By Matthew
In my head there are a lot of TV themes and starting sequences of shows I watch while growing up. Some of these have really stuck with me and I remember watching certain shows with the emotions that the intro’s set up.
I’d like to share some of these with you and would love to hear about soe that may have been formative in your TV tastes.
I’ll include a youtube link where possible.
Dr Who – Tom Baker as The Doctor
The Professionals - One of the best themes ever! Hands down.
Battlestar Galactica – Original, of course.
Star Trek To boldy split infinitives that no man has split before.
Travis Prinzi on 
Arabella Figg on 
SPT on 
Lily Luna on 
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
My favorite has always been the Cowboy Bebop opening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6zDfxZ4NcE
Top favorite show intro ever: X-Files.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-9L-RZkod4
PS Matthew, what are you thinking of, to post Thunderbirds and not Stringray???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06cNv55jTs
It’s a tie between Star Trek: The Original Series & Doctor Who. Both formative shows from my youth. They helped make me the geeky nerd I am today.
In fact, my wife knew that I was the man for her when I mentioned Doctor Who.
Ah, the warm memories of watching Doctor Who on Sunday nights when I was supposed to be going to sleep because the next day was a school day. My mom’s room was in the back of the house & mine was in the front, so I could normally get away with it. At 10PM we’d start off with Monty Python, then Doctor Who & then either Blake’s 7 or Alexei Sayle or The Young Ones.
Back in the day when there were only 4 channels, PBS was a necessity. Now, of course, it’s a horrible waste of taxpayer money & should be eliminated. But I will always have a fond spot in my heart for it.
reyhan,
Strangely, I have never seen Stingray! It looks like a great series. Like a whole show of Thunderbird 4 stories- my favourite Thunderbird. Did you ever see Terrahawks?
revgeorge,
I too am a fan of British productions and have watched all the shows you mentioned.
Maybe I should have included the M*A*S*H* theme in my list.
Matthew,
Never heard of Terrahawks. But if you had watched Stingray, Black Angus would still be talking about Marina the Mermaid, the third side of the love triangle involving Troy Tempest and Atlanta. Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDNBQSZ68U
reyhan,
Wow. She’s hot. Looks like a spitting image of Lady Penelope.
Yeah, except for the hair and the clothes. And the fact that she can’t speak; her people communicate by telepathy (with each other) and sign language (with humans).
Which reminds me of a story by Maupassant. A French man meets an English woman at a resort. Neither can speak the other’s language, and he falls madly in love with her because she seems so mysterious. They marry, and are fabulously happy, until she learns to speak French.
reyhan,
That is funny. It kind of reminds me of The Horse and his Boy when what’s-her-name and Cor fight and arue s much that they get married. And when I wrote that Marina (isn’t that a type of pizza?) was hot I meant hot for a supermarionet.
Matthew
Matthew,
Marinara is a kind of pasta sauce. And I think we’ve just about taken this thread to the limits of propriety.
But before I let it go, here are two more bits of trivia: Troy Tempest was made to look like James Garner (supposedly all of the Andersons’ marionettes had real-life counterparts); and each of the Tracy boys was named after a Mercury astronaut.
Here’s a peek behind the scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPD_CO8rvQ
Hey, I just came across this thread…
Reyhan, maybe I’ve given away too much in past posts! But if Atlanta is the one in the futuristic eastern-European military get up in that clip then Troy’s welcome to Marina.
And thanks for the Mercury astronaut info – I didn’t know that!
With that out of the way…
Dr Who, Kum Kum and MASH are the most evocative themes from my childhood. Dr Who was scary, Kum Kum’s theme made me feel nostalgic even as a ten year old and MASH reminds me of times with my Dad.
Speaking of MASH, my younger brother (who will remain anonymous) always thought the helicopters were flying backwards in the opening credits. And also he’s the one who got the pianist to play the Sesame Street theme at his wedding…
Couldn’t get into Dr. Who, but I agree that the opening theme was highly evocative.
I fell in and then out of love with M*A*S*H, or rather Alan Alda’s portrayal of Hawkeye. For a while, I thought he was the epitome of compassionate cool. And then one day something happened and he turned into a sanctimonious bleeding-heart. Correspondingly, the theme music went from hauntingly evocative to irritatingly over-familiar.
And I think that your brother was right. Those helicopters were flying backwards. Which is something that helicopters can do.
And speaking of women in Eastern European military get up: you need to see The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Two words: Irina Spalko.
Reyhan,
You’re not meant to agree with my brother! As I had to patiently explain to him every time we saw it, the camera helicopter was going past them… Sheesh.
And you’re leading me astray with all these suggestions, but keep them coming!