Let's take a trip today on the TV Time Warp, and look at another round of great television theme songs from the past. This has been a fun exercise in nostalgia, and I think we've still got a bit of ground to cover before we've reached the finish.
This week I thought we'd go straight up 80's. So without further adieu, let's get started.
I can vividly remember coming home after school and watching this school as a wee pup. And watching the intro to it and hearing the theme song takes me back to a happy place indeed. Silver Spoons had a great 80's cast with Joel Higgins as the zany, filthy rich dad, Rick Schroeder as his cute son, and Erin Gray as the love interest for Ricky's dad. Dang, wasn't she hot, though? Enjoy.
Family Ties gave us Michael J. Fox, and that is nearly worth mentioning all on it's own (we'll try to forget about Teen Wolf, Mike), but the show's theme song is quite memorable. Cheesy, but memorable. Hey, it was the 80's!
Ah, Magnum P.I. Beach, babes, sweet cars, and great action. What could go wrong? That's right. Nothing. All the women loved Tom Selleck, and all the guys wanted to be him. And I didn't even realize that Selleck's character, Thomas Magnum, was a SEAL. How did I miss that bit?
But the theme song. The theme song rocked, didn't it? That driving guitar riff building up to that sweet string bridge, and then back to the guitar to round it out. Totally awesome, dude.
Some of these shows I remember watching when I was a kid, but I don't know why. The Love Boat is one of them. I mean, the theme song is real groovy and all, but what the hell did I find interesting in a show called The Love Boat as a child? This show split decades between the 70's and 80's, so technically it's not just an 80's show. But what the hell. Here's the intro.
I can clearly remember playing CHiPs as a kid. My buddies and I would get on our dirt bikes and ride around town, pretending to track down bad guys that were making trouble on the interstate. I can't remember if I was Ponch or John in those make believe episodes, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. But looking back at clips of the series now, I'm thinking that the California Highway system was pretty tame by comparison to today's standards. I'm not sure Ponch and John could hang. The theme song is one of those typical instrumental theme songs with the groovy wa wa guitar riff and the obligatory horn section. But it's still pretty cool.
And yes, ChiPs is another series that started in the 70's and ended in the 80's.
The Dukes of Hazzard was my favorite TV show when I was a kid, and why not? Luke and Bo would jump their car nearly every episode, cop cars would crash into each other or sink beneath the ripples of some poor farmer's pond, and then there was Daisy. Well, perhaps I didn't care that much about Daisy when I was a kid, but now? Boy howdy!
The show's premise was ridiculous looking back on it, and I never did see the movie adaptation. And I never will. But the original, stupid though it may have been, still lives on in the music and in boyish heart.
Seriously, though, this theme song by Waylon Jennings is as good as they come.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of TV Time Warp: Television Theme Songs. More to come.
Kirk out.
