This is the first volume (of potentially many) I've put together dedicated to classic, not-so-classic and occasionally completely unheard of themes from TV shows. I ripped one or two of these tracks myself, but most of them were in a huge pack I stumbled upon on Rapidshare, so thanks to all rippers who were involved.
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Even though some of these are not particularly classic (Fish, I'm mainly talking about you here) or old enough to be considered "classic", I chose the title Classic Themes of the Small Screen for several reasons, a) it almost rhymes, 2) it sounds like something someone might title a compilation album, and finally and foremost I couldn't think of anything better. I must've spent a good 9, 10 minutes trying to think of a better title. No avail. One problem, I think, there aren't a lot of good terms for TV that I could work with, we've got Small Screen, Idiot Box, Boob Tube, Goggle Box (that one doesn't even make sense) and that's about it. And let's face it, those aren't good. We need to come up with a new term.
Anyway, at first I was going to break them up into decades, a 60's collection, a 70's collection, 80's collection and so on. This proved to be much more difficult than you'd think. A LOT of shows started in one decade and ended in another. Something like Married w/ Children started in the Eighties, but most of the seasons of the show were in the Nineties. So I've always thought of it as a Nineties show despite knowing the decade it started in. It became too much of a hassle trying to decide which volume to put which show in so instead of wasting too much time worrying about it I decided a more random assortment would be best.
Here are the 37 Themes included in this volume:
Adventures of Pete and Pete (Polaris - Hey Sandy)
Alf
Bottom
Brothers Grunt
Charles in Charge
Chips
Count Duckula
Dragon's Den
Duckman
Family Matters
Father Ted
Fish
Flying Nun
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Girl From U.N.C.L.E.
Godzilla Cartoon
Green Hornet
Hammer House of Horror
HBO 80's Feature Presentation Theme
Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Hong Kong Phooey
The Incredible Hulk
Liquid Television
Manimal
Mannix
Max Headroom
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
My Mother The Car
Night Gallery
Penelope Pitstop
Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)
Red Dwarf
Renta Ghost
Silver Spoons
Smother Brothers Comedy Hour
Too Close For COmfort
Unsolved Mysteries
For me the highlight is the HBO Feature Presentation theme that played before every movie in the 80's. This thing sounds EPIC. Now they just have the intro with the noisy static that turns into the HBO logo. Which is kind of out of date, I haven't seen static on a TV in years, they should change it to an Invalid Input screen or something at least. Or just bring back this EPIC Feature Presentation theme.
Maybe the next volume will be a bit more organized, but I thought I'd test this out first and see how much interest there was. I ended up with about 1,200 themes from the forum I found them on so if there's one you'd like to see on Volume 2 let me know, there's a good chance I have it.
8 comments:
I remember that HBO intro, where they swoop down a from a cloudy sky along the roofs of a city then a neighbor then back up into a starry sky with a metallic HBO logo heading towards you. it was cool. I even watch a behind teh scenes about the making of the promo, showing the model of the town and the real HBO logo they filmed. good stuff, and a cool collection of themes.
cheers on including the theme from bottom and count duckula! I just got the complete bottom set, and count duckula is one of my childhood favorites. Any idea if this one is out?
They released season 1 in the US, but it's out of print and goes for pretty high prices.
Your best bet would be the R2 Complete Collection on Amazon.co.uk. I'm not sure where you're located, but it's about $22 in US dollars, plus a few dollars for shipping.
Thank you for the themes.
I love the TV themes and am sorry that most shows today have only a brief introduction.
I also hate when they make a movie out of a TV show and forget that the theme was as much a part of the show as the characters.
Look forward to the next installment.
Yo had me at Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Thanks a lot!
A lot of good stuff there. That Hammer House of Horror theme brings back a lot of memories. I was addicted to Elvira when I was a kid and just after that, they'd air an old ep of Hammer. I also enjoyed The Tales from the Darkside intro. Simple, yet freaky. Do you remember that show called Monsters? It was like a half hour.
I too was a huge fan of that HBO opening and actually miss it.
And Bottom. Damn, I totally dig that show. That, Ab Fab and League of Gentlemen. My friend refuses to watch Bottom though because it says it hits too close to home.
HBO THEME!!! I canNOT thank you enough for this!
Phelpster, thanks for this. There are some themes in there I have yet to add to my collection.
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