As too often happens with me, a random internet stroll takes me down a rabbit hole of cultural trivia. This time, I’m talking about TV theme songs, detailing their evolution in parallel to that of television itself (and of the society it was transmitted to), and analyzing a few of the classics. Stay tuned.
They might be less than a minute long, but they can last a lifetime. Theme songs have been a staple of television programming for decades, and a type of cultural memorabilia that survives time and transcends networks. They’re sung or hummed years after the shows that originated them went off the air, sometimes by folks who have never watched the actual shows. They’re a source of nostalgia for us, bite-size pieces of our collective and personal pasts. Maybe cuz there aren’t that many of them in the present.
So a few days ago, I was watching this video of Jimmy Fallon and Will Smith singing theme songs from a few classic sitcoms (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air obviously included). Now, a video of Jimmy Fallon and Will Smith singing theme songs should be the most benign, least thought-provoking thing to watch in the world. But since my head works different than people’s, it got me thinking: Where did that all go? How come there are almost no new shows today with a theme song? What happened? I’m not talking about theme music, which is still a part of most shows, but about theme songs, like, actual songs with lyrics you could remember instantly and sing for ages after the shows themselves ended. Where are the songs?
Come and Listen to a Story
As far as I know, theme songs have been an almost exclusive feature of sitcoms, at least within prime time programming (children’s shows have no lack of original music of course), so I’ll talk mostly about US television comedy here. And at the beginning of commercial broadcasting in the 1950s, most TV comedies were either continuations of radio series, or platforms for established stage entertainers. Not quite grasping yet the subtle differences between these media, many early shows were signaled by an instrumental theme and an announcer introducing the actors with the same monotonous thrill he used to advertise a car or soap a few seconds earlier. For example, this opener from Make Room for Daddy – preceded by a Dodge commercial – where every detail is clearly delivered, in speech, to the viewer (including the role of the two child actors “as their children!”, cuz viewers’ first guess would probably be that they’re a pair of underage neighbors).
That show starred comedian Danny Thomas, until then mostly known from radio sketch programs, playing a stage entertainer, which allowed for many musical numbers and stand-up routines with little narrative need (a ploy used in other star-led sitcoms such as The Dick Van Dyke Show). After a few seasons, it would be renamed The Danny Thomas Show (and drop the announcer), just one instance of producers playing it safe and relying on famous cast members as the shows’ main attraction and a way to ease viewers into these fictional worlds. This logic would be evident in later songless sitcoms that focused on the star power of their protagonists: The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Seinfeld.
This need for familiarity might actually provide an explanation for the birth of the theme song after the so-called Golden Age of Television in the 1950s. I couldn’t find the one show that first attached lyrics to its signature tune, but by the mid-60s it was already clear that sitcom intros are moving towards sing-along territory. At that early stage, theme songs served a functional purpose of presenting the main characters and summing up the shows’ premises. Part of it could be due to network execs still being unsure of the medium’s power, or of viewers’ capability, to evoke meaning out of visual signals without a detailed exposition. It could also be because many of these new shows took place in settings very different from the suburban homes of most 50s comedies. In the course of several years, viewers were introduced to shipwreck survivors on desert isle, a goulish household, a talking horse, and a modern Stone Age family. With such an abundance of novelties, it was clear that showrunners had – to misquote a classic sitcom character – some ‘splainin’ to do.
The biggest trend of that era of quirky premises were the so-called “rural comedies”, shows centered around characters and locales in the Heartland and filled with barnyard humor. CBS was the leader of this tendency, and The Beverly Hillbillies was probably the most successful and well-known of the bunch. The show featured one of the first theme songs to become standalone hits: “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”, performed by bluegrass legends Flatt & Scruggs and reaching the top of the Billboard country chart in 1962.
It’s a short description of the show’s backstory (although it doesn’t quite match the plot of the pilot), and part of its effectiveness – like that of the whole show – comes from the contrast between the Clampetts’ simple backwoods upbringing and the glamour of the California city they move in to. Like in other rural comedies, such as Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, the song is performed in a style associated with the characters, in contrast to the big-band tunes signalling many of the decade’s sitcoms. And in true folk tradition, the song acknowledges the audience from the start when it urges viewers to “come and listen to a story”. The second-person address is kept in the closing theme, offering viewers some Southern hospitality when they tune in again. The characters on the show might lack sophistication, but these songs are actually very clever instances of audience interaction, attentive of viewing patterns and distinctively warm and informal.
Those Were the Days
Indeed, behind the rustic facade of rural sitcoms lay the careful work of savvy producers, tailoring their schedules to pander to key demographics. That is why by the early 70s, most of those country-flavored sitcoms – along with similarly themed variety shows and dramas – were cancelled in what came to be known as the “Rural Purge”. They were still drawing in massive ratings, but their bumpkin charm was starting to wear thin, especially with younger, progressive, urban audiences. Still, this many shows getting the boot at the same time was a shocking move, although some hints have been given throughout the 60s that the winds were changing. The Monkees portrayed the adventures of an undomesticated rock & roll band, interspersed with contemporary musical numbers that went on to become genuine chartbusters. The Brady Bunch returned to the white-collar home of the 50s, albeit with a highly unconventional familiar structure at its center. It also featured one of the most visually recognizable intros, with its blue-square, split-screen template parodied by later sitcoms, random families on YouTube, and Eminem.
And yet, these transitional sitcoms still applied the explanatory mode to their theme songs, in line with their rural counterparts. The sitcoms of the 70s changed all that. At the dawn of the disco decade, two shows arrived on CBS – up until then the home of country comedies – that foreshadowed the trajectory of sitcoms for the next 20 years: All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Both shows took place in big cities, boasted impressive social and political consciousness, and often touched on topics that up until then were considered taboo or just not that funny. As music and cinema during those years broke away from formulas and expanded the definition of a hit, so did TV shows begin to experiment with form and content. This included intros that related to the shows’ characters and main themes in subtler, less descriptive ways, finally realizing the unique power of television as a medium.
The opening sequence to The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a wonderful example of the innovative approach shows were starting to take in introducing audiences to their protagonists’ worlds. The theme song starts with a question: “How will you make it on your own?”, before moving to advise the addressee to keep her head up and tell her she “might just make it after all”. This sense of hope was emphasized on the version used for later seasons, which ended with the more reassuring “You’re gonna make it after all”. Though writer and performer Sonny Curtis doesn’t name the woman he sings to, the lyrics perfectly fit the character of Mary Richards – a single 30-year-old moving to the big city after a failed relationship.
The lack of specificity allows the song to generally speak to women, who were becoming more confident in their individuality and determined to achieve personal goals by the time the show premiered. It could also relate to Moore herself, who found her first major role since portraying Dick Van Dyke’s wife on his own eponymous sitcom (although to me, her character was the true center of that earlier show). This sense of freedom and mobility is further reflected in the visuals: All shots in the sequence contain movement, either of people or the camera, until the final freeze-frame of Moore tossing her hat into the air. As a whole, the sequence has worked so well and become so iconic, it even got its own Wikipedia page.
All in the Family provides an equally creative, although totally different, take on the concept of the theme song and its relation to the show it signals. Unlike the forward-looking optimism of Mary Tyler Moore‘s opener, the main mood here is one of longing for the past, mixed with confusion and contempt towards the present. The simple piano tune, sung by the middle-aged characters of Archie and Edith Bunker, is reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley melodies and mentions 1930s symbols such as Glen Miller and the LaSalle brand of luxury cars. It sounded completely out of place at the time, and deliberately ridiculous – not just when Jean Stapleton as Edith hits a jarring high note, but also in its admiring reference to Herbert Hoover, the US president mostly remembered for his failure to prevent the stock market crash of 1929. At the same time, this nostalgic detachment from reality also makes the characters more endearing, so much so that some have unironically embraced Archie’s reactionary views, overlooking the fact that he’s a fictional character created by a bunch of liberals.
The immense impact both these shows have had on TV comedy is evident in the numerous spin-offs they spawned, featuring the same unconventional subject matter and occasionally subversive humor. This progressive spirit extended to other sitcoms that were growing less dependent on white male leads, and bolder in tackling issues such as racism, misogyny, drug addiction and abortions. As a consequence, there was a sort of gap between the difficult topics and the shows’ basic requirement – to make people laugh – that could’ve resulted in viewer alienation. And even the most modernist network execs aren’t that avant-garde. One of the devices used to soften the socio-cultural punch was the theme song, now employing an inviting tone while ditching the direct address of the “Ballad of Jed Clampett” variety. Whether they reflected the upward mobility of a black family or the tribulations of a single mother (based on a Scorsese movie), theme songs brought stability to a fast-changing cultural landscape.
Come and Knock on Our Door
Maybe this stabilizing function is really what the theme song has always been about. In any case, it has definitely helped it be accepted as an industry standard, and as its own musical form. Throughout the 70s, theme songs of the indirect, mood-setting type grew beyond their signalling function and developed a life of their own. In 1976, for instance, theme songs provided three of the decade’s greatest one hit wonders: “Happy Days” by Pratt & McClain; “Making Our Dreams Come True” by Cyndi Grecco, from Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley; and “Welcome Back” from Welcome Back, Kotter by John Sebastian, who previously found success in the 60s as part of The Lovin’ Spoonful but had his only solo hit with this No. 1 single.
As the decade drew to a close, chart presence has become less frequent, but nonetheless TV was entering another golden age. From 1977 onward, for a period of roughly 15 years, nearly every sitcom in the US had its own memorable opening song. The tendency was so ubiquitous, it even spread to long-format dramedies like The Love Boat, The Dukes of Hazzard and The Greatest American Hero. The newer compositions mostly built on the generalized sentimentality of early 70s theme songs, using their personal address to include viewers in the plot, rather than just inviting them to join the fun. The new songs were filled with universal maxims and slogans of hope, comfort and simplicity: “There’s a time for love and a time for living”; “It’s the bigger love of the family”; “We got each other, sharing the laughter and love”. The lyrics could also be interpreted as speeches of encouragement from one character to another. These statements became mantras for the shows, which similarly embraced a warm, lighthearted emotional tone.
It’s almost as if shows at this stage were drawing inspiration from their theme songs, not the other way around, with most taking place in ordinary settings with the family as the protagonist – whether real or surrogate families of friends and co-workers. Maybe as a result of soap operas entering prime time, 80s sitcoms chose to present multiple main characters, touchy melodramatic scenes, and plot lines that lasted more than one episode (but not more than two). And, like Dallas and Dynasty, these sitcoms were willing to dabble in socially significant topics, often framed within the trope of the “very special episode”.
But stability can lead to stagnancy. The comfort offered by 80s sitcoms has often been seen as not only repetitive but regressive, reviving the trite moralism and urge for closure typical of many 50s domestic comedies (one of which was called Father Knows Best, so you get the vibe they were going for). The theme songs to these shows offered a longing for traditional values as well, sans the irony of the All in the Family theme. In a way, they were nostalgic for themselves, lamenting the loss of a simple and harmless world while recreating it. Take for instance the intro to Cheers, one of the most successful non-domestic sitcoms of the decade. The song describes a state of exhaustion and anxiety in the world, and a desire to find a hideout and be surrounded by like-minded people. The opening sequence makes clear what this safe haven is, with selectively colored old-timey pictures of crowded bars. This is a very literal attempt to revive the past, although the song – sympathetic as it may be – simply stresses the point of wanting to be “where everybody knows your name”, without assuring that such a place really exists.
Perhaps this is crediting too much self-awareness to these shows. After all, they did arrive during what is often considered the most superficial, reactionary period of popular culture. But to be fair, 80s sitcoms – while adhering to pretty strict formulas – did attempt to ground themselves in reality, including its harsher parts, even if the way they worked this out has occasionally been ridiculous or cringeworthy (as some online commentators have pointed out). Like the “special episode” cliché, intros of the period have been endlessly parodied, sometimes to a point that subverts their supposedly wholesome nature. But even in real time, some shows exhibited impressive reflexivity and meta-criticism of TV and of the sitcom genre. An extreme case would be the self-referential theme song to It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, where the star plays a fictional version of himself and directly speaks to the audience (including on one episode encouraging them to sing along). Yet the most memorable example was a domestic sitcom, only this time about a dysfunctional working-class family, and with a Frank Sinatra song as its theme.
Married… with Children was not only a pioneer of presenting blue-collar characters and off-color humor, but also of using pre-existing music in new and meaningful contexts. Yes, The Golden Girls did it first (and did it beautifully), but that was a re-recording of an existing song, which simply highlighted the show’s theme of friendship. Here, the choice of a 30-year-old tune generates a hollow sense of nostalgia in a manner similar to All in the Family (worth noting that Al Bundy, like Archie Bunker, has become an unwilling hero of narrow-minded fans who’ve taken his offensive anti-progressive rants at face value). The scene of the family taking money from frozen-faced Al already mocks the idyllic worldview of the song – and of most 80s comedies – by suggesting that love and marriage don’t always go together. It’s also important that the scene is shown from the point of view of the living room television, itself a main character and target of ridicule on the show. It’s a commentary on how multi-channel viewing has come to replace familial interaction, and a satire of the escapism offered by most sitcoms. This move didn’t just distinguish newcomer FOX as edgier and realer than the three major networks – it also reflected the show’s role during another transitional period for TV comedy.
Not the Boss of Me Now
The sitcoms of the late 70s to early 90s reflected the cultural trends of their time. Increased reliance on formulas and a neo-conservative social view was a tendency that encompassed music and film as well as television. Its disintegration in the mainstream happened concurrently across all major media: 1992, when Who’s the Boss? and Growing Pains were cancelled, was also the year that saw the release of both Reservoir Dogs and The Chronic. So it’s little wonder that eventually, many of the conventions that typified those sitcoms would be seen as outdated. There were now new young demographics to woo, and they were not having any of it. And so, from the mid 90s onwards, theme songs have become less and less common on TV, their place gradually being taken by shorter instrumental intros. Even when they’ve had lyrics, their length has often made them feel more like jingles than songs.
The change wasn’t immediate however, and the pre-Y2K years did see their fare share of memorable tunes, including what might be the most beloved theme song from the most successful sitcom of all time (do you really need to click the link to know?). Generally, the trend during this period was updating the sound of theme songs to a post-grunge style that’d feel modern without alienating viewers outside the GenX cohort. Exceptions include The Nanny, echoing early sitcoms in its animation style and the detailed storytelling of its swinging tune; Family Guy, starting with yet another homage to All in the Family and introducing Seth McFarlane’s penchant for big band and vocal pop; and the first two seasons of The Drew Carey Show, signalled by the jazzy ditty “Moon over Parma” and 60s pop-rock hit “Five O’clock World” before switching to a louder song performed by the 90s’ quintessential comedy rockers, The Presidents of the United States of America.
“Cleveland Rocks”, while a cover of a song from 1979, stands out as a prime example of two intertwined aspects of TV theme songs in the late 90s and early 00s. First is the identity of the performers. Following the breakout of alternative rock earlier in the decade, and the subsequent blurring of the lines between underground and mainstream, many shows recruited newly famous (though not always new) acts to record their themes, as part of their overall appeal to teens and young adults. Primus lent their talents to South Park, while They Might Be Giants provided the intro music to Malcolm in the Middle. Even dramas like Dawson’s Creek were turning to trendy names with indie credentials, in this case Lilith Fair graduate Paula Cole.
The spirit of the time is also reflected in these intros’ lack of uniformity. It seems counter-productive to define a group of songs by their differences, but this is actually an expression of the slacker ethos of not willing to conform to patterns. In that era of heightened individualism, themes either continued the previous tendency of mood-setting lyrics or returned to the older expository tradition, often while keeping an ironic distance (the aforementioned Malcolm and South Park represent those tendencies well, respectively). Drew Carey, in the meantime, juggled three different songs – none of which were specifically written for the show – going as far as to use three versions of each in the final two seasons, often re-recorded by different artists. The intricately choreographed sequences might seem to belong to a bygone era, but the self-aware attitude to the show’s intro evolution place it firmly in the postmodern era.
As many sitcoms were embracing alt-rock, a multitude of new shows focused on African-American characters were reflecting contemporary hip-hop and R&B in their own intros. These were undoubtedly emboldened by the success of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and its theme song, which in a way harks back to the descriptive openers of the 60s (and more specifically The Monkees, as both shows start with young pop stars introducing themselves in their own style). But it’s 100% a product of the early 90s, and the epitome of Will Smith’s early career as the greatest integrator of comedy and rap, a combination that by that point has already earned him a Grammy. The graffiti-laden interiors of the sequence build on his public image, resembling his music videos as part of a duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff (who was himself a recurring cast member, another proof of the show’s reliance on Smith’s stardom). Hip-hop purists often show contempt for Smith’s lightweight brand of rap, but it’s impossible to deny his role in bringing the culture to the general audience, in no small part thanks to this sitcom and its theme song, which people everywhere still spit along to.
Yes, this one belongs to the era covered in the previous section but hey, the constant thread here is the time-traveling theme songs allow us, so excuse me for not being strictly chronological. Anyway, following The Fresh Prince (and also In Living Color which debuted the same year with its own hip-hop intro), African-American sitcoms were more comfortable expanding the sonic palette of theme songs to include genres relevant to young black audiences. Lyrically, these songs showed the diversity of sitcom intros, with some loosely describing the premise, others transmitting the general vibes and topics of the show, and others still consisting mostly the title. They also occasionally featured A-list performers, like En Vogue popping up in the season 1 intro of Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper (where star Mark Curry directly refers to the song’s function as his theme music), and of course Brandy introducing her own program, Moesha. It’s worth noting that many of these shows were broadcast on new networks like UPN and the WB, which like FOX in the 80s were looking to establish a distinct identity. This is another symptom of the desire for individualism during this period, a societal tendency that manifested itself onscreen in the multiplication of channels and sub-genres with their own style of humor, camera work, and music. It’s also one of the signs that pop culture was distancing itself from symbols of cultural hegemony and homogeneity, among them the concept of the theme song. This might have been the beginning of the end.
They All Just Fade Away
And now we get to the part of: What happened? The 90s and early 00s removed any notion of uniformity from theme songs, but the number of these songs was still significant. Since around the time Friends ended in 2004 and up until today, lyrics in intros have become much more of a rarity. There are many possible reasons for this decrease in the value of the opening song. Earlier, I suggested that the oversaturation of TV channels reflected a breaking down of perceived social cohesion, a trajectory vaguely predicted in the Married… with Children intro. This could explain why theme songs, particularly of the sentimental kind of the 80s, have lost their overall grasp in this new fragmented landscape, although it doesn’t explain why it happened when it happened. Abnormal openings were present since at least the late 80s, including some radical examples like Garry Shandling’s second program, the virtually intro-less The Larry Sanders Show. Something happened in the mid 2000s to tip the scales.
Some of it has to do with the type of content produced during that period. The most prominent trend of 21st century TV has undoubtedly been the inescapable popularity of reality shows, a natural yet often monstrous extension of the desire for authenticity prevalent in the previous decade. Sitcoms were looking for a way to emulate the sense of immediacy offered by the reality genre, without ditching their commitment to storylines and good jokes, and found a winning formula with The Office. The show perfectly mimicked docu-reality conventions, such as the rough zooms or the frequent cutaways to confessionals. The US version maintained the illusion in its intro, which starts with handheld shots of the show’s setting in Scranton, Pennsylvania (taken by cast member John Krasinski). The choice of a specifically written instrumental theme – still with a bit of a post-grunge vibe – is an essential part of the show’s abandonment of the language of the classic, perfectly framed sitcom punctuated by audience reactions. Although sitcoms without a laugh track were nothing new, the overall cinéma vérité mode of The Office – including the wordless tune – set the standard for future TV mockumentaries, from Parks and Recreation to Veep to American Vandal.
Cool side note: some 00s reality programs, mostly those produced by MTV, actually had a theme song. But these were scripted reality shows (hope I didn’t burst anyone’s bubble), their polished style influenced by popular teen dramas like The O.C. and One Tree Hill more than any realistic pretense. This type of young adult docufiction is an abomination only the naughties can produce, but it’s a good reminder that sometimes, it can be useful to examine cultural trends through the exceptions to the rule. And in the realm of new millennium sitcoms, no one has been more exceptional than Chuck Lorre.
By no means a revolutionary, Lorre’s productions stand out mostly for their adherence to the sitcom guidebook: three-camera setup, studio audience, occasional sentimental scenes, and a memorably sung intro. The type of song varied across shows, in accordance with their prevalent themes. Mike & Molly featured a mercilessly short version of a love song by blues artist Keb’ Mo’; Two and a Half Men opened with a joyous repetition of the phrase “manly man”; and The Big Bang Theory takes the stroytelling trend of the 60s ridiculously far, laying out the history of the universe in a short lecture by Barenaked Ladies, another legendary comedy-rock group. The often unflattering reviews Lorrie’s shows have received since their inception – pointing out their outdated style and humor – indicate that this type of production has come to be seen as undesirable, with most other classicist sitcoms failing to gain an ounce of the immense success of Lorre’s shows.
Somewhat similarly, Community managed to distance itself from the norm by expanding its college setting into a boundless, reference-heavy and constantly self-conscious world. Its obsession with TV tropes meant it had to have a catchy theme song, which perfectly encapsulated the show’s quirky, bittersweet tone. And while that unique voice garnered Community an indelible cult status, it also stifled its acceptance, as the show struggled through its existence until landing in the TV graveyard that is Yahoo! Screen.
Remember All Their Voices
It seems that nowadays, TV shows with theme songs are regarded as either dull and anachronistic or as strange and urelatable. They can achieve mainstream success or critical appreciation, but never both. It might be a reach to suggest that the inclusion of a theme song directly contributes to this situation, but it’s clear that today sung intros are the aberration and not the norm. An immediate culprit that comes to mind, like with literally anything, is the internet. The personalized, disorderly viewing experience provided by streaming services could be blamed for the demise of the theme song, as suggested in this GQ article (which I swear I came across only after starting to work on this post). These seem very likely suspects, but this logic doesn’t explain why Netflix, probably the biggest and most acclaimed of those services, is also where the theme song is resurrected.
One of Netflix’s earliest and still biggest hits, Orange Is the New Black provides what might be the most impeccable match of music, lyrics, image and context in recent TV history. In a bold move in the 2010s, especially in the domain of the “skip intro” button, the dramedy’s opening sequence lasts over a minute, long enough for Regina Spektor’s “You’ve Got Time” to move from anxious to wistful to reassuring, all while maintaining the irony of the song’s title in a prison drama. The visuals fit the mood of the song perfectly, as the sequence alternates between jail iconography and close-ups of actual former inmates looking straight into the camera. These images enhance the emotional punch of the song, and highlight the real-life basis of the show. As a whole the sequence also speaks to the bonds between women in the series, which help them and the plot move forward.
Women’s struggles and triumphs stand at the center of other Netflix originals, which boast memorable opening tunes as well. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt uses an Auto-Tuned version of a fictional viral hit, featured in the first episode, to simultaneously contemplate on the weird nature of internet fame and to guarantee that the heroine will overcome the challenges facing her because “females are strong as hell”. And then there’s the remake of the saccharine sitcom that gave this post its title. Fuller House, which focuses on the adult lives of D.J., Stephanie and Kimmy as they navigate motherhood, aims clearly for the nostalgia factor, and so rehashes the original show’s song, only this time performed by Carly Rae Jepsen who’s celebrated for her recreation of 80s pop. This harmless retro vibe might feel out of place alongside gritty quality dramas, but it fits perfectly within Netflix’s part in bringing back the theme song. The streaming service also embraces parody of the classic sitcom era, as evidenced in the fictional show-within-a-show Horsin’ Around, the claim to fame of the titular star of the much darker animated sitcom BoJack Horseman.
It looks like we went full circle, from the birth of the theme song and its evolution on broadcast networks, to its divergence and weakening in the multi-channel era, to its minor rebirth on the web. And it’s still not totally clear why there aren’t that many full-fledged songs opening shows anymore. With such an under-explored topic, it’s hard to provide definitive answers to even basic questions like “what was the first theme song?”, much less to long processes. What’s clear is that in an age of increased competition for audience’s attention from different shows, genres, networks and media platforms, the norms have been redefined so that short instrumental or non-musical intros are now the preferred style on TV. But as we’ve seen, the televisual landscape has been constantly changing, adapting to the times while subtly transforming them. Whether looking forward or back, there are always shows trying to break the mold and do something different, straight from their first notes. So as long as this hunger for varied content carries on, there will be tunes for viewers to sing along to.
And just to show how strong and everlasting the presence of these tunes is, I end this post with a bunch of theme songs, from the 60s to these days, presented here in their long form. Some actually hold it well, even beyond the two-minute mark. Have a listen:
Random on Purpose 