I've got a lot of eclectic musical tastes.
I love when marching bands cover popular music.
I can sing the aria to "What's Opera, Doc?"
...and...
I'm fascinated by television theme songs, especially those with lyrics,
specifically those with lyrics which are rarely heard on television.
It started when "Cheers" went off the air. One of the entertainment magazines featured the lyrics, which were never heard on air:
All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;
[...]
Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;
WOW! Those were pretty cool!
Then I remembered that M*A*S*H had lyrics in the movie, which never aired on television because those lyrics were specific to a story in the movie.
Then, in 1997, there was an official history book for Star Trek, to celebrate the 30th (sigh) anniversary of the series. Inside, was the original sheet music to the theme song, WITH LYRICS! (Roddenberry, in a money-grubbing move, added lyrics so he could earn half the royalties on the theme. Alexander Courage was not pleased.)
It slowly snowballed from there, as I picked up trivia from various sources and found sheet music collections.
Thanks to YouTube and other resources, it's now less difficult to find the original recordings (on vinyl!) online.
Thus, in 2013, I created a hashtag #forgottentvlyrics, and began posting to social media. Twitter and Facebook didn't have good indexing, so I placed everything on Google Plus. Since then, I've realized, why not transfer everything here, so I can at least make a few pennies. (And who knows how much longer Google Plus will remain viable?)
The following is a list of what I've found so far. As I copy posts over to here, I'll include links in the titles.
One more note... I'm doing all this in 2015, but placing everything in 2012, which was empty of posts. I don't want to clutter up my regular feed.
The list (so far)
- The A*Team [full theme]
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents [full theme]
- All in the Family
- All In The Family [closing theme with lyrics!]
- American Bandstand
- The Andy Griffith Show
- Angie
- Baretta (Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow)
- Beverly Hills 90210 [no lyrics, just the full theme]
- Bewitched
- Buck Rogers in the 21st Century
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer [theme only]
- Charlie's Angels
- CHiPS [theme only, but a rockin' 12" version]
- Davy Crockett
- The Dick Van Dyke Show
- Duck Tales
- The Dukes of Hazzard
- The Facts of Life
- The Fall Guy
- Flo
- Gilmore Girls
- The Greatest American Hero
- Gunsmoke
- Happy Days [alternate lyrics]
- Have Gun Will Travel
- Hogan's Heroes
- The Paper Chase
- I Dream of Jeannie
- I Love Lucy
- Joannie Loves Chachi
- Laverne & Shirley (Making Our Dreams Come True)
- Leave It To Beaver (The Toy Parade)
- Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
- The Love Boat
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- M*A*S*H
- Makin' It
- Malcolm in the Middle
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [I need a source!]
- Merrily We Roll Along (Merrie Melodies) [I need a source!]
- The Merry Go Round Broke Down (Looney Tunes)
- Moonlighting
- The Munsters
- The Odd Couple
- Peter Gunn
- Star Trek
- Taxi [full theme]
- To Tell The Truth
- 21 Jump Street
- Welcome Back Kotter
- WKRP in Cincinnati
- Wonder Woman
- The Bill Cosby Show (Hicky Burr)
- Ironsides [theme only]
- The Untouchables [theme only]
- Route 66
- Naked City
- The Rogues [the previous four are by Nelson Riddle]
- Peter Gunn [alternate lyrics?]
- Mr. Lucky
- NBC Mystery Movie
- What's Happening!!
- Tic Tac Dough (1990 version)
- Once Is Not Enough
- Newhart
- Hotel
- Remington Steele
- Ripley's Believe It or Not [All by Henry Mancini]
That reminds me... I wonder how long the Dallas theme runs?
That's got a nice disco beat as well!
Hmmm.... maybe I'll do a separate post on remixes!
WHEW!
