What's The Longest TV Theme?

[Markxxx]

I was looking through YouTube and with the death of Robert Culp, I noticed someone had put up the opening from the show the Greatest American Hero and that open ran 1:45 seconds.

I then thought: Hmmm which TV show has the longest opening theme.

I saw in the second year the theme from Angie ran 1:40, slightly behind TGAH

Of course both songs went on to be hit singles.

Any other ideas?

 

[bk77]

What about the theme for That Girl? Last year I saw the theme from the last season, the one with the lyrics "..Diamonds..Daisies..Snowflakes...THAT GIRL.." ( I think thats how it went ). I went back to You Tube to try finding out how long it was but I couldn't find it.

For some reason I had always thought the theme for Love, American Style was long but after seeing it on You Tube..only a minute even though I am surprised at least the Cowsills version wasn't released on record. Perhaps that could be due to the theme the Cowsills did for the David Niven 1968 movie The Impossible Years, that bombed only making as high as #118.

 

[LKellerIII]

Even if the days of long TV themes, many shows had long and short versions. I Dream of Jeannie was one.

I've always assumed they used the shorter versions when the episodes ran longer, and the long versions when the episode ran a half minute or more short. I remember that the opening for Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere always seemed interminable, but I think that's because both shows had such large regular casts.

 

[Ultimajock]

For some reason I had always thought the theme for Love, American Style was long but after seeing it on You Tube..only a minute even though I am surprised at least the Cowsills version wasn't released on record.

...The Cowsills' version of the Love, American Style theme was released on record -- as the B-side of the single of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" (#57 in Cash Box, #74 in Billboard) and on their LP All-Time Hits, both in 1970. Perhaps the reason it never got a radio airplay push was because The Cowsills were then on M-G-M Records, while the Love, American Style TV series was a Paramount production. (The Monkees and The Partridge Family never had that conflict, as their labels, Colgems and Bell, were owned by Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems, the series' producers, at the time.) Plus, when Mike Curb became president of M-G-M Records in 1969, one of the things he planned to do was stage a politically-motivated purge of dead wood from the M-G-M and Verve Records rosters under the guise of ridding the company of "drug related" acts, as a wink-and-nod to California Governor Ronald Reagan and Vice President Spiro Agnew, then well into their campaigns against the youth counterculture of the time. One of the acts who got the pink slip was The Cowsills (Curb ludicrously cited "We Can Fly" as a druggie title to CBS News). The Cowsills went to London Records, where they cut one stiff LP before getting their release from that company. BTW, Curb's "anti-druggie" purge tripped him up when the most overtly drug-related performer on M-G-M at the time, Eric Burdon, publicly and very loudly demanded that he be released from his contract with the label --- and Curb refused to grant it...

...which reminds me -- exactly how long are the theme sequences for The Monkees and The Partridge Family? It would seem to me they were notably long, weren't they?...

 

[mleach]

The longest TV theme that wasn't released as a single or on an album I believe, clocked at 1:22 is Lancelot Link...Secret Chimp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9Y0Qy0U20

Oddly, well maybe not but there was an album featuring the "Evolution Revolution",the band on the show however the theme song wasn't on it.

http://www.tvparty.com/70lance2.html

 

[RMarino]

I remember as a kid watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse and noticing that the opening theme was nearly two minutes long! Of course it's chopped down on reruns these days.

 

[Markieo]

exactly how long are the theme sequences for The Monkees and The Partridge Family? It would seem to me they were notably long, weren't they?...

The Monkees TV theme ran 52 seconds (the album version ran 2:20), while The Partridge Family's themes "When We're Singing" and "C'mon Get Happy" ran just over one minute.

 

[Markieo]

"The A-Team"'s closing TV theme sometimes ran as long as 3 minutes!

 

[azumanga]

"The A-Team"'s closing TV theme sometimes ran as long as 3 minutes!

I also recall the closing theme to Magnum PI also rather lengthy at times, as well as the first season of CHiPs.

 

[mbayus]

How about the theeme from CBS Reports which is a set of variations on the Shaker melody called Simple Gifts by Aaron Copland from the ballet Appalachian Spring. The set of variations lasts about 7 minutes, and I think that the ballet lasts about a half an hour.

 

[RBW]

My vote initially went to "Room 222". I see however that it's 1:29 Still longer than most!

 

[firepoint525]

What's the "longest" TV theme? The one that you don't like!

 

[ssetta]

It would appear that with most TV themes, the one that is used on the show regularly is the short version. I know that's true for both Friends and Cheers, and even Sesame Street. Does anyone remember the part of the Sesame Street theme that goes like this:

It's a magic carpet ride
Every door will open wide
To happy people like you
Happy people like...
What a beautiful...

And then it goes back to the "Sunny Day" verse. It was rarely sung on the show, but it WAS heard instrumentally on the Friday closing credits. For years, I had no idea that part of the song had words.

 

[nightfly61]

I'm thinking Fantasy Island since the introduction of all the visitors getting off the plane is "built into" the theme & intro. I can't talk about the Fantasy Island intro without saying "DE PLAAAANE...DE PLAAAAAAANE"

 

[searadiofreak]

I have no scientific proof, but "Lou Grant" seemed kinda long. Lots of imagery, followed by star shots. Great show, though.

 

[anotherguyTN]

"The A-Team"'s closing TV theme sometimes ran as long as 3 minutes!

I also recall the closing theme to Magnum PI also rather lengthy at times, as well as the first season of CHiPs.

Wasn't that largely because of switching between showing clips from the show and running credits?

It would appear that with most TV themes, the one that is used on the show regularly is the short version. I know that's true for both Friends and Cheers, and even Sesame Street.

In the case of Cheers, and possibly Friends as well, I think that the longer version was used in the original run, and the shorter version was used in reruns after they went to syndication/cable. MASH seemed to use a shorter version of the theme in its later season and in reruns at times.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I guess "Lamb Chop's Play A Long" doesn't count??

"This is the song that never ends....
It goes on and on my friend...."

 

[Stanislav]

MASH seemed to use a shorter version of the theme in its later season and in reruns at times.

M*A*S*H used an abbreviated opening, accompanied by what was normally the more upbeat ending arrangement of the "Suicide is Painless" theme song, for a small handful of later season episodes (and, IIRC, all in the same season, though don't ask me which, specifically). Don't know if this was due to some episodes running a little longer, or (far more likely) a way for the network to cram an extra commercial in somewhere.

Somewhere on the Web, there was, perhaps still is, a quite obsessive M*A*S*H fan site that breaks down and details all the permutations of the opening graphics and theme music over the course of the series. Apparently, they re-recorded the theme music in slightly different arrangements several times. Some seasons used the same arrangement all the way through, others changed in midstream or reverted temporarily to an earlier version, etc.

 

[cd637299]

It seemed to me that in the fall of 1978, the short-lived childish sitcom "Out of the Blue" on ABC had a theme of about 2 minutes. Maybe someone can verify that for me. I know this----if the long theme wasn't bad enough, even though it was primetime (up against "60 Minutes"), it was treated like a Saturday morning entry. By that I mean that going into/out of commercials was "Back to 'Out of the Blue' after these messages' " or "Now, back to 'Out of the Blue", as if people didn't know the difference between a show & a commercial.

cd