling race and a victory parade, all at once. —N.M.

88. ‘Stranger Things’ | Netflix, 2016-Present

Like everything else about the Netflix horror juggernaut, the theme song is a loving homage to Eighties pop culture. In this case, electronic musicians Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein are paying tribute to synth-heavy Eighties scores by the likes of John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream, and Vangelis. As the show’s neon-lit titles gradually come into focus, Dixon and Stein’s theme hurls wave after (new) wave of dread at the viewer, bracing us for the terrors to come while emotionally sending us back in time to the peak era of Stephen King and kids on bikes getting into supernatural trouble. —A.S.

87. ‘The Big Bang Theory’ | CBS, 2007-19

Certainly the only TV theme song to use a college-level word like “autotrophs,” this quick, slick little pop-punk tune from Canadian band the Barenaked Ladies cleverly signaled that The Big Bang Theory would be a show that could effortlessly turn nerdy stuff like physics trivia and comic-book lore into adorably accessible sitcom fodder. Show creator Chuck Lorre originally wanted to use Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson’s acoustic demo of the song (which is titled “History of Everything”), but Robertson insisted on doing it with the band. For the show’s finale, Robertson gifted Lorre with a new version of that old demo, which poignantly played as the gang eats Chinese food in Leonard and Penny’s living room during the show’s closing scene. —J.D.  

86. ‘The Flintstones’ | ABC, 1960-66

The Flintstones used a peppy instrumental tune as the intro music for the first two seasons, but when the show became a huge hit, the producers decided to go big by having Hanna-Barbera musical director Hoyt Curtin team up with a 22-piece big band and the Randy Van Horne Singers to create a jazzy theme with lyrics. “I decided to go with the jazz band and singers after the lyric was written,” Curtin said in 1994. “I wrote that sucker in a real panic because we were way behind.” That sucker became one of the most beloved cartoon theme songs of all time, recognizable to kids that grew up in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and beyond. In 1994, it was covered by the B-52s for the Flintstones live-action movie. “Hearing that dang tune all over, I feel like the forgotten man,” Curtin said when it came out. “I really do.” —A.G.

85. ‘Dallas’ | CBS, 1978-91

Dallas ruled the ratings as the glitziest, nastiest, juiciest of the night-time soaps, a sex-and-money trash epic with the Ewing family conniving over their Texas oil empire and stabbing each others’ backs at the Southfork Ranch. It makes Succession look like milquetoast piffle. You can hear that in Jerrod Immel’s theme, with its horn fanfare and disco flash. Nothing country here — this was a theme for the money-hustling Sun Belt of the “greed is good” Eighties, with Larry Hagman’s J.R. Ewing — the Tony Soprano of his era — wheeling his dirty deals in a cowboy hat and an evil grin. —R.S.

84. ‘The Leftovers,’ Season Two | HBO, 2015

The first season of The Leftovers is among the bleakest things ever put on television, and it had an overwrought Max Richter-penned theme song and title sequence to match. Recognizing that they had taken the despair of their quasi-Rapture premise a bit too far, co-creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta decided to lighten things up ever so slightly, starting out by replacing the orchestral theme with Iris DeMent’s folksy “Let the Mystery Be.” The lyrics hit on many of the show’s key themes, while also preparing viewers to not expect an explanation for the show’s metaphysical premise. And the more chipper and accepting tone of the music ushered in a version of the series that was still incredibly emotional, but not oppressively so. And suddenly, what was hard to watch for many became one of the best shows HBO has ever aired. Some fans, though, like BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, would argue that Leftovers Season One would be just as beloved if it had used the DeMent song. (The final season changed up the theme every week, bringing back both Richter and DeMent in different weeks, but also making unconventional choices like … the Perfect Strangers theme?) —A.S.  

83. ‘Pachinko’ | Apple TV+, 2022-Present

The quality of the song itself is an understandably crucial part of what makes for an excellent theme. But often, it’s the alchemical blend of the music and the visuals. The Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live for Today” has the requisite lush sound to match the historical sweep of this adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s novel about a Korean family caught up in the Japanese occupation. But when it’s paired with a joyous dance-off between the show’s actors — many of whom never interact within the series itself, because they’re playing characters from different eras — the whole thing goes to another level. —A.S.

82. ‘Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?’ | PBS, 1991-95

https://youtu.be/s1EIUP8tvbE

“Do it, Rockapella!” With that rousing battle cry, the house band of PBS’s children’s game show — based on the educational video-game series that put players on the trail of a globe-trotting thief in a signature red hat — would launch into an ooo-wop a cappella theme song bubbly enough to be borderline criminal itself. Written by Rockapella co-founder Sean Altman and Broadway composer David Yazbek, it’s a guaranteed trigger of intense Nineties-kid nostalgia. —S.T.C.

81. ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ | CBS, 1961-66

Big band was the dominant sound of theme songs in the Fifties and early Sixties. Others like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners were paired with a static image. This theme (one of several Earle Hagen compositions on the list) has to accompany the main character in action, most memorably the whimsical xylophone riff — Hagen described it as “that little fillip” — that comes when Dick Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie trips over the ottoman. It’s a versatile riff, too, as it works just as well in the alternate version used at times in later seasons where Rob nimbly sidesteps the ottoman and stays on his feet. All around, an expert match of sound and visuals. (Also? Years later, Van Dyke would say that Morey Amsterdam wrote lyrics for it.) —A.S.

80. ‘Green Acres’ | CBS, 1965-71

Addams Family theme composer Vic Mizzy may have reached his expository peak with this tune, one of several rural-oriented, laugh-track-abetted sitcoms CBS rolled out during the 1960s. (Another was the just as ironic Beverly Hillbillies, with an unforgettable theme song by Paul Henning.) Not only do the Green Acres lyrics explain everything you need to know, they’re sardonic, and they featured the show’s two stars, Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, singing in dialogue and in character: “Fresh air/Times Square/You are my wife/Goodbye, city life/Green Acres, we are there!” —M.M.

79. ‘Mad Men’ | AMC, 2007-15

Mad Men’s pilot barely changed between what Matthew Weiner submitted to AMC and the one that launched the channel’s first venture into prestige TV — but the same can’t be said for the opening theme. According to the notoriously meticulous showrunner, the original credits featured a live-action shot of a businessman walking into his office, opening the window, and jumping out. As Weiner later recalled with a laugh at a Paley Center panel, “AMC [had] a problem with it.” So they went with something more conceptual: an abstract animation of a businessman falling from his window past buildings that were supposed to represent “all of the fears that are inside this man,” according to Weiner, set to a version of instrumental hip-hop crew RJD2’s “A Beautiful Mine” (which Wiener discovered as segue music on NPR’s Marketplace). He loved the classic old-Hollywood feel of the music, which gave the visuals a more cynical spin. “To me, American businessman jumps out a widow, that is a statement,” he said. “It’s part of our iconography.” —E.G.P.

78. ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’ | CBS, 1978-82

For a rock & roll sitcom about a kooky crew of radio DJs, the obvious move would have been an upbeat party-hearty theme song. (Kinda like the show’s closing-credits banger.) But instead, WKRP had a melancholy ode to the rootless DJ life — “town to town, up and down the dial” — with words by show creator Hugh Wilson. That vibe of adult malaise is what made WKRP so special. This theme song has even more emotional poignance than Les Nessman watching a Thanksgiving turkey drop. —R.S.

77. ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!’ | CBS, 1969-70

In the summer of 1969, the Archies — a fictional rock band from a Saturday-morning cartoon show — scored a real-life hit single with “Sugar, Sugar.” So it was only natural that the theme song for Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, which premiered that September, might follow a similarly easy-rolling kiddie-rock path, only with a plot outline for a lyric — this was a show about groovy teenagers, similar to Archie and his gang, driving around in a psychedelically painted van solving mysteries. It never became a hit in the vein of the bubblegum tunes it resembled, but it deservedly won decades of Saturday-morning ubiquity. —M.M.

76. ‘Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson’ | NBC, 1962-92

For nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson entered America’s living rooms to the bounding swing of Doc Severinsen’s Atomic Age horn charts — topped by a long drumroll for Ed McMahon to announce, “Heeeere’s … Johnny!” Carson had inherited Severinsen as a section trumpeter for the orchestra when he took over The Tonight Show in October 1962 (from Jack Paar). “After about a year, the producer of the show came to me [and] said, ‘You know, Johnny wants you to come in and take over the band on the show,’” Severinsen later recalled. “And it was the single biggest break of my life.” —M.M.

75. ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ | WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001-2003

One day, Nerf Herder were a geeky pop-punk band from Santa Barbara; the next, they were the authors of one of the 1990s most indelible instrumental theme songs. Over a quick cut montage of scenes, the song moves from monster-movie organ to full-on rock, sporting an absolutely sick guitar pick slide and climaxing at hardcore-punk speed and bash. The tune embodied the melodramatic feel of the late 1990s: High school might be on a hellmouth, but we’re gonna rock extremely hard murdering these undead allegories for our teenage trauma. —J.G.

74. ‘Moonlighting’ | ABC, 1985-89

One of the best shows of the 1980s, Moonlighting was an innovative — and, as chronicled by author Susan Faludi in her feminist classic Backlash, combustible — romance centered around Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. Al Jarreau’s memorable smooth-jazz theme serves as the perfect complement. Co-written with Lee Holdrige and produced by Nile Rodgers, he serenades a generation of adults immersed in the quiet storm and landed an unexpected Billboard top 30 hit in the process. “We’ll walk by night/We’ll fly by day/Moonlighting strangers/Who just met on the way,” sings Jarreau. —M.R.

73. ‘Boondocks’ | Adult Swim, Teletoon, 2004-15

Originally a comic strip by cartoonist Aaron McGruder, Boondocks was one of the 21st century’s classic cartoons for grown folks, featuring pint-size, intellectual Black militant Huey Freeman, who was always ready to educate, and his gangsta younger brother, Riley, who was always ready to throw down, living with their grandfather Robert in the vanilla suburbs. Hip-hop artist Asheru’s theme is note-perfect, crisp Nineties boom bap set to conscious lyrics: “I am the stone that the builder refused/I am the visual, the inspiration that made lady sing the blues.” Everything Huey embodies is here. —J.G.

72. ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ | Fox, 2000-06

A brilliant kid is stuck in an eccentric family with an overbearing mother, a space-cadet father, and his horrible brothers — of course the theme song is an original by life-long nerd popsters They Might Be Giants. “Boss of Me” is TMBG at their power-pop finest, picking up a picked-on kid’s POV perfectly (“You’re not the boss of me now/And you’re not so big”). It grabbed a Grammy in 2002, the band’s first, for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, and Other Visual Media. All together now: “Life is unfaaaiiiir.” —J.G.

71. ‘Parks and Recreation’ | NBC, 2009-15

It was a very tough call between Parks and its creative siblings The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The choice ultimately came down to two things: 1) The optimistic spirit of Gaby Moreno and Vincent Jones’ jaunty folk tune is a much closer match for the tone of Parks than the others are for their respective shows (even if the horns on Brooklyn are fabulous); and 2) The Parks theme inspired that viral video showing how you can sing the phrase “Jabba the Hutt” over the instrumentals. —A.S.

70. ‘Phineas & Ferb’ | Disney Channel, 2008-15

Few cartoons have incorporated original ditties as cannily as this modern kids’ TV classic (see also the jaw-dropping stylistic range of the show’s brief, brilliant songs), so it’s not surprising that the theme is terrific. A zippy ode to using every moment of summer vacation to do cool stuff, “Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day” was written by show creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh and performed by Bowling for Soup (Bowling songwriter Jaret Reddick added lyrics for a pop-single version and continued to contribute music to the show). It is impossible to hear this and not have a great day (or a decent next hour or so). —J.G.

69. ‘Full House’ | ABC, 1987-95

There was fierce debate in the Rolling Stone Slack about whether to go with “Everywhere You Look” from Full House or another Jesse Frederick/Bennett Salvay collaboration, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now” from Perfect Strangers. Ultimately, all of the Frederick-Salvay theme songs from ABC’s “TGIF” sitcom block of the late Eighties and early Nineties — see also Family Matters and Step by Step — feel like part of the same musical tapestry, featuring uplifting arrangements and lyrics, the latter of which loosely applied to each show, but which were generic enough on the whole to make each viewer feel good about whatever their family situation was at the time. Frederick also sang many of their themes, including “Everywhere You Look,” though when it was time for the legasequel Fuller House, Carly Rae Jepsen was brought in to cover the familiar tune. —A.S.

68. ‘S.W.A.T.’ | ABC, 1975-76

The Steve Forrest-Robert Urich vehicle about an unnamed American city’s Special Weapons and Tactics unit only lasted one season. But its theme song, composed by Barry de Vorzon (who also co-wrote “Nadia’s Theme,” the icy piano lament that opened the CBS soap The Young and the Restless) and performed by the Los Angeles funk rockers Rhythm Heritage, was a hit, reaching Number One on the Hot 100 in early 1976 and eventually being sampled by the likes of LL Cool J and 3rd Bass. “Theme From S.W.A.T.” is a fiery instrumental with equal parts funk groove, disco grandiosity, and butt-rock choogle, amalgamating various mid-Seventies aesthetics into a battering ram of a track. —M.J.

67. ‘Dawson’s Creek’ | WB, 1998-2003

The opening credits for the seminal teen drama were meant to be accompanied by Alanis Morrissette’s “Hand in My Pocket,” and were even edited to match that song (as you can see here). But if Paula Cole’s ballad “I Don’t Want to Wait” doesn’t flow as seamlessly with the visuals, the plaintive emotions in the song were ultimately a better fit for the melodramatic highs and lows of Dawson, Joey, Pacey, Jen, and friends. —A.S.

66. ‘Happy Days’ | ABC, 1974-84

One of the most indelible sitcom themes in an era chock full of them, “Happy Days” is almost aggressively cheery — Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox’s “Rock Around the Clock” tribute demanded allegiance to the Boomer nostalgia for the Fifties then sweeping the nation thanks to American Graffiti. The show was a ratings sensation after its second season, and the theme became a pop smash; the single (backed with the amazingly named “Crusin’ With the Fonz,”) hit Number Five on the Billboard Hot 100. Given the TV show’s late-Seventies Gen X fanbase, the line “These days are ours” was ironic — the days depicted, in fact, belonged to their parents. —J.G.

65. ‘Peacemaker’ | HBO Max, 2022-Present

As with Pachinko, the opening to James Gunn’s TV spinoff of John Cena’s meatheaded anti-hero from The Suicide Squad is evidence that having your cast members dance during the opening credits makes any show at least five percent better. In this case, it’s an elaborately choreographed number scored to Norwegian glam-metal band Wig Wam’s “Do Ya Wanna Taste It.” The neon-laden set and the retro vibe of the song help set up the idea that our title character is trapped in a version of the past he’s barely old enough to remember. Plus, it just kicks ass. —A.S.

64. ‘The Wonder Years’ | ABC, 1988-93

The producers of The Wonder Years had no shortage of Sixties songs they could have picked to bring back memories of the era, but it’s hard to imagine a better choice than Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends.” It managed to stir up nostalgic feelings for the Beatles, Woodstock, Cocker, and the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour for a generation of Baby Boomers that longed to go back to a more innocent time in their lives. If you want to feel old: A show today that took place two decades in the past would be set in 2002. A theme for that could be Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” or Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” —A.G.

63. ‘Taxi’ | ABC, 1978-82; NBC, 1982-83

When Taxi debuted in the fall of 1978, its theme song was the upbeat title track from jazz-fusion keyboard player Bob James’ 1977 album Touchdown. But early in the first season, they switched things up and went with the more laid-back “Angela,” another James tune from the same album. The tranquilly funky song was the perfect urban-pastorale soundtrack for the daytime cab trip over the Queensboro Bridge in the opening credits. In the late Seventies, New York was usually depicted as a decaying, crime-infested toilet. The Taxi opening’s serene visuals and chill music offered a somber, sweeter, more humbly inviting idea of the city. And that slow ride was symbolic, gliding us toward a brighter future for the Big Apple that turned out to be just around the corner. —J.D.

62. ‘Friday Night Lights’ | NBC, 2006-11

Austin instrumental rockers Explosions in the Sky composed the score to the 2004 movie Friday Night Lights, with their song “Your Hand in Mine” as the film’s theme. Asked if they would like it to open the TV show, the band declined. (“Boy, did we shoot ourselves in the foot with that one,” said guitarist Munaf Rayani in a 2019 interview with Texas Monthly.) Veteran soundtrack composer W.G. “Snuffy” Walden aped their epic sound and created a catchy, 47-second Explosions soundalike. The song’s emotional sweep, as big as a Lone Star dawn, became the de facto 2000s sound of sports’ struggle, longing, and triumph. (See also the score to Moneyball.) —J.G.

61. ‘The Drew Carey Show’ | ABC, 1995-2004

The Drew Carey Show began with a minimalist opening-credits sequence, with its star crooning ”Moon Over Parma,” Bob McGuire’s ode to love in a Cleveland suburb. It seemed fitting because the show took place in Cleveland, and because it was framed as a kind of no-frills, blue-collar alternative to Friends. Then the series struck a chord with viewers by opening an early episode with a dance number set to ”Five O’Clock World” by the Vogues, and soon a compacted version of that became the new theme song. “Five O’Clock World” ultimately did its job too well, helping make the show successful enough that they were able to send the whole cast to Cleveland to film a much more elaborate new opening, with Drew and company dancing around town to the Presidents of the United States’ cover of Ian Hunter’s “Cleveland Rocks.” And somehow a show that would not have seemed a natural music venue at all came to be defined by how it used its theme songs, down to mixing and matching cover versions of all three in later seasons. —A.S.

60. ‘The Odd Couple’ | ABC, 1970-75

“Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?” Fortunately, not these two. Tony Randall’s uptight Felix and Jack Klugman’s party-animal Oscar spent five years as mismatched roommates on The Odd Couple. The opening credits lay out the backstory: “On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife.” Neil Hefti, Count Basie’s longtime wingman and arranger, composed the jazz theme, a few years after he did the honors for Batman (As he joked, that credit should go, “Word and music by Neil Hefti”). With its tingling harpsichords, it’s a romantic portrait of New York for the not-so-romantic Seventies — especially that surge near the end, in the beautiful moment where Oscar and Felix dance on Sheep Meadow in Central Park. —R.S.

59. ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ | CBS, 1960-68

The opening credits for The Andy Griffith Show only last about 25 seconds, and that was all it took to enshrine its theme song as some of the most beloved and easily recognized whistling ever recorded. The song was called “The Fishin’ Hole” and the whistle you hear belonged to composer Earle Hagen (who also wrote theme music for The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, and The Mod Squad). In 1961, it was released in two versions on an album called Themes and Laughs From The Andy Griffith Show — one has lyrics, the other is a Stan Kenton-stye jazz number that gives this Edenic evocation of carefree small-town life some urbane West Coast swing. —J.D.

58. ‘Frasier’ | NBC, 1993-2004

The hit Cheers spinoff’s theme song is a double rarity: It plays over the end credits rather than the opening title, and it’s performed by the show’s own leading man, Kelsey Grammer. And, boy, does he ever go for it. “Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs” is a jazzy little number composed by Bruce Miller, with lyrics by Darryl Phinnessee that playfully reference the show’s radio-show psychiatry premise. (The titular foods are mixed up just like Dr. Crane’s patients, get it?) It’s a perfectly odd choice, enhanced by the variety of versions Grammer recorded, each featuring its own unique vocal vamping. A “Scrambled eggs all over my face, what is a boy to do?” episode was always something to look forward to. —S.T.C.

57. ‘Welcome Back, Kotter’ | ABC, 1975-79

John Sebastian was a lifelong New Yorker whose band the Lovin’ Spoonful epitomized the Sixties at its most loose, fun and optimistic on hits like “Do You Believe in Magic,” “Daydream,” and “Summer in the City.” He brought that same warm, street-corner-conversation vibe to the song he was asked to write for a new ABC sitcom about a Brooklyn guy who comes back home to his old neighborhood to take a gig teaching at his old high school. His Sweathog serenade “Welcome Back” was so good the producers changed the name of the show from Kotter to Welcome Back, Kotter, and after Sebastian padded out his short demo into a full song, it went to Number One in May 1976. —J.D. 

56. ‘Seinfeld’ | NBC, 1989-98

From the start, Seinfeld didn’t adhere to sitcom convention, so why should its music have done the same? Composer and musician Jonathan Wolff was given an unusual assignment — writing an opener that would accompany but not interfere with Jerry Seinfeld’s opening standup routines. Wolff conceived of Seinfeld’s voice in those bits as a sort of melody, then came up with a smattering of quirky accompanying sounds that conjured finger snapping and the sped-up pace of New York City. “Instead of using drums or other instruments, I used sounds that could go with his human voice and used the pacing of his words to go with his tempo,” Wolff said. Messing with the formula even further, that theme could subtly change with each episode. And that slap bass that lends the Seinfeld theme an added element of charming, jam-band loosey-goosiness? Also unconventional — that’s a synth. —D.B.

55. ‘M*A*S*H’ | CBS, 1972-83

The late, great director Robert Altman used to grumble that while he barely made any money for his hit movie M*A*S*H or its long-running sitcom adaptation, his son actually made a mint for co-writing (with Johnny Mandel) the song “Suicide Is Painless,” featured prominently in the film and later in the show. None of Mike Altman’s sardonic lyrics made the jump from the big screen to the small, but the instrumental version heard weekly on TV — and then ad infinitum in syndication — does capture the original’s tone, which is equal parts wistful, boisterous, and absurd. —N.M.

54. ‘Lost’ | ABC, 2004-10

Michael Giacchino wrote hours of outstanding music for this genre-bending drama, with motifs that evoked suspense, adventure, terror, romance, comedy, and mystery. And yet the show’s signature sound remains the 15 seconds of eerie ambient noise — composed by creator and producer J.J. Abrams — which provides the transition out of each episode’s opening sequence. As a blurred, all-caps “LOST” floats and twists against a black backdrop, the disorienting, dissonant tones on the soundtrack put the audience in the place of the castaways on a magical uncharted island, wondering, “Guys, where are we?” —N.M.

53. ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ | NBC, 1978-85; ABC, 1985-86

Years before his son Robin blurred the lines between songwriting and plagiarism, Alan Thicke, along with his then-wife Gloria Loring and co-composer Al Burton, penned this earworm ode to racially mixed families or being yourself or somehow both. The lyrics are both Seventies feel-good vague (“Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum/What might be right for you, may not be right for some”) and economically specific (“A man is born, he’s a man of means/Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans”). Shout out to anyone who thought the last word was “genes.” —J.G.

52. ‘In Living Color’ | Fox, 1990-94

During its five-season run, In Living Color featured many of the biggest hip-hop acts of the Nineties, including Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, A Tribe Called Quest, and Mary J. Blige. For the theme song, they turned to Heavy D. and the Boyz. They delivered a New Jack Swing-inspired tune about tearing down racial divides, which certainly fit on a show that featured the comedy stylings of both Jamie Foxx and Jim Carey. “And how would you feel knowin’ prejudice was obsolete,” Heavy D raps. “And all mankind danced to the exact beat/And at night it was safe to walk down the street?” —A.G.

51. ‘Match Game’ | CBS/Syndicated, 1973-82

Every game show needs a theme to set the mood, whether it’s the splashy consumerist hysteria of The Price Is Right or the cerebral tone of Jeopardy! (composed by noted intellectual Merv Griffin). But The Match Game did it better than anyone, with Ken Bichel’s tipsy 1970s synth-funk. Gene Rayburn hosted this bizarre day-drinking bitchfest, with a panel full of flamboyant personalities trading risqué quips: Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers, Richard Dawson, Fannie Flagg, and others. The music captured their zany humor — it was the sonic equivalent of that surreal Day-Glo orange set. More fun than listening to a … blank! —R.S.

50. ‘Sesame Street’ | PBS, 1969-Present; HBO, 2016-20; HBO Max, 2020-Present

He wasn’t a big yellow bird or a furry blue monster, but Joe Raposo was as integral to the success of the children’s educational institution Sesame Street as any Muppet. In addition to writing classic Sesame songs like “Bein’ Green,” “Sing,” and “C Is for Cookie” — that’s good enough for me — Raposo composed the jaunty, instantly recognizable theme song that helped lodge the show in the public consciousness. With lyrics by Raposo, Jon Stone, and Bruce Hart, “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?” conjures up images of smiling kids running down the sidewalk on a sunny day — headed, in the words of Don Draper, to a place where they know they are loved. —S.T.C.

49. ‘How to Make It in America’ | HBO, 2010-11

No one would ever attempt to claim that this comedy about two buddies trying to break into the fashion business — an unofficial attempt at an East Coast Entourage — is among the great HBO shows of all time. Yet a convincing argument could be made that its opening credits — a montage of distinctly New York faces and images of strivers and hustlers in action, cut against the addictive beat of Aloe Blacc’s “I Need a Dollar” — are among the greatest ever featured on a channel with a long history of iconic intro sequences. —A.S.

48. ‘The Love Boat’ | ABC, 1977-86

“The love boat! Soon we’ll be making another run!” sings adult-pop stalwart Jack Jones on this vintage slice of Seventies disco cheese. “Charlie Fox gave me this melody, said that it was a new series called The Love Boat, it was about a cruise ship,” lyricist Paul Williams, who wrote the song with composer Fox, told Songfacts in 2007. “We honestly didn’t think it was going to last six weeks. We thought, ‘Who’s going to watch a series about a cruise ship?’” Decades later, it’s still unclear how a comedy-drama about a cruise ship became an era-defining hit. But Fox and Williams’ hooky theme song that made “love exciting and new” had a lot to do with it. —M.R.

47. “Orange Is the New Black” | Netflix, 2013-19

Regina Spektor first worked with showrunner Jenji Kohan when she covered the Weeds theme song, “Little Boxes,” during the second season of that show. And when Kohan started to think about a song for her Netflix prison show Orange Is the New Black a few years later, she turned again to Spektor. “She told me about the premise and some of the vignettes over lunch, some of the stories,” Spektor told Stereogum this year. “I instantly started to imagine things. … It just sounded so cool and unique, and to have a show with so many women of different ages and races.” After watching rough cuts of a few episodes, Spektor penned a song about the horror of facing endless time while packed tightly into a cage like an animal. “Think of all the roads,” she sings. “Think of all their crossings/Taking steps is easy/Standing still is hard.” —A.G.

46. ‘Bonanza’ | NBC, 1959-73

Frankly, a list like this could be filled top to bottom with Westerns, given how many cowboy shows grab viewers with galloping tempos and energetic twang. But the Bonanza theme is one that lots of folks still enthusiastically hum — even if they’ve never spent a single minute watching the Cartwrights roam around the Ponderosa Ranch. Though this series is a mature drama about the changing cultural mores in 1860s Nevada, the credits music is downright rollicking, with its rapidly strummed guitars and pumping horns. It’s an invitation to frontier adventure, meant to get people’s hearts racing before anyone even draws a gun or throws a punch. —N.M.

45. “Gilmore Girls” | (WB, 2000-2006; CW, 2006-2007)

Producer Lou Adler almost kept “Where You Lead” off Carole King’s 1971 classic Tapestry. “[It] didn’t really fit in quite as much with the other singer-songwriter-type things,” King’s daughter Louise Goffin later said. Fittingly, when Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino requested King’s permission to use “Where You Lead” for her new show’s theme, King sang it with Louise, though she told her daughter, “Don’t get your hopes up. Pilots usually don’t go anywhere.” (King also revised the lyrics to make them less overtly subservient.) This pilot did take off — and King began appearing occasionally as a record-shop owner in Stars Hollow beginning in Season Two. —M.M.

44. ‘Living Single’ | Fox, 1993-98

Queen Latifah’s theme song powered her beloved mid-Nineties sitcom about four friends living and loving in Brooklyn. Just as with her hits, like “Ladies First” and “U.N.I.T.Y.,” she switched between singing the chorus and rapping with aplomb, all atop a New Jill Swing groove. In addition to introducing the show’s characters, the opening sequence features longtime choreographer and future Rap City co-host Leslie “Big Lez” Segar in silhouette, busting fierce and athletic dance moves. —M.R.

43. ‘Law & Order’ | NBC, 1990-2010; 2022-Present

Mike Post already had experience creating theme songs for Hill Street Blues and The Rockford Files when Dick Wolf tapped him to create an intro for his new police procedural. Using clarinet, guitar, and electric piano, Post managed to plunk out a theme that wouldn’t be just recognizable for generations of true-crime addicts — it would become the basis for the franchise’s countless iterations. But it’s Post’s other, midshow music that he’ll probably be best remembered for: the dun-dun that introduces scene-cards throughout the show. “I think of it as the stylized sound of a jail cell locking,” he said. Lucky for him, it’s considered a piece of music, not a sound effect, meaning he gets a royalty every time it plays. —E.G.P.

42. ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ | Nickelodeon, 1999-Present

When any millennial or zillenial hears “Are you ready kids?,” they’d also know to immediately respond “Aye, aye, captain!” The SpongeBob theme song has been covered by icons like Avril Lavigne and CeeLo Green, and this year even served as walk-up music for the Cleveland Guardians’ outfielder Oscar Gonzalez. Composed by Mark Harrison and Blaise Smith, with lyrics by late creator Stephen Hillenburg, this song is the perfect introduction to a world of high-pitched laughs, hijinks, and Krabby Patties, and it made sea shanties cool before “The Wellerman” took over TikTok. After 23 years, the song and show are still going strong. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? In a certain sense, we all do. —T.K.

41. ‘Sex and the City’ | HBO, 1998-2004

The opening credits are most famous for Carrie Bradshaw’s tutu, which Sarah Jessica Parker and costume designer Patricia Field had to fight to include as a sign of all the fashion choices that would follow. But the concept for the song itself —  a “Latin, cocktail-themed vibe” — came straight from creator Darren Star. (Composer Douglas Cuomo said he found inspiration for it in the “Space-Age Bachelor Pad” section of the Virgin Megastore.) Though the song has become instantly recognizable, the scene itself seems almost disconnected from the reality of the show; shot in March 1998, a few months before the series premiered, it features Carrie getting splashed by a bus that bears her face — a fitting metaphor for the rest of the series, but with a character whom the star was still figuring out. “If we had shot it a year later, I would’ve understood exactly how she walks,” Parker told Entertainment Weekly. “But that was part of figuring it out that day.” —E.G.P.

40. ‘The Monkees’ | NBC, 1966-68

The songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Heart are responsible for many of the Monkees’ biggest hits, including “Last Train to Clarksville,” “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” and “I Wanna Be Free.” They also wrote this zany theme song to the sitcom, inspired by the Dave Clark Five’s hit “Catch Me If You Can.” It introduced the tweens of 1966 to Davy, Peter, Micky, and Mike — but not all of those guys loved the song. “I was very interested in rock & roll music, music that was setting the tone and the tenor of the times, music that was a soundtrack to a generation,” said Michael Nesmith. “So that didn’t fit, and I was vocal about not liking it.” The public disagreed, and it remains one of their most famous tunes, despite the fact that they never bothered to play it live a single time across six decades of concerts. —A.G.

39. ‘The X-Files’ | Fox, 1993-2002, 2016-18

https://youtu.be/Vpqffgak7To

It flitters. It flutters. It whistles at you like some unidentified creature in a dark forest at night. It has the awesome Tool-like alternate title “Materia Primoris.” It’s “The X-Files Theme,” it’s by composer Mark Snow, and it was created literally by accident, when Snow’s elbow struck his keyboard and created the sound he’d been looking for. A perfect musical representation of the spooky, sexy adventures of FBI agents Mulder and Scully, it’s taken on a second life since its Nineties heyday (when a remixed version hit the charts worldwide), as a sonic synonym for conspiracy theories in countless memes. —S.T.C.

38. ‘The Golden Girls’ | NBC, 1985-92

It’s forever associated with Bea Arthur, Betty White, Estelle Getty, and Rue McClanahan’s Eighties sitcom classic, but “Thank You for Being a Friend” is actually a glorious hand-me-down. Originally a Top 40 hit for Andrew Gold, a soft-rock fixture who enlisted session gods Waddy Wachtel and Jeff Porcaro for the track, it wound up achieving even greater fame via NBC’s Saturday-night lineup and a cover version by Cynthia Fee. It’s such a perfect tribute to the rocky but loyal friendships of Miami’s fab four that you can’t help but want to be like this guy and thank the song itself for being a friend. —S.T.C.

37. ‘Dragnet’ | NBC, 1951-59, 1967-70

“Dunnn da dun dunn. Dunnn da dun dunn dunnnnnnn.” The story you are about to hear is true: This nine-note embodiment of the long arm of the law reaching out to grab you by your criminal neck was itself the subject of a legal dispute. Composer Walter Schumann allegedly lifted the leitmotif from a passage from Mikós Rózsa’s score for the 1946 noir The Killers, titled “Danger Ahead.” Whatever you call it, it sounds exactly like creator and star Jack Webb looks: hard-boiled, relentless, and triumphantly square. —S.T.C.

36. ‘Laverne & Shirley’ | ABC, 1976-83

Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel’s first crack at penning a follow-up to their successful Happy Days theme required an important revision. Fox and Gimbel wrote an inspirational song about how blue-collar best friends Laverne and Shirley wished their dreams would come true, so they could live bigger lives than working in a brewery. But the Laverne & Shirley producers objected to the idea that their title characters would just sit around and hope for better things, which is how “wishing our dreams will come true” became the radio smash “Making Our Dreams Come True,” with vocals by Cindy Grecco. —A.S.

35. ‘Twin Peaks’ | ABC, 1990-91; Showtime, 2017

From the moment it became an unexpected sensation in 1990, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks was like nothing television viewers had ever seen. For the love of Bob, when it returned for a third season in 2017, it was still like nothing television viewers had ever seen. The theme music followed suit. Composed by Lynch’s eternal musical collaborator Angelo Badalamenti, it’s a painfully dreamy instrumental that gently washes over you like the spray of the town’s waterfall. A vocal version with lyrics by Lynch and a performance by singer Julee Cruise, titled “Falling,” became a dream-pop classic, too — as beautiful and haunting as Laura Palmer’s smile. —S.T.C.

34. ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ | CBS, 1979-85

The key name in the credits: “Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer.” The outlaw-country legend narrated each episode of The Dukes of Hazzard in his down-home Texas drawl. He also sang the theme song, explaining how the wild-ass Duke cousins were “just two good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm.” Jennings always enhanced the onscreen action with comments like “Roscoe and Enos couldn’t count a dozen eggs without takin’ off their shoes.” “Good Ol’ Boys” hit Number One on the country charts — and shoot, it also done turned into Jennings’ biggest dang Top 40 crossover ever. Yeee — and this narrative nuance cannot be emphasized enough — haaaw! —R.S.

33. ‘The Addams Family’ | ABC, 1964-66

It uses “ooky” in a lyric so that no one else would have to: Veteran TV-music writer Vic Mizzy’s original theme song explained the plot of ABC’s horror-comedy — premiering the same year, 1964, that CBS tried the same premise. (Shout out to The Munsters’ theme, a swinging cousin of The Flintstones, minus the exposition.) The Addams Family theme, helped along by co-star Ted Cassidy intoning some rhymes in character as Lurch (“Petite!”), proved so indestructible that it survived two different rewrites by early-Nineties pop-rappers, both tied to film remakes: MC Hammer’s “Addams Groove” and Tag Team’s “Addams Family (Whoomp!).” —M.M.

32. ‘Miami Vice’ | NBC, 1984-89

Three years after the launch of MTV, the music-video channel’s high-gloss aesthetics made it to prime-time network TV with Miami Vice, a fast-paced look at the drug trade in southern Florida. In addition to fighting crime, Miami Vice promoted music, too, spotlighting Phil Collins’ moody “In the Air Tonight” in its premiere episode and giving a boost to Glenn Frey’s post-Eagles solo career. Its pop power was so potent, it sent the show’s maximalist theme song, composed and produced by jazz-rocker Jan Hammer, to Number One. In its original and TV-time-compressed form, Hammer’s theme boils over with dramatic flourishes — drum-pad hits, slashes of synth, and a pealing guitar solo — while giving off a vibe that’s as pastel-colored cool as Crockett and Tubbs’ decade-defining outfits. —M.J.

31. ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ | CBS, 1970-77

The seeds of this classic theme song lay in Sonny Curtis’ 1970 single “Love Is All Around.” The original has a dreamy, string-laden arrangement typical of MOR pop during the era, as well as decidedly non-feminist lines like, “All the men around adore you/That sexy look will do wonders for you.” However, the version eventually broadcast during the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has a triumphantly orchestral sweep, a better fit for the iconic title character’s personal and professional growth. The song’s innumerable covers include a memorable 1985 version by Minneasta hardcore heroes Hüsker Dü, who even filmed a homespun video. Alas, they didn’t include Moore’s famous hat toss. —M.R.

30. ‘One Day at a Time’ | CBS, 1975-84; Netflix, 2017-19; Pop, 2020

Both the original Seventies-Eighties version of this Norman Lear sitcom and its more recent reboot are about a stressed-out divorced mom who juggles work, parenting, and occasionally romance. But while the latter take adds Latin rhythms to the Gloria Estefan-sung opening theme — to reflect its family’s Cuban roots — the melody and lyrics remain the work of Jeff and Nancy Barry, whose song “This Is It” distills what the show’s really about. “This is life/ The one you get/So go and have a ball,” read the words, describing what it’s like to suffer one disappointment after another, yet still keep going, joyfully. —N.M.

29. ‘The Greatest American Hero’ | ABC, 1981-83

Stephen Geyer’s self-deprecating lyrics and Mike Post’s slow-building power-ballad composition are a good match for the show’s lighthearted superheroics. But the full recording of Joey Scarbury’s performance of it quickly outgrew the show that gave birth to it. “Believe It or Not” was a radio staple in the early Eighties, making it all the way up to No. Two on the Billboard Hot 100, and spent more than four months in the Top 40. And years later, George Costanza recorded his own version for his outgoing answering-machine message. —A.S.

28. ‘Good Times’ | CBS, 1974-79

The Good Times theme song is joyously over the top. Folks of a certain age will fondly remember mimicking Jim Gilstrap, Blinky Williams, and an unnamed gospel choir’s wild vocal exuberance as the show aired each week, whether during its original run or its many years on syndication channels like TV One. Even now, the chorus — “Goood times … aaaahhh … yeahhhmmm!” — may be ringing in your head. Ironically, the lyrics of this hallmark of Seventies Black culture were written by two white Broadway veterans, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, with music composed by David Grusin. Given those origins, oft-disputed lyric “hangin’ in and jivin’” might not pass muster today. —M.R.

27. ‘Hill Street Blues’ | NBC, 1981-87

Written by Mike Post, the Mozart of TV theme songs — he counts The A-Team, The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, Blossom, and the Law & Order franchise among his many indelible contributions — “Hill Street Blues” soundtracked a show that brought a new sophistication to the police-procedural drama and laid the early groundwork for several subsequent TV renaissances. Its wistful piano melody was similarly nuanced (compare and contrast with Dragnet!), befitting its status as the sound of the smartest dramatic programming on the tube at the time. Small wonder it hit the Billboard Top 10. —S.T.C.

26. ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ | (Netflix, 2015-2019)

If this song got in your head right before you went into underground captivity for 15 years, it would probably still be there when you finally got out. Written by Jeff Richmond, this earworm starts off Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s comedy series about Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) navigating life in New York City after being held captive by a doomsday cult. It parodies viral autotuned news clips, specifically “The Bed Intruder Song” by the Gregory Brothers, who also produced this tune. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Richmond said he, Fey and Carlock wanted the theme song “to live as an anthem – a song of empowerment and humor,” which is the perfect embodiment of what Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is all about.–T.K.

25. ‘Succession’ | HBO, 2018-Present

Undergirding a classical piano piece with a grim, murky hip-hop beat, the music for Succession nicely drives home the notion of a ruling class that has descended into gangster decadence, of ambition and entitlement collapsing into chaos and nihilism. “Things are always kind of off-kilter in themselves,” composer Nicholas Britel has said of the music, “like the family in the show,” As Succession has progressed, that score has evolved, constantly shifting in emotional texture and tone until it feels like another character in the story — one of the few sympathetic ones, in fact. —J.D.

24. ‘Star Trek’ | NBC, 1966-69

“Space … the final frontier …” Like William Shatner’s iconic monologue, this minute of woosh and hum (composed by Alexander Courage and titled “Where No Man Has Gone Before”) points to the stars. Often mistaken for that most retrofuturist instrument, the theremin, the wordless melody line is sung in much of Season One by soprano Loulie Jean Norman, with flute and organ mixed in for an otherworldly feel. While various Star Trek movies and shows have their own themes, composers often use the original fanfare, as nothing else sounds quite like high adventure on strange new worlds.  —J.G.

23. ‘It’s Garry Shandling’s Show’ | Showtime, 1986-90

Garry Shandling’s Showtime series It’s Garry Shandling’s Show broke ground in meta-comedy during the Eighties, with Shandling often looking past the camera and addressing the audience to riff on on-set happenings. The happy-go-lucky theme song is similarly self-referential, with session musician Bill Lynch at one point crooning, “I’m almost halfway finished/How do you like it so far?” and warning the audience before he launches into some good-natured whistling. According to Judd Apatow’s 2019 Shandling tome, It’s Garry Shandling’s Book, the comedian and co-creator Alan Zweibel conceived and wrote the song while on a lengthy elevator ride, trading lines and finishing things up just in time to reach their floor. In comedy, after all, timing is everything. —M.J.  

22. ‘Peter Gunn’ | NBC, 1958-60; ABC, 1960-61

A theme song so ingrained into popular culture, you know it even if you’ve never heard of the show it introduced. It’s one of the earliest collaborations between director Blake Edwards and composer Henry Mancini — it later led to Mancini’s Pink Panther theme, which also grew beyond its original usage. Mancini’s relentless, sinister blend of rock, jazz, and blues now represents an entire era of hard-boiled-sleuthing entertainment, and would be used ironically decades later in comedies like The Blues Brothers and Sixteen Candles. It was even mashed up with “Every Breath You Take” for a memorable Sopranos sequence making fun of the FBI agents trying to catch Tony Soprano. —A.S.

21. ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ | HBO, 2000-Present

The moment you hear that womp-womp-womp, you know Larry David has done something equal parts horrendous and hilarious. That’s the musical promise of “Frolic,” an obscure piece of film music by Italian composer Luciano Michelini that David overheard in a bank commercial and hand-selected to be the incongruously cheery theme for his cringe-comedy masterpiece. (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia would take a similar approach.) It’s since taken on a life of its own on the internet, used to soundtrack a million memes and videos in which somebody, somewhere, really screws the pooch. —S.T.C.

20. ‘All in the Family’ | CBS, 1971-79

Norman Lear’s sitcom about the 1970s culture wars had the perfect intro: Edith and Archie Bunker sitting at the piano in their working-class Queens living room, singing “Those Were the Days.” It’s full of nostalgia for the pre-WWII days, before those damn hippies ruined everything: They salute Glenn Miller, Herbert Hoover, and the vintage LaSalle car. But it also reveals the warmth between Jean Stapleton’s Edith and Carroll O’Connor’s Archie. “Those Were the Days” felt like an authentic oldie, but it was written for the show by the Broadway team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, who did the musical Bye Bye Birdie. (Strouse later wrote Annie, which had a very different take on Herbert Hoover.) It’s one of the most parody-friendly TV themes ever; The Simpsons updated it for the Seventies (“Boy, the way the Bee Gees played/Movies John Travolta made”) and the Nineties (“Gee, our modem dialed up great”). Bonus applause for the equally evocative closing theme, “Remembering You,” by O’Connor and jazz pianist Roger Kellaway. —R.S.

19. ‘The Sopranos’ | HBO, 1999-2007

By far the best example of how the right credit sequence can combine with the right song to be something special. On its own, Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning” is a pretty cliched, irritating example of turn of the century trip-hop. Yet somehow, when it’s accompanying Tony Soprano’s long, unglamorous drive from the Lincoln Tunnel to his suburban Jersey home, it is impossible to imagine a tune that is more ominous, more absorbing, or more suited to the task of getting the viewer into the proper mindset to watch the most transformational TV series of our time. —A.S.

18. ‘The Simpsons’ | Fox, 1989-Present

The first meeting between Simpsons creator Matt Groening and composer Danny Elfman began on an awkward note. In his days as a rock critic for the Los Angeles Reader, Groening had panned Elfman’s band, Oingo Boingo. “When we had our first meeting,” Groening recalled, “he said, ‘So you’re the one.’ But he forgave me, because I also went on to make fun of rock critics a lot in my cartoon scripts.” Elfman, riding high on the success of his Batman score, wanted to do “something that’s frantic and frenetic, like the scores of the great shows of the 1960s. I always thought that the shows of the Seventies and Eighties were so wimpy and very tentative.” That would not be the case for the orchestral chaos of his Simpsons theme, which has endured for more than 30 years, and has proven versatile enough to expand and contract depending on how long the opening credits are meant to run from one episode to the next. —A.S.

17. ‘The Muppet Show’ | ITV (U.K.)/CBS (U.S. Syndication), 1976-81

Let’s say you’re producing a variety show, staffed entirely by dogs and bears and frogs and pigs and long-nosed blue weirdos of an unspecified nature. Let’s say you want to craft a “Hey, the show must go on” anthem befitting the facts (and fur and feathers) on the ground. The result would most likely be pretty much exactly what Muppet maestro Jim Henson and co-writer Sam Pottle came up with: a brassy, bouncy ode to the Muppets’ ramshackle DIY ethos, in which even the show’s resident hecklers, Statler and Waldorf, eventually got a verse of their own. Gonzo, blow your horn! —S.T.C.

16. ‘The Rockford Files’ | NBC 1974-80

Jim Rockford was the private eye who lived in a trailer and always got his ass kicked — but as played by James Garner, he had the cockiest grin on TV. (Dope sideburns, too.) The Rockford Files theme captured Rockford’s sly bravado as well as his hard-luck blues. It was a Top 10 hit in 1975 for composer Mike Post (who has so many bangers on this list) and partner Pete Carpenter. That lonesome harmonica solo was played by Tommy Morgan, who also honked the licking stick on the Sanford and Son theme, not to mention the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” The theme song always kicked off with a message on Jim Rockford’s answering machine — for most Seventies viewers, it was the first time they ever heard of one. —R.S.

15. ‘Mission: Impossible’ | CBS, 1966-73

When this spy series debuted in 1966, it arrived during the heyday of Bond-mania, when stylish stories about supercool secret agents were all the rage. Lalo Schifirin’s explosive theme song gave the show its own cinematic flair. It’s like a mini movie in and of itself, with its sizzling opening sting, pounding bongo beat, and trilling flutes. The song set a new standard for how action-adventures should sound, influencing themes for Ironside, S.W.A.T., and more — as well as providing a hook to the scores for the blockbuster M:I movies. —N.M.

14. ‘The Wire’ | HBO, 2002-08

Throughout its five seasons, The Wire featured a different interpretation of Tom Waits’ song “Way Down in the Hole,” including the original version, from his 1987 album, Franks Wild Years. Series creator David Simon told Entertainment Weekly that he initially planned on Waits’ “Get Behind the Mule,” but it didn’t quite fit. “I went back and looked for similar things that were suggestive of the ubiquitous drudgery and pain of whatever you’re engaged in,” he said. Indeed, the lyrics about keeping “the devil way down in the hole” are both universal and specifically relevant to The Wire’s portrayal of Baltimore residents resisting and falling into deadly temptations. Meanwhile, its guttural blues-rock sound hints at historic civic injustices that the series explores with brilliant insight. —M.R.

13. ‘Cheers’ | NBC, 1982-93

It’s a little bit like no one told “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” that it’s the opening theme for one of the funniest TV shows of all time. Performed by Gary Portnoy, who co-wrote it with Judy Hart Angelo, the song opens with a somber melody and lyrics that acknowledge the difficulties of modern life, before launching into a rousing chorus about the simple beauty of going someplace where you’re recognized and acknowledged for who you are. Like the show’s dark wooden fixtures and golden lighting, it helped make Cheers feel like your Thursday-night home away from home. —S.T.C.

12. ‘Hawaii Five-O’| CBS, 1968-80

The barreling drums and crisp brass of Morton Stevens’ theme for the sunny police procedural Hawaii Five-O announce a show with two purposes: fighting crime and showcasing the Aloha State’s natural beauty. Surf rock’s faster songs already had a natural propulsion, thanks to its ferociously played guitars; the CBS Orchestra’s pomp only added to the track’s explosiveness, particularly on its indelible riff. Covered by many, including the surf-rock titans the Ventures, and paid homage by many more, including the Aussie proto-punks Radio Birdman and Hawaii’s own Don Ho, the Hawaii Five-O theme’s legacy has even outlasted the show’s 21st-century reboot. —M.J.

11. ‘Game of Thrones’ | HBO, 2011-19

It took some time before Game of Thrones became the blockbuster hit of the 2010s, but composer Ramin Djawadi’s iconic theme music made it sound like the biggest thing on television right from the jump. A three-quarter-time swirl of magic and mystery, it perfectly mirrored both the show’s sweeping scope and the clockwork imagery of the title sequence. The song became so firmly identified with GoT’s genre-redefining flavor fantasy that when the time came to select the theme for the prequel series, House of the Dragon, HBO simply used it again. Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t shout dracarys at it. —S.T.C.

10. ‘Too Many Cooks’ | Adult Swim, 2014

Look, we were half-tempted to put this right at the top of the list. And it’s not just that once you hear “Too Many Cooks” it will take years of intensive psychotherapy to get it out of your head. It’s also that writer Casper Kelly (co-creator of Adult Swim’s Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell) hangs two irresistible questions on that earworm: (1) What if a TV show consisted entirely of its own theme song? (2)What if that theme song was somehow every theme song, from every genre? So what begins in familiar family-sitcom territory soon becomes a workplace comedy, a gritty cop drama, science fiction, a Saturday-morning cartoon, a slasher movie, and, inevitably, a cooking show. And it just. Keeps. Going. Adult Swim originally aired it at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, yet the short film instantly went viral, because how could something this insane, but also this catchy, not? —A.S.

9. ‘The O.C.’ | Fox, 2003-07

O.C. creator Josh Schwartz was so determined to fill his teen soap with his favorite indie-rock music that the soundtrack for the first half-dozen episodes is just made up of songs he had on his iPod. Most successful among those is his use of this soaring Phantom Planet ballad. Originally meant to just accompany a montage of the show’s main character arriving in Newport Beach for the first time, it struck such a chord with everyone who saw the pilot that it became the theme song, as well as a crossover radio hit. And it ushered in an era when The O.C., and the shows that followed it, like Grey’s Anatomy, made indie rock a familiar piece of TV’s sonic landscape. And the show wound up making “California” so popular that the estates of Joseph Meyer and B.G. De Sylva sued for a shared songwriting credit and cut of the rights, since Phantom Planet frontman Alex Greenwald and drummer Jason Schwartzman had incorporated a few of the lyrics to Meyer and De Sylva’s Al Jolson hit “California, Here I Come.” —A.S. 

8. ‘Friends’ | NBC, 1994-2004

The oversize suits. The awkward dancing. The half-singing-along. The claps. Does anything say “Nineties white people” more than the opening of Friends? This poppy Rembrandts song — modeled off R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” — set the tone for the ultra-caffeinated antics of the Central Perk sextet, reminding the viewers the group did truly care about one another, even if they hate Ross for being smart. —E.G.P.

7. ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ | NBC, 1990-96

Thanks to decades in syndication since its original early-Nineties run, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s theme song to the classic sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is one of a few old-school rap songs that every generation knows the words to. The Philadelphia duo’s track has a strong resemblance to their breakthrough 1988 hit, “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” as the Fresh Prince cheerfully and humorously breaks down his journey from a city playground “where I spend most of days” to his throne in a rich Los Angeles enclave. Check the original song “Yo Home to Bel Air,” which has extra squeaky-clean rhymes that didn’t air on TV. —M.R.

6. ‘The Twilight Zone’ | (CBS, 1959-’64)

Bernard Herrmann’s screeching strings from Psycho. John Williams’ menacing Oh, no, here it comes theme from Jaws. John Carpenter’s eerie, insistent Halloween hook. These sounds are instantly synonymous with horror, and Maurice Constant’s Twilight Zone theme stands right alongside them. Starting with the show’s second season (replacing the original theme by Herrmann), Constant’s music sounded like a blaring siren, warning you that something terrible is about to befall the legion of legendary actors who populated creator Rod Serling’s macabre morality plays. To this day, it’s the go-to tune to nervously hum to yourself when something really weird has happened and you feel like you’ve entered … —S.T.C.

5. ‘Mister Rogers‘ Neighborhood’ | PBS, 1968-2001

https://youtu.be/_SFgEyJ5D-8

Fred Rogers did not have a fabulous singing voice. But that’s the whole point of every Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood song, in particular the Rogers-penned “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” So much of the series is about encouraging small children to believe in themselves and go with confidence out into the world. And what better way to convey this idea, episode after episode, season after season, decade after decade, than to welcome viewers in with the sound of Rogers warbling this familiar tune with warmth and complete self-assurance? He’s implicitly telling his young audience that it’s OK to do things you enjoy doing, even if you’re not going to be perfect at them, and he does it while the lyrics are encouraging them to sit a while and bask in his exceedingly kind and gentle presence. Many of the other kids-show themes on this list are more interesting and ambitious musically, but none understand the assignment better than “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” —A.S.

4. ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ | CW, 2015-19

Every episode of this delightful musical-comedy-drama hybrid featured at least two note-perfect song pastiches in a wide variety of styles, from the songwriting team of Rachel Bloom (also the show’s star and co-creator), Adam Schlesinger (a.k.a. the chief songwriter of Fountains of Wayne and the man responsible for “That Thing You Do!”), and Jack Dolgen. The trio brought that chameleonic quality to the theme song as well, which morphed each season to fit a new style and a new phase of the series. Season One’s theme (written just by Bloom and Dolgen) is an expository Broadway-style tune explaining the show’s premise even as it makes fun of the more problematic superficial aspects of it. (“The situation’s a lot more nuanced than that!”) Season Two goes classic Hollywood musical with a Busby Berkeley-ish number, where Bloom’s Rebecca Bunch insists that being in love relieves her of responsibility for her actions. By Season Three, Rebecca is genuinely struggling with mental illness, so the new theme — where Bloom channels, among others, Carrie Underwood and Eminem — confronts that idea more darkly. And as Rebecca starts to get her act together, the final season opens with a TGIF-sitcom parody, with a frequently changing punchline, called “Meet Rebecca!” The story wrapped up perfectly by the end of that season, but it’s hard not to wonder what other theme songs the trio might have crafted before Schlesinger’s tragic death early in the Covid pandemic. —A.S.

3. ‘Sanford and Son’ | NBC, 1972-77

After his father’s death, Quincy Jones threw himself into as much work as he could get, from producing records for Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway to continuing his steady diet of TV and movie scores. One of those assignments was a tune for a sitcom about a junk-shop owner and his son in Watts, based on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son. Since he was juggling so many other deadlines, Jones wrote the theme for Sanford and Son (officially known as “The Streetbeater”) in 20 minutes. Then, with the show’s setting in mind, he and his crack studio crew — including keyboardist George Duke, sax players Phil Woods and Ernie Watts, and harmonica player Tommy Morgan — cut a track as scrappy, funky, and lowrider gritty as Fred Sanford’s junk shop. Morgan’s bass harmonica in particular was meant to conjure the throaty rasp of the show’s star, notoriously raunchy comic Redd Foxx. “I just wrote what he looked like,” Jones said. “It sounds just like him, doesn’t it? It was just like Foxx.” —D.B.

2. TIE: ‘The Brady Bunch’ and ‘Gilligan’s Island’ | ABC, 1969-74; CBS, 1964-67

A tie between the two all-time great expository themes, with lyrics by creator Sherwood Schwartz. As Schwartz said, “Confused people don’t laugh.” So “The Brady Bunch” and “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle” are the platonic ideal of what a theme song should be: catchy tunes that introduce the characters and tell you everything you need to know before watching. A lovely lady, a man named Brady, three girls, three boys — any questions? Seven castaways on an island — we good? That’s the principle behind all of the great premise-explaining cheat-sheet TV themes, from The Beverly Hillbillies and The Odd Couple to Charlie’s Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man. True, Schwartz ducked the question of why Ginger and the Howells packed 98 episodes’ worth of couture for a three-hour tour. But “Stairway to Gilligan’s Island” became a 1978 novelty classic; Robert Plant called it his favorite Led Zeppelin cover version. Both of these TV themes epitomize the lost art of here’s-the-story opening credits. —R.S.

1. ‘The Jeffersons’ | CBS, 1975-85

Of course the greatest TV theme song of them all would come from the greatest decade by far for TV theme songs. “Movin’ On Up,” co-written by Jeff Barry and Good Times co-star Ja’net DuBois, and belted out with passion and glory by DuBois, does everything you want from a theme song. It tells you what the show is about: Its lyrics touch on the specific move that George and Louise Jefferson have made from a working-class Queens neighborhood to a deluxe apartment in the sky of Manhattan, but also on broader ideas of Black striving and the American dream. It sets the exact mood for the episode that follows, with its raucous tone cueing up the bickering between George, Weezie, Florence, and their neighbors. And most important of all, the song is so exciting — a rat-a-tat gospel number designed to get viewers out of their seats like they’re leaping up from a church pew — that it becomes as much an enticement to tune in as the show itself. Admit it: You’re chair-dancing a little just thinking about it, aren’t you? —A.S.

From Rolling Stone US.