Top 5 TV Theme Songs 1980-1984

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast. I'm so excited we are back for
<v Speaker 1>part two of our gen X TV theme series. Guys,
<v Speaker 1>if you missed part one, we covered the top five
<v Speaker 1>TV themes from nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy nine.
<v Speaker 1>Today we are here to talk to you about the
<v Speaker 1>top five TV themes from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 1>And this is just this is Jason's opinion, this is
<v Speaker 1>my opinion. You may have a different opinion. You go
<v Speaker 1>ahead and let us know what you think. You can
<v Speaker 1>reach us on Twitter at Shirley Podcast, on Facebook at
<v Speaker 1>Shirley Podcast, or if you want to email us, you
<v Speaker 1>can email us at Shirleypodcast at gmail dot com. Jason,
<v Speaker 1>how excited are you to talk about early eighties TV theme?
<v Speaker 2>Dee? I'm so excited because now we are really entering
<v Speaker 2>our sweet spot here. We were pretty young in the seventies,
<v Speaker 2>but now this is really where Friday night in front
<v Speaker 2>of the tube, you know, the giant, five hundred pound
<v Speaker 2>furniture television that everybody had in their living room.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm laying on the floor.
<v Speaker 2>I've got oreos and a fantas strawberry and I'm watching
<v Speaker 2>whatever coming on you know that night.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm pretty sure that my dad still has the
<v Speaker 1>same coffee table that I would sit on top of
<v Speaker 1>or eat cereal off of or whatever. For the entire time.
<v Speaker 1>I grew up watching TV, and I will tell you,
<v Speaker 1>like most Gen X kids, I watched TV all the
<v Speaker 1>time and I love the theme music, and the theme music
<v Speaker 1>that we've got for this episode is some of the
<v Speaker 1>best in history.
<v Speaker 4>Right.
<v Speaker 1>So TV has its ups and downs on whether it's
<v Speaker 1>popular or not, and sometimes it's kind of thought of
<v Speaker 1>as a lower art form. But you just got to
<v Speaker 1>think about the fact that the guys who had to
<v Speaker 1>come up with the themes for these TV shows had
<v Speaker 1>to give you a hook in somewhere between forty five
<v Speaker 1>ninety seconds.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, definitely they did it.
<v Speaker 1>They put their art into the art of the TV
<v Speaker 1>show and gave you something to latch onto so that
<v Speaker 1>you wanted to keep watching.
<v Speaker 2>Just a little side note, Yeah, my wife and I
<v Speaker 2>were going through Hulu last night. We're looking for something
<v Speaker 2>to watch, and we're like, hey, we haven't watched Justified
<v Speaker 2>in the long time. So we started episode one of
<v Speaker 2>Justified and they're riding the big bold letters in the
<v Speaker 2>opening credits theme song by Steve Picaro.
<v Speaker 3>There you go, Toto. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Kind of fun.
<v Speaker 1>It is fantastic. So, guys, we've got a few rules
<v Speaker 1>that we abide by in this particular series that we
<v Speaker 1>are doing. Number One, it doesn't have to be strictly
<v Speaker 1>between eighty and eighty four for this. It can overlap
<v Speaker 1>into some of the other years. But we just kind
<v Speaker 1>of feel like this is the kind of sweet area
<v Speaker 1>that this TV show is in.
<v Speaker 2>For example, if it started in nineteen seventy seven ended
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen eighty three, really you could have put it
<v Speaker 2>in the previous episode or in this episode.
<v Speaker 1>Can I just tell you not bringing it up? I
<v Speaker 1>hope it's not on your list, Okay. I was actually
<v Speaker 1>kind of hoping to surprise you with this one. I
<v Speaker 1>looked at this one because I remember this TV theme
<v Speaker 1>growing up, because we used to watch it all the time. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>but it ran from like nineteen sixty three to I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, like nineteen eighty nine or maybe even into
<v Speaker 1>the nineties. Oh, but it was a TV theme for
<v Speaker 1>Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I mean that kicks, But
<v Speaker 1>I don't care who you are, I don't care what
<v Speaker 1>decade we're coming from.
<v Speaker 3>That is a fantastic theme.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was a show that came on I remember
<v Speaker 2>on Sunday afternoons, and I remember like lots of times
<v Speaker 2>pleading with my parents, like could you guys go to church?
<v Speaker 2>Try watch Mutual of Omaha? You know Wild Kingdom Marlon Perkins, Baby,
<v Speaker 2>I know, right, hey, before we get started. Yeah, you're
<v Speaker 2>sitting on your coffee table. You're turning the knob on
<v Speaker 2>the television to get it to the right station.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, scooting the coffee table inch by inch forward so
<v Speaker 1>that I can just lean over to do it instead
<v Speaker 1>of standing up.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Okay, what cereal do you have in your bowl
<v Speaker 2>while you're watching television?
<v Speaker 1>Cookie crisp? Cookiekriaky crisp was my favorite cereal. Yeah, Now,
<v Speaker 1>I mean I loved tons of them. You know, fruity pebbles.
<v Speaker 1>I've become a lover of cocoa pebbles since then, Fruit loops,
<v Speaker 1>lucky charms, ate the crap out of those would eat
<v Speaker 1>all of the nasty ones first so they could have
<v Speaker 1>the marshmallows.
<v Speaker 5>Man.
<v Speaker 2>So my number one draft pick is fruity pebbles. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>let's dive into it. Are you going first and my
<v Speaker 2>going first? Well?
<v Speaker 3>You went first last time. I suppose I should go
<v Speaker 3>first this time.
<v Speaker 2>All right, So we're starting with number five. We'll go
<v Speaker 2>to number two, two honorable mentions, then number one.
<v Speaker 3>Right, number five? Five? Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So another thing that we do with these is give
<v Speaker 1>little clues. See if the other guy can guess it
<v Speaker 1>before we give the answer. Right, right, right, Okay.
<v Speaker 3>So this, this song that I'm about to talk.
<v Speaker 1>About was written by a guy who would be in
<v Speaker 1>a TV series that we might mention in our next episode.
<v Speaker 2>Oh okay. Interesting.
<v Speaker 1>He was married to a lady. They wrote several theme songs.
<v Speaker 1>They had a child who grew up to become a
<v Speaker 1>performer as well also the host of a singing show.
<v Speaker 1>But his most famous song that I'm aware of is
<v Speaker 1>a song called blurred Lines. You know the Sun?
<v Speaker 3>No, Robin Thick. Do you know the dad?
<v Speaker 2>Alan Thick?
<v Speaker 3>You got it?
<v Speaker 1>Alan Thick, mister growing Pain's TV dad. Before he did that,
<v Speaker 1>hosted some music shows, some talk shows, but also composed
<v Speaker 1>music with his wife, whose.
<v Speaker 3>Name was Gloria Loring.
<v Speaker 1>As they composed a theme to a couple of important
<v Speaker 1>shows from the nineteen eighties, and this one is on
<v Speaker 1>my number five list. Okay, yeah, so since you haven't
<v Speaker 1>gotten the show from that first of all, I like
<v Speaker 1>you teased me up for something modern music.
<v Speaker 2>I know, Jack squat about modern music.
<v Speaker 3>How do you not know blurred lines? Have you seen
<v Speaker 3>that video?
<v Speaker 2>Ever heard of it?
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, let me just tell you. Go watch
<v Speaker 1>that video. Okay, and make sure the kids aren't around.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Okay, I can handle that asimon.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So this show, okay, I'm done giving you clues. Okay, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm done giving you clues that they're hard. I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to give you a clue.
<v Speaker 3>That is easy. Okay, what you're talking about, Jason?
<v Speaker 2>Different strokes and dates, different drugs.
<v Speaker 5>Now, the world is just fun drum one time for you.
<v Speaker 3>Very good. The show is Different Strokes.
<v Speaker 1>The theme song is it Takes Different Strokes composed specifically
<v Speaker 1>for the show.
<v Speaker 3>This show was created by.
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Harris and Bernie pulled the laughter cuckoff.
<v Speaker 2>What are you talking about here?
<v Speaker 1>And the show and the theme song was composed by
<v Speaker 1>Alan Thick, his wife Gloria Loring, and Alberton. Now I
<v Speaker 1>mentioned that Alan Thick was married to Gloria Loring. Alan
<v Speaker 1>had three wives. Okay, the thing that I when you
<v Speaker 1>were listening to me talking about Holy Cow. He got
<v Speaker 1>divorced from Gloria Louring a little bit later on. Sure,
<v Speaker 1>so nineteen eighty stopped making beautiful music together.
<v Speaker 3>You got it? Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>So in nineteen eighty seven, yeah, full growing pains period,
<v Speaker 1>righty right, he started dating Christy Swanson.
<v Speaker 2>Christy Swanson, Christy freaking Swans. Paris Peeler's day off. My
<v Speaker 2>best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy
<v Speaker 2>who knows this kid is going with the girl who
<v Speaker 2>sow Ferris passed out at thirty one flavors last.
<v Speaker 1>Night, Buffy the Vampires Lay Yes, christ eleven. She was seventeen,
<v Speaker 1>he was forty.
<v Speaker 2>Stop it, I know, right, scandalous.
<v Speaker 3>Scandalous, all right, So there you go. That's my number five. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>what's she? What do you got for me?
<v Speaker 4>All right?
<v Speaker 2>My number five is from a television show that ran
<v Speaker 2>from nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six, and again
<v Speaker 2>I remember it ran on Wednesday nights because my family
<v Speaker 2>was always at church, so me trying to get home
<v Speaker 2>to watch this show was always a challenge, okay. The
<v Speaker 2>theme song mentions lots of action and TV stars and
<v Speaker 2>movie stars of the.
<v Speaker 3>Day, okay.
<v Speaker 2>For instance, in the theme song it mentioned Sally Field
<v Speaker 2>and Raquel Welch and Cheryl Tigues and Redford and Eastwood
<v Speaker 2>and Burt Reynolds and jacque Line Smith and Cheryl Ladd
<v Speaker 2>and Farah Fawcett.
<v Speaker 3>Is it Charlie's Angels?
<v Speaker 1>No, okay, because you've mentioned like every single Charlie's angel
<v Speaker 1>but I don't remember them being in a theme song.
<v Speaker 2>It's referencing Charlie's age.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I got nothing, okay.
<v Speaker 2>This song was written by Glenn Larson, who also developed
<v Speaker 2>the show, and the song is the Unknown Stuntman, sung
<v Speaker 2>by Lee Majors.
<v Speaker 3>Love it the fall Guy, A fall guy.
<v Speaker 5>Well, I'm not find kiss a till, but I've been
<v Speaker 5>seen with Up. I've never been with anything less than
<v Speaker 5>man so fine.
<v Speaker 2>I've been on fire with Silent Field.
<v Speaker 1>Down past with the girl named Bo, but somehow they
<v Speaker 1>just don't.
<v Speaker 3>End up as fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>You know what, whenever we've whenever I called you, we
<v Speaker 1>came up with the idea for this episode literally like
<v Speaker 1>a couple of days ago.
<v Speaker 3>Two hours ago, and I called you up and that
<v Speaker 3>was literally one of the songs that was in my.
<v Speaker 1>Head as I was talking to you, And somehow it
<v Speaker 1>didn't translate into me putting it down. Somehow I just
<v Speaker 1>completely blanked it out. That is a fantastic one. I'm
<v Speaker 1>glad you got cars.
<v Speaker 2>They had read books. Just okay, that's great. So during
<v Speaker 2>the song he mentions all these people by name, and
<v Speaker 2>in the intro it is punctuated by all these cool
<v Speaker 2>action scenes.
<v Speaker 1>The only scene I remember involves a bikini and a
<v Speaker 1>swinging saloon door.
<v Speaker 2>Is Heather Thomas the hottest woman from nineteen eighty one?
<v Speaker 1>She quite possibly could be. She was definitely up there
<v Speaker 1>with those girls you just mentioned.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So Glenn Larson, the creator of the show, also created Bowlestar, Galactica,
<v Speaker 2>Buck Rogers, Quincy, Emmy BJ and The Bear Magnum p
<v Speaker 2>I night Rider. This guy is an all star and
<v Speaker 2>he wrote helped develop the song.
<v Speaker 3>Excellent Eighties Gold. Yes, eighties Gold.
<v Speaker 2>So he was in a pop group called the Four Preps.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, the four Preps. We've talked about this before.
<v Speaker 3>What yes?
<v Speaker 1>No, So we talked about it in one of our
<v Speaker 1>Patreon episodes, our recent Patreon episodes, because one of the
<v Speaker 1>key members of the Four Preps was a guy.
<v Speaker 3>Named Edward Cobb.
<v Speaker 1>Who discovered a girl singer back in the sixties who
<v Speaker 1>did the original version of this song. But we talked
<v Speaker 1>about the later version where soft Self covered it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, are you talking about tated Love?
<v Speaker 3>You got it? Lad Wow.
<v Speaker 1>If you are not part of our Patreon you need
<v Speaker 1>to be just so that you can hear our Tainted
<v Speaker 1>Love and all of our other one hit wonder episodes.
<v Speaker 1>We talk about ed Cobb as the writer of Tainted Love.
<v Speaker 1>But you've got more on the Four Preps.
<v Speaker 3>Tell okay, guy.
<v Speaker 2>So, Glenn Larson, the guy who created all these wonderful
<v Speaker 2>television shows, has a musical background. He was a member
<v Speaker 2>of the Four Preps at one time when he stepped out.
<v Speaker 2>Now another guy stepped in. It wasn't a direct replacement,
<v Speaker 2>but his name was Dave's revealed and he actually sings it,
<v Speaker 2>and he went with Glenn Larson to pitch this to
<v Speaker 2>ABC by playing the song.
<v Speaker 3>The unknown stunt Man fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>I can remember the episode of The Fall Guy where
<v Speaker 1>they're doing the stunt and the director and like one
<v Speaker 1>of the coordinators or whatever.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, this is gonna be a really hard one, and.
<v Speaker 1>Lee Majors had just been like, guys, this is I'm
<v Speaker 1>really concerned about this stunt.
<v Speaker 3>You know this is And they're like, you know, we
<v Speaker 3>know that you can do it.
<v Speaker 1>And then it shows the truck and it does the
<v Speaker 1>big ramp up and then it falls short and the
<v Speaker 1>truck explodes, and you're like, did they just kill Lee Majors?
<v Speaker 1>And they're all thinking the exact same thing. And then
<v Speaker 1>Lee comes walking up and he's got a little remote
<v Speaker 1>control because he's turned in because he knew that stunt
<v Speaker 1>was too dangerous.
<v Speaker 3>I thought that was a fantastic open.
<v Speaker 2>Lee Majors, star of the fictional movie The Night the
<v Speaker 2>Reindeer Died.
<v Speaker 3>Go back and.
<v Speaker 1>Check out our Scrooge versus Christmas Vacation episode. Okay, that
<v Speaker 1>takes us to number four, Yes, four, this one.
<v Speaker 3>I got a little story for you on this one.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>You know this song, you know it, but you may
<v Speaker 1>not know the story behind some of it, right, Okay, okay, okay.
<v Speaker 3>The guy who is kind.
<v Speaker 1>Of an inspiration for this show, who is credited as
<v Speaker 1>one of its creators, was a guy who used to
<v Speaker 1>drive around a nineteen fifty eight Chrysler three hundred D
<v Speaker 1>because it could go one hundred and forty miles an hour,
<v Speaker 1>and he named the car.
<v Speaker 3>He named it Traveler because Traveler was the name of
<v Speaker 3>Robert E. Lee's favorite horse. Have you Got It?
<v Speaker 2>Is this the Duke's of hazard.
<v Speaker 3>Song You've got a Baby? Yes, just a good old Bonde.
<v Speaker 1>So Jerry Rushing was the name of the guy born
<v Speaker 1>into a bootlegging family, bootlegged when he was a kid,
<v Speaker 1>drove that Chrysler, had to ditch it at some point
<v Speaker 1>it became scrap. But at some point a guy named
<v Speaker 1>Guy Waldron is.
<v Speaker 3>A TV producer.
<v Speaker 1>He's talking to this Jerry Rushing about bootlegging culture, and
<v Speaker 1>that's how you come up with the movie that you
<v Speaker 1>talked about in our original TV theme episode moon Runners,
<v Speaker 1>moon Runners right Now. The problem was is that Guy
<v Speaker 1>Waldron didn't give Jerry Rushing any credit, and so Jerry
<v Speaker 1>Rushing sued him.
<v Speaker 3>He claims interesting, and he won. They settled the case.
<v Speaker 1>He got some undisclosed amount and he obviously gets credit
<v Speaker 1>as a creator of the show. But he had an
<v Speaker 1>uncle Woolley that he said, Uncle Jesse was obviously based
<v Speaker 1>on he said, his escapades. Clearly he was the inspiration
<v Speaker 1>for Bo Duke and then obviously the General Lee had
<v Speaker 1>to be taken from his car called the Traveler.
<v Speaker 2>We might have to do a top five eighties vehicles
<v Speaker 2>show one of these days.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, that would be fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Now, we mentioned on our other episode when you talked
<v Speaker 1>about this song, the song is good Old Boys.
<v Speaker 3>Waylon Jennings, Ayln Jennings.
<v Speaker 1>Now, if you don't know that name, that may you
<v Speaker 1>may not be a country person.
<v Speaker 3>That's okay. He is like a Mount Rushmore on.
<v Speaker 2>Old Countryman Royalty.
<v Speaker 1>And if you happen to see the movie Lobamba or
<v Speaker 1>know the history there with Buddy Holly, he was the
<v Speaker 1>guy who when they were trying to decide who was
<v Speaker 1>going to take the bus and who was going to
<v Speaker 1>take take the plane and they flipped a.
<v Speaker 3>Coin, he lost the coin.
<v Speaker 1>Toss and he had to take the bus, and he
<v Speaker 1>said to them. Last thing he said to them is
<v Speaker 1>I hope that plane crashes. He battled depression and alcoholism
<v Speaker 1>for decades after that because of what happened.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, I had no idea about that. That's
<v Speaker 2>a great story there.
<v Speaker 1>You go Waylon Jennings. By the way, Dukes of Hazzard
<v Speaker 1>hit number one.
<v Speaker 3>On the Hot Country Billboard Top.
<v Speaker 2>Nineteen eighty I actually had it in my seventies. You
<v Speaker 2>got it in the eighties. I got no problem with
<v Speaker 2>that one.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the show went from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty five. Technically it hits all three of our episodes,
<v Speaker 1>but for me, it was definitely that sweet spot was.
<v Speaker 3>The early eighties.
<v Speaker 2>Cool, awesome.
<v Speaker 1>I can remember every Friday night watching this show and
<v Speaker 1>the incredible Hulk.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, your plans are made right every Friday night.
<v Speaker 2>You remember when they kicked out Bow and Luke Duke
<v Speaker 2>and brought in Vansenkoy.
<v Speaker 3>Vanson Koy. Come on. I mean, I don't think anybody's
<v Speaker 3>gonna know the difference. Nobody to tell, all.
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, quick, raft up your head. Catherine Bach versus
<v Speaker 2>Heather Thomas, Go Heather Thomas.
<v Speaker 3>But it's close.
<v Speaker 1>And if you watch both of them in the Battle
<v Speaker 1>of the Network Stars Olympics things, I could go either
<v Speaker 1>way on any day.
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, smoke show.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, number four.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, I think they both played a part
<v Speaker 1>in the dunking booth. Just saying God bless them.
<v Speaker 3>All right, you tell me you were number four, number four,
<v Speaker 3>number four.
<v Speaker 2>All right, I think this is going to appear on
<v Speaker 2>your list. Okay, so we might just glaze over it better.
<v Speaker 2>So this was composed again by mister Mike Post who
<v Speaker 2>did the music.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, now you say again Mike Posts.
<v Speaker 1>We mentioned him in our last episode and I said, guys,
<v Speaker 1>if you're gonna have a drinking game on this episode,
<v Speaker 1>Mike Post might be the name that you want to remember.
<v Speaker 1>You take your shot every time Mike Post comes up.
<v Speaker 1>When we talked about him on our previous previous episode,
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned that he had become a part of the
<v Speaker 1>Wrecking Crew. He goes on to do TV shows, worked
<v Speaker 1>with Ray Charles on The Andy Williams Show, then hit
<v Speaker 1>it big with The Rockford Files starring James Garner of Norman, Oklahoma,
<v Speaker 1>where both Jason and I are from, and made it
<v Speaker 1>to the top ten with that one.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that's right.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So we got Mike Post for your number four.
<v Speaker 2>Yes hit me. This one hit number two on the
<v Speaker 2>Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Blocked by a song that we've talked about in a
<v Speaker 2>previous episode.
<v Speaker 3>I think I know what it is. Okay, I think
<v Speaker 3>I know what it is.
<v Speaker 2>The song that blocked it was Endless Love by Diana
<v Speaker 2>Ross and Lionel Ritchie.
<v Speaker 1>I do know what it is, and hold on to
<v Speaker 1>that nugget. We'll come back to it later.
<v Speaker 2>Set that one aside.
<v Speaker 1>Put that one aside, which is okay, because I'm coming
<v Speaker 1>right back to Mike Post for my number three.
<v Speaker 2>Number three, Okay, back to you.
<v Speaker 3>Three. All right. So, Jason, my clue for you is
<v Speaker 3>this one. I will tell you this all right.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I didn't really get to watch this show very
<v Speaker 1>much because it was a little too grown up for me.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Kind of changed television, I gotta say this. The flawed
<v Speaker 1>character's intense subject matter kind of changed the course of television.
<v Speaker 1>But even though I didn't watch the episodes, I always
<v Speaker 1>hung out to listen to the theme song because it
<v Speaker 1>was so good. Okay, And the only clue that I
<v Speaker 1>can give you is theme song starts playing as a
<v Speaker 1>car comes out of a garage and you see the
<v Speaker 1>headlights and then you see the sirens come.
<v Speaker 2>On Sillstreet blues.
<v Speaker 5>You got it.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, So this was written by Mike Post, who we've
<v Speaker 1>talked about endlessly at this point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Mike Post worked heavily with Stephen Bosco, who is
<v Speaker 1>the guy that changed television in the eighties, right, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>responsible for so many phenomenal shows. And I don't know
<v Speaker 1>that I'm going to get to mention it in some
<v Speaker 1>other part, but just to throw onto the pile that
<v Speaker 1>I've already started with Mike Post. He also did the
<v Speaker 1>score for Law and Order, like all of them. He's
<v Speaker 1>responsible for Boom Boom.
<v Speaker 3>Everybody knows that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, So Stephen Bosco has this show. Mike Post
<v Speaker 1>watches the first episode and is blown away. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>this is the most fantastic thing I've ever seen. This
<v Speaker 1>is going to change television. The death at the end
<v Speaker 1>is like a freaking ballet. It's just it's mind blowing
<v Speaker 1>how good it is. And he's like, I have no
<v Speaker 1>idea what to do. So Steven Bosco says, well, what
<v Speaker 1>if you do something just completely against type? Like what
<v Speaker 1>if you do something that's not at all like what
<v Speaker 1>you would expect.
<v Speaker 4>It to be.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, I think I could do that.
<v Speaker 1>Hangs up, the phone, sits down, the piano plays something
<v Speaker 1>in an e flat key, plays a few more things,
<v Speaker 1>and in thirty minutes. He's calling Steven Bosco back and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, I think I got it, and Bosco's like, hey, man,
<v Speaker 1>I don't want something out of your junk drawer, right yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, no, I just wrote this kind of
<v Speaker 1>come play it for you. He goes over to Steven
<v Speaker 1>Bosco plays it, and Steven Bosco.
<v Speaker 3>Usually gives him he's he taught. He loves to talk about.
<v Speaker 1>How these guys give him notes that are just the
<v Speaker 1>right amount of information to do something with, right, And
<v Speaker 1>so he's waiting for that and Steven Bosco says, that's it.
<v Speaker 3>Don't change it.
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, well, I'm thinking it needs some orchestration,
<v Speaker 1>and Bosco is like, it doesn't.
<v Speaker 3>The piano is all you need. Don't change it.
<v Speaker 1>Nice Now, when you hear it, you can hear a
<v Speaker 1>little bit of stuff in the background, but the piano
<v Speaker 1>is the key. It's the masthead for the entire piece.
<v Speaker 3>And it is.
<v Speaker 2>Beautiful, absolutely now. This song was released as a single
<v Speaker 2>August nineteen eighty one. I agree with you. This is
<v Speaker 2>not a show that I watched, but I love the
<v Speaker 2>theme song. Yeah, and it's going to appear whenever we
<v Speaker 2>do the late eighties on my list. I've reached number
<v Speaker 2>ten on the Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, just like rockord Files. And just like rockord Files,
<v Speaker 1>it got him another Grammy. This was his third Grammy
<v Speaker 1>Nice nineteen eighty one.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, awesome, So we're now onto my number three, I believe.
<v Speaker 2>So all right, My number three is a song written
<v Speaker 2>by this guy named Mike Post. Okay, go ahead, take
<v Speaker 2>another shot, everybody, Mike Post. Okay. This one. He composed
<v Speaker 2>it with a guy named Peter Carpenter. This song reached
<v Speaker 2>number twenty five on the Hot one hundred and May
<v Speaker 2>of nineteen eighty two. Okay, it's an instrumental yep. This
<v Speaker 2>show ran from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>And you can't hear this song without thinking about a
<v Speaker 1>Ferrari and Hawaiian shirts. Yes, yes, so this one again.
<v Speaker 1>We've timed this very well because this is my number two.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, this is my number two, so we would have
<v Speaker 1>been going straight into it anyway. As you mentioned, it's
<v Speaker 1>composed by Mike Post and his one of his partners,
<v Speaker 1>Pete Carpenter.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, just to throw this out there, he
<v Speaker 1>had like a group of guys that he would work with,
<v Speaker 1>you know that were it's like his company. Among them
<v Speaker 1>are several famous guys. I'm just gonna mention one of
<v Speaker 1>them because I'm gonna see if you can get this.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right.
<v Speaker 1>He had a guy who was on his staff of
<v Speaker 1>composers whose name was Walter Murphy. Okay, okay, And we
<v Speaker 1>talked about him briefly, very briefly on a previous episode
<v Speaker 1>covering an album where he did a disco version of
<v Speaker 1>a Beethoven song called a Fifth of Beethoven.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, this is Saturday Night Fever.
<v Speaker 3>You got it.
<v Speaker 1>So one of Mike posts staff members is also a
<v Speaker 1>guy who's written a song on one of the best
<v Speaker 1>selling albums of all time. It's very interesting, this guy,
<v Speaker 1>Mike Post, that I've just discovered and was such a
<v Speaker 1>mover and shaker.
<v Speaker 3>In the Wow.
<v Speaker 2>That's cool. One of the things I thought was interesting
<v Speaker 2>is that Magnum p I the first ten episodes had
<v Speaker 2>a different theme song. It changes the entire tone of
<v Speaker 2>the show. Does that change everything about the show.
<v Speaker 1>I can't believe that that was the theme song for
<v Speaker 1>ten full episodes. I have no memory of that, and
<v Speaker 1>it's so different. It was so right that they said,
<v Speaker 1>we've got it, ditch this and do something that kicks more.
<v Speaker 1>But that original one was by a guy named Ian
<v Speaker 1>Free Baron Smith.
<v Speaker 2>I'll tell you something, Ian freeburn Smith does not drive
<v Speaker 2>a Ferrari, does not live in Hawaii, and does not
<v Speaker 2>the heart throb of every American babe in the early
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighties.
<v Speaker 1>Well, neither a Mike Post or Pep Carpenter. But they
<v Speaker 1>tapped into that vibe a little better than he did.
<v Speaker 2>They sure didn't.
<v Speaker 1>All right, so we kind of jumped into my number
<v Speaker 1>two with your number three there, Why don't you give
<v Speaker 1>us you're a number two?
<v Speaker 5>Two?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this is the one I'm interested to see. I
<v Speaker 2>didn't know if it would make your list, but it's
<v Speaker 2>such a catchy instrumental from the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>This show ran from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen ninety one,
<v Speaker 2>so conceivably it could have been on all.
<v Speaker 3>Three of these lists exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, Friday nights on CBS, Uh huh, this
<v Speaker 2>was a main staple. But I'm telling you, in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty there was a question, a cliffhanger that plagued American culture.
<v Speaker 3>Who shot JR?
<v Speaker 2>Who shot JR? This is the theme song Dallas.
<v Speaker 3>So this one hovered on my list.
<v Speaker 1>It definitely did, and since we're to that point, I
<v Speaker 1>will tell you it is one of my honorable mentions
<v Speaker 1>for this episode. So hearing that music makes me think
<v Speaker 1>it's time for me to go to bed.
<v Speaker 2>This is not appropriate for you, d Graves, right.
<v Speaker 1>So I would get done watching Dukes, Hazard and The
<v Speaker 1>Incredible Hulk, and then this music would start playing and
<v Speaker 1>it meant it was time for me to go back.
<v Speaker 2>That's great, man. This song was composed by a guy
<v Speaker 2>named Gerald Ammel. He also did gun Smoke and Knots Landing.
<v Speaker 2>He contributed music to Walker, Texas Ranger, so he's done
<v Speaker 2>some stuff. So this song was actually a bigger hit
<v Speaker 2>in France, which is funny because they decided that that
<v Speaker 2>theme song was good, but it needed lyrics, so they
<v Speaker 2>added French lyrics and it became a hit on the
<v Speaker 2>French pop charts.
<v Speaker 3>We've got to hear that.
<v Speaker 4>But yah.
<v Speaker 2>H us.
<v Speaker 1>Apologies to all of our French listeners, but that is
<v Speaker 1>freaking hilarious.
<v Speaker 2>That is terrible.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, oh wow, that's so good.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 2>I got one more thing for you before we leave
<v Speaker 2>the Dallas theme song. Okay. Now, as you may know,
<v Speaker 2>I am a big Dallas Cowboys football fan. And in
<v Speaker 2>the nineties they when they signed Dion Sanders, it was
<v Speaker 2>a huge deal to Cowboy fans. And I remember Jerry
<v Speaker 2>Jones and Dion even Kevin Smith was in a commercial
<v Speaker 2>and they played the Dallas theme song and it was
<v Speaker 2>sort of the introduction of Deon Sanders as a cowboy.
<v Speaker 3>I don't care what it takes, you get me Dion.
<v Speaker 4>For you ready, I was born, Ready run cowboy.
<v Speaker 5>Dang.
<v Speaker 3>If I had eleven men like that, I could rule
<v Speaker 3>the world.
<v Speaker 5>Guys.
<v Speaker 2>It was a big deal. Yeah, as a Dallas fan. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>that's all I got for you on Dallas theme Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So, as I mentioned, that is one of my honorable mentions.
<v Speaker 1>This other one it was exclusively on HBO. It involves
<v Speaker 1>some of the same type of creatures that your Number
<v Speaker 1>one involved from the nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 1>nine episode you Got It.
<v Speaker 2>I Got It, I Got It, And I'm disappointed in
<v Speaker 2>myself for not coming up with this. This has to
<v Speaker 2>be the theme song from Fraggle Rock.
<v Speaker 1>So on the times that I was in front of
<v Speaker 1>a TV that got HBO. I was watching Fragle Rock
<v Speaker 1>and I loved this inro song.
<v Speaker 2>It was a great song man and actually introduced all
<v Speaker 2>the characters. Yeah, kind of worked your way, you know
<v Speaker 2>through the world of the Fraggles. Understood they lived underneath
<v Speaker 2>the ground, and there's a dog that kind of chased them.
<v Speaker 3>And they had the dozers and dump pile and Uncle
<v Speaker 3>traveling Matt.
<v Speaker 2>That's it, that's it. Great show, great show. Okay, So
<v Speaker 2>is that your two honorable mentions?
<v Speaker 3>My two honorable mentions Dallas and brockle Rock.
<v Speaker 2>All right, so let me give you my two honorable
<v Speaker 2>mentions in that case. So I've got a song by
<v Speaker 2>this guy named Mike Post. Okay, this is a show
<v Speaker 2>never heard of him. This is a show that would
<v Speaker 2>literally fire automatic weapons every show and no one ever
<v Speaker 2>got shot. So they made a movie about this in
<v Speaker 2>the two thousands, starring Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I've got it, what you got?
<v Speaker 1>What you got a baracas, it's mister t it's the
<v Speaker 1>A team.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, That one will probably come up again
<v Speaker 3>in a futureps.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, cool, great theme song right here by
<v Speaker 2>the way. TV anchorman, Al Roker plays this before he
<v Speaker 2>goes on the air to get himself siched, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>That is the best tidbit we've had yet.
<v Speaker 3>Fantastic, Yeah, Roker.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's so important for a weatherman to be stoked.
<v Speaker 3>That's great.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So that's honorable mention number one.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Honorable mention number two is by a guy named Stu
<v Speaker 2>Phillips and Glenn Larson. Now, Glenn Larson is the same
<v Speaker 2>guy that developed the Fall Guy. Yes, and the theme
<v Speaker 2>song with a Fall Guy.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>He actually stole pieces of this theme song from a
<v Speaker 2>French classical piece of music.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>This show ran from nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty six,
<v Speaker 2>and it is a very very synthesizer futuristic sounding for
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 3>Is this night Writer?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 5>It is.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so Night Writers on your next episode.
<v Speaker 1>Night Writer will be making an appearance in the next
<v Speaker 1>episode probably.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, cool show. A guy who talks to
<v Speaker 2>his car lives in the shadowy world of anonymous man
<v Speaker 2>who doesn't exist. I still don't really understand the plot
<v Speaker 2>other than David Hasselhoff and a talking.
<v Speaker 3>Car they both look so cool. It didn't matter. It
<v Speaker 3>didn't matter, all right, So here we are. We are
<v Speaker 3>to our number one.
<v Speaker 1>One. Since you have already listed my number one in
<v Speaker 1>your spiel just a bit ago, we haven't. We didn't
<v Speaker 1>name it, so I'll bring it back to you now.
<v Speaker 1>This song went to number two involves a guy that
<v Speaker 1>you might have heard of named Mike Post was kept
<v Speaker 1>out of the number one spot by Endless Love by
<v Speaker 1>Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie.
<v Speaker 2>This song is called Believe It or Not on It
<v Speaker 2>I never.
<v Speaker 4>So.
<v Speaker 1>This is the theme song for Greatest American Hero nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty one to nineteen eighty three. I gotta tell you,
<v Speaker 1>I loved watching the show when I was a kid,
<v Speaker 1>but I was a little kid, and so in the
<v Speaker 1>not too distant past, I thought, I'm gonna check.
<v Speaker 3>This thing out again. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The pilot episode for this show is two hours long,
<v Speaker 1>like it's a big establishing show wow. And the beginning
<v Speaker 1>of the show is intense, like it is an African
<v Speaker 1>American running from this group of skinheads in these dune
<v Speaker 1>buggies and he doesn't make it to the opening credits. Man,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it is in tense, and I was like, Wow,
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad they got a little more of a sense
<v Speaker 1>of humor along the way. But great intro, like, this
<v Speaker 1>is definitely a redoable show. They could come back. This
<v Speaker 1>was This is one of those things that I think
<v Speaker 1>is begging for a reboot.
<v Speaker 2>So remind me. How does he get his powers?
<v Speaker 1>It comes from an alien ship, and what we learned
<v Speaker 1>through the series is that, like the aliens, probably their
<v Speaker 1>planet was destroyed and so their objective is to give
<v Speaker 1>this suit which gives him basically superman like powers that
<v Speaker 1>he goes on to discover throughout the series in order
<v Speaker 1>to protect the planet from the destruction that their planet faced.
<v Speaker 3>All right, yeah that's right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, And so the beauty is it comes with an
<v Speaker 1>instruction manual. The plot point of the series is he
<v Speaker 1>loses the instruction at the very beginning, so he has
<v Speaker 1>no idea what he can do. He has no idea
<v Speaker 1>how to land, which means that he can fly, but
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't do so good on planning the landing.
<v Speaker 2>This show was super fun. I enjoyed it.
<v Speaker 3>Here's an interesting thing.
<v Speaker 1>We mentioned that this came out in nineteen eighty one,
<v Speaker 1>right early nineteen eighty one. Yeah, you know what else
<v Speaker 1>happened early nineteen eighty one. No, it involved the president
<v Speaker 1>of the United States at the time.
<v Speaker 3>Has been shot exactly. Yeah, the main character in this show,
<v Speaker 3>his name was Hinckley. No, so when that.
<v Speaker 1>Happened, they did a quick switch through changed his name
<v Speaker 1>to Hainley for a while until kind of the bluster
<v Speaker 1>about everything blew over with John Hinckley Junior and changed
<v Speaker 1>it back to Hinckley later on.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, that's a great tidbit right there, thanks man.
<v Speaker 1>So, as we mentioned, written by Mike Post, he gets
<v Speaker 1>the info on what the show is supposed to be about.
<v Speaker 1>He's like a guy in a super suit that he
<v Speaker 1>doesn't know how to work, and a like ultra right
<v Speaker 1>wing CI agent as his kind of handler. What the heck?
<v Speaker 1>How am I supposed to write a theme song about that?
<v Speaker 1>And so he's a music guy. He gets the music
<v Speaker 1>and he goes to his part, Stephen Geyer, and Stephen
<v Speaker 1>Geyer is like, well, what if we make the lyrics
<v Speaker 1>something that's like could also be like a love song?
<v Speaker 1>And that's how believe it or not, I'm walking on air.
<v Speaker 1>I never thought I could.
<v Speaker 3>Be so free.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's good.
<v Speaker 1>Sung by a guy named Joe Scarberry, who Mike Post
<v Speaker 1>had produced and other things, hadn't had any real success,
<v Speaker 1>but had a great voice and so memorable.
<v Speaker 3>For this song.
<v Speaker 1>As a matter of fact, this song was really the
<v Speaker 1>inspiration for this episode because I was in my kitchen
<v Speaker 1>my wife or my kids said something like Believe it
<v Speaker 1>or Not, and I was like, oh, we should do
<v Speaker 1>a show about TV themes, and I called you up.
<v Speaker 2>Nice, there we go, there you go?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Cool?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I guess that brings us to my number
<v Speaker 2>one number one?
<v Speaker 3>All right, I'm excited.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm rather shocked that we haven't come across it
<v Speaker 2>so far.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>I would bet money that it's on your next episode though,
<v Speaker 2>could be.
<v Speaker 4>So.
<v Speaker 2>This was written by two people who basically were inexperienced
<v Speaker 2>and unqualified to write a TV jingle. Okay, they tried
<v Speaker 2>three times and were rejected. In twenty eleven, Rolling Stone
<v Speaker 2>named this the greatest TV theme song of all time.
<v Speaker 1>I think I know what it is. Okay, I think
<v Speaker 1>it is going to be in a future episode.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Does this TV show involve a guy name Norm?
<v Speaker 5>Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
<v Speaker 5>Taking a break from all your worries.
<v Speaker 2>So listen. This song is called where Everybody Knows Your Name.
<v Speaker 1>Dude, I can't tell you how much I love this song,
<v Speaker 1>but I will in our next episode.
<v Speaker 5>Sometimes the body knows your name. They always bach came.
<v Speaker 1>This song, as you mentioned, was written by guy who
<v Speaker 1>really didn't have experience doing this.
<v Speaker 3>His name was Garry Portnoy. Right.
<v Speaker 1>I was sure when I would listen to this that
<v Speaker 1>Woody Harrelson was singing.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it kind of sounds like.
<v Speaker 1>It sounded so much like I would listen to it
<v Speaker 1>sometimes and be like, Okay, that's not Woody, and then
<v Speaker 1>other times it'd be like, oh, dude, that's Woody singing
<v Speaker 1>the song. I could not verify, but there are a
<v Speaker 1>ton of people out there who share my opinion.
<v Speaker 3>Like everybody's. Like, I was sure it was Woody Harrelson
<v Speaker 3>singing this song, it's not.
<v Speaker 2>What the problem is is that the song predates Woody
<v Speaker 2>Harrelson's association with cheers. So listen to this. So it's
<v Speaker 2>written by Gary Portnoy and Judy hart Angelo. Okay, Judy
<v Speaker 2>heart Angelo was sitting next to a Broadway producer at dinner,
<v Speaker 2>knowing that she worked for a music producer he asked
<v Speaker 2>her if she could recommend anyone to produce a score
<v Speaker 2>for a musical that he was looking for. So she
<v Speaker 2>knew and recommended Gary Portnoy. Well, he had never written
<v Speaker 2>for theater before, right, and she had never ever written
<v Speaker 2>a song.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Nothing.
<v Speaker 2>So they get together and they write the musical Preppies.
<v Speaker 2>From that, there's a song called people Like Us and
<v Speaker 2>they actually submitted that to be the theme song for cheers.
<v Speaker 2>Ye liked it, but they're like, it's not quite right. Rejected, okay.
<v Speaker 2>Then they came up with another song called My Kind
<v Speaker 2>of People.
<v Speaker 3>Rejected yea.
<v Speaker 2>Then they came up with another song called Another Day,
<v Speaker 2>rejected okay. So Gary Portnoy sat down at the piano
<v Speaker 2>and he wanted to kind of get the feel of
<v Speaker 2>the bar. So he sat down at the piano and
<v Speaker 2>played sort of the sad bar love song medley, and
<v Speaker 2>when he got some times you want to Go, then
<v Speaker 2>it took off.
<v Speaker 5>Nice.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome and such a great song. I mean, it
<v Speaker 1>just makes you feel like you belong somewhere. Now, if
<v Speaker 1>you listen to the full version of this song, you
<v Speaker 1>get some.
<v Speaker 3>Weird lyrics, Yeah, the original.
<v Speaker 1>Opening lyrics, even when they came up with the song.
<v Speaker 1>The original opening lyrics are not what we end up getting.
<v Speaker 1>The original opening lyrics were singing the blues when.
<v Speaker 3>The Red Sox lose. It's a crisis in your life,
<v Speaker 3>on the run because all your girlfriends want to be
<v Speaker 3>your wife, and the laundry took it. It's in the wash.
<v Speaker 3>I'm super glad they changed this letter.
<v Speaker 2>Laundry tickets are in the wash.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, okay, I don't even understand what that means.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, I'm glad we got what we got.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. One of the.
<v Speaker 2>Best TV shows of the eighties. Yes, and you got
<v Speaker 2>the best theme song of the eighties. Yes, I mean
<v Speaker 2>Cheers is really one of the all time greats. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>love it all right. So that wraps up our TV
<v Speaker 2>shows nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty four episode come back
<v Speaker 2>down the Road. We're going to have another episode on
<v Speaker 2>these where we do nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 2>Please send us in your picks. We'd love to hear
<v Speaker 2>from you, guys. Your experience may be different than ours
<v Speaker 2>or what you watched in your household, so we would
<v Speaker 2>love to know what your top songs are.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you guys so much. Everything we do we do
<v Speaker 3>it for you? Brian Adams right there. Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>We do really appreciate you guys tuning in every week.
<v Speaker 1>Be sure if you haven't already to hit that subscribe button,
<v Speaker 1>hit that follow button and check us out on Twitter
<v Speaker 1>and Facebook. Hit us up by email, send us name,
<v Speaker 1>but we would love to know your name.
<v Speaker 3>I I see what you did there. Thanks guys, we'll
<v Speaker 3>see you next week