Latch-Key Love Songs
30 November 2008 | 11:32 PM
As a latch-key kid whose formative years were spent suckling from the warm, glowing teat that was 80’s and early 90’s television, I can honestly say that everything I ever needed to know I learned from the boob tube. Alas, since I spent so much of my youth glued to the idiot box, I now remember next to nothing because, as my mother always used to point out to me, TV rots your brain. But being a classically trained (read, I was forced to take piano lessons) musician, the things that do still stick with me from that golden age of entertainment are the theme songs. To be honest, while I can only dimly differentiate Facts of Life’s Mrs. Garrett from Mona on Who’s The Boss, I can still sing you the songs that rolled under each show’s opening credits pretty much verbatim. While I’m prepared to admit that this memory quirk is evidence of some insidious moral turpitude and completely messed-up priorities on my part, one can hardly deny how awesome those old theme songs were.
Which brings me (finally!) to Television Tunes, an exhaustive archive of the theme music from just about every show ever aired, from The Jack Benny Program to That’s My Bush to Cop Rock, and everything in between. Here’s some of the awesomeness I found:
- Parker Lewis Can’t Lose – Synchronize swatches!
- Jennifer Slept Here – Boy, did I ever have an embarrassing crush on Ann Jillian…
- Dinosaurs – Inexplicably, I never missed this show when I was a freshman in college, and I was rarely (if ever) high.
- Hong Kong Phooey – Go back and watch some of these and you’ll be stunned by how much sexist content could be snuck into a kids cartoon in the early 80’s.
- Max Headroom – Imagine, a show who’s gimmick is based on the premise that buffering is hilarious!
- V – Damn, I miss those slimy green bastards.
- The Liberace Show – Somewhere, Noel Coward is thinking, “Um, really, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
- Tales Of The Gold Monkey – My favorite show as a kid and easily the best seaplane-themed adventure-comedy show of the mid 1980’s
I should warn you that I managed to blow well upwards of an hour in the dead of night down this rabbit hole, so beware if you venture down it yourself. And remember, if you get lost just look for this gem to get your bearings.
Posted by Andy in Nerdapalooza