Top 5 TV Theme Songs 1985-1989

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome back to this Surely you can't be
<v Speaker 1>serious podcast. This is our third episode on.
<v Speaker 2>TV theme Songs.
<v Speaker 1>Indeed, this time we're going nineteen eighty five to nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty nine. Yes, these are the top five theme songs
<v Speaker 1>from our experience, plus two honorable mentions.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we'll each give an honorable mention, will each list
<v Speaker 2>our top five. Whenever we're done, hit us up and
<v Speaker 2>tell us whether you think we got it right, or
<v Speaker 2>tell us whether you think we got it wrong. What
<v Speaker 2>we'll do is kind of tease up each of these.
<v Speaker 2>Try to guess, you know ahead, because we haven't gone
<v Speaker 2>over our list with each other, right right. You know,
<v Speaker 2>our prior to episodes have given some clues about what's coming,
<v Speaker 2>but you may not have heard those yet. Be sure
<v Speaker 2>and go check those out. But Jason and I don't
<v Speaker 2>know what each other's lists are. Rules of the game
<v Speaker 2>are It doesn't have to be exclusively eighty five to
<v Speaker 2>eighty nine, just kind of has to hit that sort
<v Speaker 2>of sweet spot. So there are a lot of shows
<v Speaker 2>that went on so long that they definitely overlapped a
<v Speaker 2>couple of these time periods we're dealing with. The Other
<v Speaker 2>is you don't get to have any songs that were
<v Speaker 2>not written specifically for the TV series, which means we
<v Speaker 2>lose out on Golden Girls, we lose out on the
<v Speaker 2>Wonder Years, we lose out on Bosom Buddies. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>there's a ton of great with children. Yeah, great theme
<v Speaker 2>songs that just took a song from somewhere else. We're
<v Speaker 2>not covering any of those today, which is a pity,
<v Speaker 2>but we had to limit this list somehow. Now, I
<v Speaker 2>will tell you this, my friend. Yep, it was way
<v Speaker 2>easier for me to find a whole bunch of songs
<v Speaker 2>to pick from from our last episode than it is
<v Speaker 2>this episode, no doubt. As a matter of fact, I
<v Speaker 2>specifically said to you there were a couple of songs
<v Speaker 2>that I had as honorable mentions in on my last episode,
<v Speaker 2>and what I did was to go, Nope, I'm taking
<v Speaker 2>those over and I'm moving them to the next episode,
<v Speaker 2>because hey, they they hit somewhere in the time period
<v Speaker 2>that we're talking about.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well I did that with one.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I pushed it off. Okay, So if.
<v Speaker 1>You're ready, I'm ready. Let's dive in.
<v Speaker 2>Man, Let's dive in. Guys. These are episodes that we
<v Speaker 2>love do and be sure and go and check out
<v Speaker 2>those old episodes. But it's just fun to talk about
<v Speaker 2>these songs. So let's get going. Okay, Number five, five?
<v Speaker 1>All right, so my number five. I told you that
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to separate the theme song from the show
<v Speaker 1>because I would rate the show higher than number.
<v Speaker 2>Five for this time period.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Okay, So I enjoyed the show better than I
<v Speaker 1>enjoyed the song.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, I told you last night that is not
<v Speaker 1>really all that great of a song, but I associated
<v Speaker 1>so fondly with the show that it's going to be
<v Speaker 1>high on my list. This song was sung by al Girou.
<v Speaker 2>You know what I'm talking about? What you're talking about?
<v Speaker 2>Some walk by night, some fly by day.
<v Speaker 1>That's it, man, some.
<v Speaker 3>Change.
<v Speaker 2>So the series is called Moonlighting. I'm not sure what
<v Speaker 2>the song is called, but that's it.
<v Speaker 1>The song is actually called Moonlighting.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's creative.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. This song reached number twenty three on the Hot
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and nineteen eighty six and reached number one
<v Speaker 1>on the Adult Contemporary chart. It also won two Grammys
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty eight, one for Best Male Pop Vocal
<v Speaker 1>one for Best Song Written for.
<v Speaker 2>A motion picture or television. Although it is not my
<v Speaker 2>style of music, this is a song that is very
<v Speaker 2>enjoyable to listen to, and they're such strong nostalgia. When
<v Speaker 2>I hear that song that I'm definitely with you, I'm
<v Speaker 2>with you, it is worthy.
<v Speaker 1>I think next year we need to do an episode
<v Speaker 1>Miami Vice versus Moonlighting television show to television show.
<v Speaker 2>That would be a tough one. I know what I
<v Speaker 2>would pick. No, I don't know what you would pick.
<v Speaker 2>I love them both you or yeah, you're a you're
<v Speaker 2>a hard fan boy on both of those. I am.
<v Speaker 2>I am. Yeah, that'd be an interesting episode. Okay, all right,
<v Speaker 2>ready for my number five?
<v Speaker 1>What's your number five?
<v Speaker 2>All right? You ready? Ready? The show involves for Special
<v Speaker 2>Forces unit members tried by a court martial for a
<v Speaker 2>crime they did not commit.
<v Speaker 1>And one guy who's so ill, temperate and he can
<v Speaker 1>never fly.
<v Speaker 2>This is the A team. How are they going to
<v Speaker 2>knock out mister T this episode?
<v Speaker 1>I told you they fire automatic weapons all the time
<v Speaker 1>and nobody ever gets shot.
<v Speaker 2>So this is this is really a great story. The
<v Speaker 2>guy who came up with this show had just gotten
<v Speaker 2>fired from ABC for not being able to come up
<v Speaker 2>with a show. Really. Yeah, the guy's name You may
<v Speaker 2>have mentioned it when we were talking in our last episode,
<v Speaker 2>But the creators of the show are a couple of
<v Speaker 2>guys named Stephen Knell and Frank Lupo. Stephen Kanell had
<v Speaker 2>just gotten fired from ABC. Brandon Tartakoff of NBC Fame
<v Speaker 2>had hired them and said, give me a show, and
<v Speaker 2>this is what he came up with. And when he
<v Speaker 2>came to pitch it to him, he said, Okay, it's
<v Speaker 2>a combination of the Dirty Dozen and Mission Impossible and
<v Speaker 2>Magnificent Seven and Mad Max and Hill Street Blues. What
<v Speaker 2>what with mister T driving a car? That's Bill mister T.
<v Speaker 1>Really at that moment, mister T was such an icon
<v Speaker 1>in the eighties. Oh sure, if you could have landed
<v Speaker 1>mister T, then that's enough to get at Greenland.
<v Speaker 2>This is I mean, this show is nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>By the way, first episode appeared after Super Bowl seventeen,
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty three, Mister T was about to become you
<v Speaker 2>wage in nineteen eighty three. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>You know what's funny about mister T. Yeah, so he
<v Speaker 1>obviously played Clever Laying in Rocky three.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, He was also.
<v Speaker 1>Todd Bridge's bodyguard. Todd Bridges willis of different strokes.
<v Speaker 2>That's right. Yeah, yeah, he was a bouncer and a
<v Speaker 2>fighter and a bodyguard. I've forgotten about that. Yeah, there
<v Speaker 2>you go, fantastic. And I looked at mister T a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, you know previously, just those rabbit holes that
<v Speaker 2>I go down for no particular reason at all. But
<v Speaker 2>his mister T was so that people had to address
<v Speaker 2>him with respect. Yeah, Like he didn't like anybody calling
<v Speaker 2>him boy, and so you can call me mister T.
<v Speaker 2>And he was a bouncer and people would forget or
<v Speaker 2>lose or maybe have ripped off their jewelry as things
<v Speaker 2>were getting heated. Huh. And that is how he came
<v Speaker 2>to wear all of his goal chain.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, that's a good story.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, So this music for the A Team was
<v Speaker 2>written by a guy you may have heard of named
<v Speaker 2>Mike Post Yeah, and a writing partner of his name,
<v Speaker 2>Pete Carpenter. Same two guys who came up with the
<v Speaker 2>theme for Magnum p.
<v Speaker 1>I guys are studs, man.
<v Speaker 2>How many times have we said their name?
<v Speaker 4>Now?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, bunch yep, take another shot. Okay, you're
<v Speaker 2>a turn. Tell me what you got for number four, sir.
<v Speaker 4>Four?
<v Speaker 2>All right.
<v Speaker 1>So this show ran from nineteen eighty two to nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty nine, but the show really didn't become a hit
<v Speaker 1>hit until nineteen eighty four when it was slotted after
<v Speaker 1>The Cosby Show, Gotcha, And then it got a boost
<v Speaker 1>of rocket fuel when the star was in a movie,
<v Speaker 1>one of the biggest movies of nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 2>So this has to be family ties.
<v Speaker 3>I bet we've been together for a million.
<v Speaker 2>Yees, and I bet we will beat together for a
<v Speaker 2>million more. Yes.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely. The song is called without Us, Okay. This song
<v Speaker 1>was written by Jeff Barry and Tom Scott, which we
<v Speaker 1>talked about in our last episode.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they were the guys who came up with the Jeffersons.
<v Speaker 2>Oh there we go.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So they did the Jeffersons, They did doua Diddy,
<v Speaker 1>Diddy did do Ron Ron Ron Iron Iron. They also
<v Speaker 1>did then he kissed Me. Oh yeah, okay, the leader
<v Speaker 1>of the Pack, and as you said, the song that
<v Speaker 1>inspired Joe Elliott to write pour Some Sugar on Me.
<v Speaker 2>Sugar Sugar by the Archies, Sugar Sugar by the Archies, Fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah by the way. We've talked about this song already
<v Speaker 1>in the previous episode the first ten episodes of Family Ties. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the singers were Dennis Trafano and Minnie Sterling. After that,
<v Speaker 1>they said, you know what, let's give this theme song
<v Speaker 1>a boost by giving.
<v Speaker 2>It some better voices.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams took.
<v Speaker 2>Denise Williams though that would have probably been from our
<v Speaker 2>Footloops album correct.
<v Speaker 1>Footloose soundtrack episode, she sang the song Let's Hear It
<v Speaker 1>for the Boy.
<v Speaker 3>Well, next nam on.
<v Speaker 1>The love It, Love It dude, there you go number
<v Speaker 1>four to you, sir.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm gonna try to blow your mind with a
<v Speaker 2>little trivia before I even tell you what the show
<v Speaker 2>is or the song. Are you ready? Yeah? Okay, So
<v Speaker 2>two episodes of this show, and I had a ton
<v Speaker 2>of episodes. Two episodes of the show was written by
<v Speaker 2>our friend mister Stephen Desusa of eighties fame, especially Die
<v Speaker 2>Hard Yes, and one of the episodes was written written
<v Speaker 2>by Richard Matheson, whose son would go on to be
<v Speaker 2>part of the writing team that wrote Bill and Ted's
<v Speaker 2>Excellent Adventure Sure.
<v Speaker 1>Matheson wrote, I am legend.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, come on, So okay, I'm giving you more
<v Speaker 2>clues without telling you what this is, right, hang on, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I know Stephen Desusa worked on The six Million Dollar Man.
<v Speaker 2>It's not that's seventies. Yes, okay, keep going. Okay. There
<v Speaker 2>is an actor that is involved with this show, key
<v Speaker 2>actor involved with this show, who is also involved with
<v Speaker 2>another eighties show called Saint Elsewhere, which I mean very
<v Speaker 2>well could be on this list, right, great interest song
<v Speaker 2>on Saint Elsewhere. And he was also involved in a
<v Speaker 2>movie from the sixties that had a fantastic soundtrack where
<v Speaker 2>he played Dustin Hoffman's dad. He was the dad in
<v Speaker 2>the Graduate. But you never see his face in this
<v Speaker 2>TV show. You only hear his voice.
<v Speaker 1>What are you talking about?
<v Speaker 2>His character is a car.
<v Speaker 1>This is night writer, you got it. This is the
<v Speaker 1>guy who plays the judge in the Bruce Willis movie
<v Speaker 1>Blind Date.
<v Speaker 2>I don't even word.
<v Speaker 1>He says, you'r honor, He's Tracy honored the call time.
<v Speaker 2>Sorry, Oh my goodness.
<v Speaker 1>This is John Larrah Kat and Kim Basinger.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>William Daniels, Yes, William Daniels. William Daniels was the name
<v Speaker 2>of the guy who played kid. He was Doctor Craig
<v Speaker 2>on Saint Elsewhere he was mister Braddock or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>On the Graduate, he is the voice of Kit. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>we have the introduction of David Hasselhoff to the world.
<v Speaker 2>Hoff Yes, the hofst the Hoffman.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about this in our previous episode.
<v Speaker 2>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 1>You've got a dude who assumes an identity in a
<v Speaker 1>talking car and I'm in that's it. Yeah, that's all
<v Speaker 1>I need.
<v Speaker 2>It's got a cool little light that goes along the hood. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I can't tell you how much I wanted that. By
<v Speaker 2>the way, just a little trivia bit on Ready Player one.
<v Speaker 2>The car that he created, the ECDO eighty eight, I
<v Speaker 2>believe is what it was called, was a combination of
<v Speaker 2>the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Ghostbusters car,
<v Speaker 2>and Kit from Night Rider.
<v Speaker 1>We really need to have a top five eighties vehicles
<v Speaker 1>conversation one of these days.
<v Speaker 2>We definitely do. By the way, I have to think
<v Speaker 2>that The A Team is the only show in history
<v Speaker 2>that made a van cool.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>The music in this episode is by a guy named
<v Speaker 2>Glenn Larson, who you mentioned him in our last episode.
<v Speaker 2>He did The Fall Guy. He was a member of
<v Speaker 2>the four Preps with Ed Cobb, who is the guy
<v Speaker 2>that wrote Tainted Love. I mean, pretty cool little mix
<v Speaker 2>up of stuff that we've got there. Fantastic love it,
<v Speaker 2>love it all.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So we're on to my number three. Three, My
<v Speaker 1>number three you mentioned in our last episode. Okay, this
<v Speaker 1>is a police drama that was above my head at
<v Speaker 1>this age, right right. This show ran from nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>one to nineteen eighty eight. This song is written by
<v Speaker 1>our man, Mike Post and it is a piano over
<v Speaker 1>a intense police siren. This song, of course, is from.
<v Speaker 2>Hill Street Blues. Okay, I mean I will listen to
<v Speaker 2>that song every day.
<v Speaker 1>It's a great song.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And he came up with it in a half
<v Speaker 2>an hour. I mean he came up with a half
<v Speaker 2>an hour.
<v Speaker 1>That guy's a stud.
<v Speaker 2>He is now some of the other things, like he
<v Speaker 2>also did NYPD Blue, which is again Stephen Bosco, same
<v Speaker 2>group of guys. Right, here's the story on that one.
<v Speaker 2>By the way, I know we're probably not gonna mention
<v Speaker 2>that particular show. Yeah, Stephen Bosco and the other creator
<v Speaker 2>of NYP, he'd get together for lunch and so he's like,
<v Speaker 2>come on, guys, tell me about the show, what are
<v Speaker 2>we gonna do? Stephen Bosco is like, we're thinking maybe
<v Speaker 2>it just starts with just drums, and he's like, you
<v Speaker 2>mean like Hawaii ive O or something. He's like, no, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>just drums and he's like okay, right, and then the
<v Speaker 2>other he's like, well, what's your thought? And the other
<v Speaker 2>guy's like, my word is the subway. And he's like,
<v Speaker 2>are you guys freaking kidding me here? You're giving me
<v Speaker 2>drums in the subway and I'm supposed to come up
<v Speaker 2>with a song from that, right. So that one took
<v Speaker 2>him three weeks, and he had a little bit of
<v Speaker 2>an inspiration from the Drums in the Air Tonight by
<v Speaker 2>Phil Collins. So when you hear this song, know that
<v Speaker 2>he was thinking drums the subway Phil Collins.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, I can see that. It's really cool. The
<v Speaker 1>crashing of the drums, right, the hard pounding drums.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna talk about a song here in a minute
<v Speaker 1>that is sort of Tan Gentle to Phil Collins.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, ready for my number three.
<v Speaker 1>I'm ready for your number three.
<v Speaker 2>I'm thinking I'm gonna throw you a curveball in this one.
<v Speaker 2>I hope that I do. I hope that I do.
<v Speaker 1>I love curve balls.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Okay, I'm just going to tell you that we've
<v Speaker 2>talked about the creator of this show before. Okay, we've
<v Speaker 2>talked about the composer for this show before. I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to tell you that another composing duo was involved with
<v Speaker 2>this show for one episode. The episode was called The
<v Speaker 2>Family Dog, and the composer that is not the composer
<v Speaker 2>of the theme music, but was the composer for that
<v Speaker 2>episode is Danny Elfman and his guitarist from Oingo Boingo,
<v Speaker 2>Stephen Bartek. Okay, but the series was created by somebody
<v Speaker 2>that we've talked about before and a composer that you
<v Speaker 2>always keep together with.
<v Speaker 1>That guy got anything, well, I thought I had it,
<v Speaker 1>and then you threw me off.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'll give you one more hint. Okay. Another episode
<v Speaker 2>of this show was supposed to be a story called
<v Speaker 2>Battery Not Included, but the show creator liked it so
<v Speaker 2>much that he decided to direct an entire movie called
<v Speaker 2>Batteries Not Included.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, this has to be So this is
<v Speaker 1>Steven Spielberg.
<v Speaker 2>You got it, amazing stories, you got it. Yes, So
<v Speaker 2>of course that Amazing Music is by John Williams. Always
<v Speaker 2>things you put together. I mean you can hear it.
<v Speaker 2>Once you hear that, you go, oh yeah, I hear
<v Speaker 2>Indiana Jones and Jaws and all of the other obvious
<v Speaker 2>John Williams is in there. It is one of my
<v Speaker 2>favorite theme musics from the late eighties. Great show Amazing Stories,
<v Speaker 2>which was kind of a Twilight Zone kind of deal.
<v Speaker 2>One of my favorite episodes had Mark Hamill in it,
<v Speaker 2>where he was kind of a hoarder and then ended
<v Speaker 2>up becoming rich from hoarding stuff because they all became antiques.
<v Speaker 2>Show only ran from eighty five to eighty seven, but
<v Speaker 2>I thought it was a brilliant show.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, I have not thought about that show.
<v Speaker 2>And forever I thought of my three curve.
<v Speaker 1>That's a good one. Okay, I like it, all right, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>all right, So here's my curveball to you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>Two.
<v Speaker 1>This is a little tricky because I could have literally
<v Speaker 1>put this in early seventies, which we haven't done late seventies,
<v Speaker 1>early eighties, late eighties.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I've got a guess. Okay, is it the
<v Speaker 2>love boat? No love? All right? Go ahead, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So the name of this song it's known as Heavy Action.
<v Speaker 1>That's the title of the song. Okay, okay, yeah, Now
<v Speaker 1>is written by this guy named Johnny Pearson. He's British.
<v Speaker 1>The song was commissioned by the BBC. Now, okay, I'm
<v Speaker 1>telling you this is a curveball. It has since become
<v Speaker 1>synonymous with a sports show in the UK, Superstars. The
<v Speaker 1>first four notes have become synonymous with American sport as well.
<v Speaker 1>Let me play this for you and see what you think.
<v Speaker 1>I can see you're stumped.
<v Speaker 2>I am completely and totally stumped. Okay, hold on to
<v Speaker 2>your socks. Okay, So the TV show that you're talking
<v Speaker 2>about is Monday Night Football.
<v Speaker 1>I'm talking about Monday Night Football.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that is a bit of a curveball. I was
<v Speaker 2>really struggling. I wasn't thinking about sports shows, but well,
<v Speaker 2>obviously that is unmistakable.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So this is the song that they would play
<v Speaker 1>behind Howard cosell Is, he's like recapping the highlights and
<v Speaker 1>for me, my football awakening have kind of in the
<v Speaker 1>early to mid eighties, and so for me that's a
<v Speaker 1>big deal. Monday Night Football was huge to me, and
<v Speaker 1>so Heavy Action.
<v Speaker 2>Johnny Pearson love it. Great one that's a great one.
<v Speaker 1>It did not become the official theme for Monday Night
<v Speaker 1>Football until nineteen eighty nine, nineteen years after.
<v Speaker 2>It was composed. Wow, that is crazy. That is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>There you go.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so we're onto my number two. Right. I have
<v Speaker 2>a prediction that I'm going to make right now here
<v Speaker 2>we go. I believe that my number two is your
<v Speaker 2>number one, probably so, and so I'm going to hold
<v Speaker 2>off until we do honorable mentions, Okay, and then I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to give you the lead in and I'll see
<v Speaker 2>if we'll see if I'm right, Okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 2>all right, all right, so here we go, Yeah, honorable mentions.
<v Speaker 2>We'll come back to Jason's number one, and maybe my
<v Speaker 2>number two, I don't know, and then my number one.
<v Speaker 2>All right.
<v Speaker 1>So my first honorable mention is a song written and
<v Speaker 1>composed by John Bettis and Steve Dorf.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Stephen Dorf, he's an actor, right, dwarf man? Okay, okay, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So BJ Thomas nineteen seventies singer. My dad loved BJ Thomas.
<v Speaker 1>He sings the first season by himself, then in the
<v Speaker 1>second season he teams.
<v Speaker 2>Up with a lady.
<v Speaker 1>We've talked about Jennifer Warrens, and then in season four
<v Speaker 1>they dropped Jennifer Warrens and they add Dusty Springfield, another
<v Speaker 1>lady we've talked about. And the song, of course goes
<v Speaker 1>to the TV show.
<v Speaker 2>Growing Pains and starring Kirk Cameron and mister Allen Thick,
<v Speaker 2>who wrote one of the TV shows that we talked
<v Speaker 2>about in our prior one of the TV showed theme
<v Speaker 2>songs that we talked about in our prior episode we
<v Speaker 2>got and I'm not sure how it fell off my list,
<v Speaker 2>but he also wrote something that's worthy of an honorable mention.
<v Speaker 2>And since you just did Growing Pains as your honorable mention,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna boot it off of my list and insert
<v Speaker 2>this one, okay. He also wrote the theme music for
<v Speaker 2>the TV show that was a spinoff of Different Strokes
<v Speaker 2>called The Facts of Life. You take the good, you
<v Speaker 2>take a bad, You take them both them There you
<v Speaker 2>have the backs of light, the backs of life. There's
<v Speaker 2>a time you got nice.
<v Speaker 1>You take the good, take the bad, take you both
<v Speaker 1>the facts of life.
<v Speaker 2>That nice?
<v Speaker 1>That's good?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I like it. Yeah, So he and his wife.
<v Speaker 1>Alan Dick wrote that song.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, it's crazy, right, that is crazy By the way,
<v Speaker 1>Jennifer Warrens, just in case you don't know who she is.
<v Speaker 1>She is the singer on this song right here, which.
<v Speaker 2>Of course we talked about on our Dirty Dancy episode.
<v Speaker 2>Be sure and go check that one out. We compared
<v Speaker 2>movie to movie, an album to album, Dirty Dancing versus
<v Speaker 2>Saturday Night Fever. A great bunch of stories in all
<v Speaker 2>of those episodes.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So honorable mention that I just gave to you
<v Speaker 2>was facts of Life. Your honorable mention was growing pains.
<v Speaker 2>If you've got one more honorable man, one more honorable mention, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I do too, but it was one that you already
<v Speaker 2>talked about. My other honorable mention was Moonlighting. We've covered it,
<v Speaker 2>So what have you got?
<v Speaker 1>I have Moonlighting higher on my list than you did.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you did, wow, because.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about it. You said you really like that song. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So my honorable mention is bass heavy. In fact, it
<v Speaker 1>starts out okay, very heavy on the bass.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm surprised.
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to disguise that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>This was composed by a guy named Jack Elliott, who
<v Speaker 1>wrote themes for Barney Miller and Charlie's Angels.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can't.
<v Speaker 1>Really tell you anything else other than you've got John Larroquette,
<v Speaker 1>you've got Markey posts oh night Court course.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah that's a great one. Yes, yeah, I love that
<v Speaker 2>little bass intro. Great yep. Okay, okay, So that's our
<v Speaker 2>honorable mentions. We're onto your number one. I'm going to
<v Speaker 2>start by by giving you a little info on my
<v Speaker 2>number two because I think it's the same song. I'm
<v Speaker 2>sure it is, but I just thought it was crazy
<v Speaker 2>that right after we've done the episode on Vivid with
<v Speaker 2>James Buckley, that I come across another member of the
<v Speaker 2>Maha Vishnu Orchestra that we talked about. Were like, what,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, how often are you going to run across
<v Speaker 2>that orchestra? And I've done it twice in two episodes.
<v Speaker 1>I could not believe it when I saw that.
<v Speaker 2>Right, the keyboardist for the I mean one of the keyboards,
<v Speaker 2>but a key keyboardist for the Mahavish New Orchestra was
<v Speaker 2>the guy named Jan Hammer who's gone on to compose
<v Speaker 2>a million other songs, but you probably best know him
<v Speaker 2>from this TV series that ran from nineteen eighty four
<v Speaker 2>to nineteen eighty nine. Am I wrong? Did I pick
<v Speaker 2>your number one?
<v Speaker 4>He nailed it one.
<v Speaker 1>The Miami Vice theme. Okay, before we get off of
<v Speaker 1>this one, Okay, I don't. Actually I have a pretty
<v Speaker 1>good idea what your number one is. In fact, I
<v Speaker 1>think I know what it is. But this so far
<v Speaker 1>is the only song to hit number one on the
<v Speaker 1>Hot one hundred. Yeah, this song hit number one November
<v Speaker 1>ninth of nineteen eighty five. It's mind blowing how popular
<v Speaker 1>this TV show was. The soundtrack was. I would love
<v Speaker 1>to take a deep dive on this soundtrack next year.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I think so. We talked about maybe doing
<v Speaker 2>this soundtrack versus the Beverly Hills cop soundtrack with Axual
<v Speaker 2>f on it. I think that'd be a great matchup
<v Speaker 2>to do.
<v Speaker 1>Miami Vice soundtrack and just listen to this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The week that this hit number one, your top five
<v Speaker 1>is We Built This City by Starship, You Belong to
<v Speaker 1>the City by Glenn Frye. Another song from the Miami
<v Speaker 1>Vice soundtrack, Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears. We
<v Speaker 1>hope to cover that part time Lover by Stevie Wonder,
<v Speaker 1>which is a horrible song. Oh that's a good song
<v Speaker 1>and then Miami Vice theme number one.
<v Speaker 2>And I mentioned a little bit ago in the pilot
<v Speaker 2>episode you have the song in the Air Tonight by
<v Speaker 2>Phil Collins, which was the part of the inspiration for
<v Speaker 2>the theme for it from NYPD Blue by mister Mike Post.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, we are not sponsored by Tube, but
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna throw out a commercial for them. Toby has
<v Speaker 1>incredible content, including the entire series of Miami Vice Sweet
<v Speaker 1>Love It, of which I'm working my way through Nice.
<v Speaker 2>That show, of course, was created by Anthony Yekovich and
<v Speaker 2>largely Michael Mann. Also season four produced by Dick Wolf.
<v Speaker 1>All Right, so this brings us to your number one,
<v Speaker 1>which it has to be where everybody knows your name.
<v Speaker 2>You nailed it.
<v Speaker 3>Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
<v Speaker 3>Taking a break from all your worries. Sure, what help along?
<v Speaker 3>Wouldn't you like to get away?
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes you've gone well out the mod and knows your name?
<v Speaker 4>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>So, as we mentioned, several songs can go from one
<v Speaker 2>era to another era, this is one of those that
<v Speaker 2>stands the test of time. Jason put it in his
<v Speaker 2>as his number one spot in the previous episode that
<v Speaker 2>we did our part two on this series for nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty through nineteen eighty four. Obviously, this series went on
<v Speaker 2>into the nineties.
<v Speaker 1>Put it down the nineties list.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sure. But this song beautiful It is by a
<v Speaker 2>guy named Gary Portnoy. Jason mentioned in the last episode.
<v Speaker 2>He was a guy who had never written a theme
<v Speaker 2>song before. He was a musician, obviously, but he had
<v Speaker 2>actually just gotten fired from his musical staff position. And
<v Speaker 2>a friend of his, who you mentioned in the last
<v Speaker 2>episode who helped co write this song, is sitting down
<v Speaker 2>to dinner with a Broadway producer, and the Broadway producer says, hey,
<v Speaker 2>do you know anybody who writes music? I'm looking for
<v Speaker 2>songs for my show, and she's thinking, Gary just got fired.
<v Speaker 2>Here's a chance for him to land on his feet.
<v Speaker 2>That's great. So they write this song for the show,
<v Speaker 2>and somehow it ends up a little bit later on
<v Speaker 2>in the hands of the Charles brothers. My clue for you,
<v Speaker 2>had you not guessed this, by the way, my clue
<v Speaker 2>for you was going to be sit ubu, sit good dog,
<v Speaker 2>Good dog, and you would have gotten it right off
<v Speaker 2>the back.
<v Speaker 1>I would have I love cheers.
<v Speaker 2>So here's just an interesting piece of information. My mom
<v Speaker 2>went to school with Glenn Charles and Less Charles. Really
<v Speaker 2>my grandmother, her mother was an administrator at that school
<v Speaker 2>that they grew up in in Newvada.
<v Speaker 1>Really, yeah, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks. So they of course created the show Cheers. They
<v Speaker 2>had gotten this song that was being featured in a
<v Speaker 2>Broadway musical and they thought perfect, except the Broadway producer said, no,
<v Speaker 2>you're not going to use my song, right, And so,
<v Speaker 2>as you mentioned, they went back to the lady Judy
<v Speaker 2>hart Angelo and said, can you come up with anything else?
<v Speaker 2>And how many songs did you say?
<v Speaker 1>They sent, so they came up with my kind of
<v Speaker 1>people rejected in an other day, rejected, right.
<v Speaker 2>And so this was kind of their final ditch effort.
<v Speaker 2>But when Glynn Unless Charles heard it, they were like,
<v Speaker 2>this is great, and then they thought, well, who's going
<v Speaker 2>to perform it? You know what, we like the way
<v Speaker 2>you sing it. So Gary Portnoy, the writer of the song,
<v Speaker 2>is the man that you hear performing it. I mentioned
<v Speaker 2>on our last episode. I always thought, I frequently thought
<v Speaker 2>that it sounded like Woody Harrelson singing. And I just
<v Speaker 2>feel like they updated the song a little bit over
<v Speaker 2>the years because it just it had a more vibrant feel.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe they just remixed it. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 1>Well I did read that they they doubled him, they
<v Speaker 1>tripled him, and they quadrupled him to give it that
<v Speaker 1>sort of chorus thicker.
<v Speaker 2>Feel I got you. Well. As it turns out, the
<v Speaker 2>Charles brothers were so confident in their ability to get
<v Speaker 2>it done that they did not even attend the recording session.
<v Speaker 2>Just said you got this, and we have a song
<v Speaker 2>that is maybe maybe the best song of the entire decade.
<v Speaker 1>That's TV themes, sure sure, and maybe the best show
<v Speaker 1>the entire decade.
<v Speaker 2>Yes.
<v Speaker 1>Now, the interesting thing was is that the show was
<v Speaker 1>dead last in the ratings when it first came out. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but they had people who would call into the TV
<v Speaker 1>station and request the sheet music for that song. Nice,
<v Speaker 1>So the song was actually a hit before the show was.
<v Speaker 2>That's fantastic boom.
<v Speaker 1>Great choice.
<v Speaker 2>By the way, those two guys also produced the TV
<v Speaker 2>series Taxi, which has a really very memorable theme song
<v Speaker 2>as well, which reminds me. After we did our big episode,
<v Speaker 2>we had a guy on Instagram called the Orgami Wizard.
<v Speaker 2>Let's go check out his Instagram page. Yeah, some cool stuff,
<v Speaker 2>but he hit us up and said, love the show.
<v Speaker 2>But you you mentioned that Tom Hanks was in Happy Days,
<v Speaker 2>but you didn't mention that he was also in Taxi.
<v Speaker 2>I went and looked it up, and sure enough, he
<v Speaker 2>was in an episode of Taxi same time as Happy
<v Speaker 2>Days had gotten fired from or had lost Bosom Buddies,
<v Speaker 2>and he played like Christopher Lloyd's pot Brownie eaton religious
<v Speaker 2>experience in front of a lava lamp. Guy, is it's great?
<v Speaker 2>A little bit of trivia right there for you? Love it?
<v Speaker 2>Love it? Okay?
<v Speaker 1>So that concludes our late eighties top five. Come back
<v Speaker 1>next week.
<v Speaker 2>We have something awesome in store for you. Hit that
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<v Speaker 2>miss it. Thanks guys, see you next time.