TV Theme Songs That Explain the Whole Plot

Previously on: everything, every week, set to a banjo.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A palomino horse stall in a suburban barn with a telephone receiver hanging off the hook over the door.

    10. Mister Ed

    Mister Ed · 1961

    Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote it, and Livingston sang it as a placeholder until producers decided he was the singer. It establishes one horse, one talking horse, and one man he talks to. Alan Young later admitted the peanut butter story was made up.

  2. A backyard tree shading a giant homemade roller coaster blueprint, with a small fedora resting on the grass.

    09. Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day

    Phineas and Ferb · 2007

    Bowling for Soup sing the 104-days-of-summer premise and run through a list of impossible projects, while the show's own subplot about a spy platypus erases the evidence. A theme that knows the episode formula better than most writers' rooms.

  3. Two identical plaid skirts hanging side by side, one with a tartan scarf and one with a hot dog wrapper in the pocket.

    08. Cousins

    The Patty Duke Show · 1963

    Sid Ramin and Robert Wells explain that Patty Duke is playing identical cousins, one from Brooklyn and one worldly, so you stop asking. Their fathers were identical twins, which the song does not bother with. Genetics was not the point. Patty Duke was.

  4. Four colored bandanas, red, blue, orange and purple, tied around a slice of pizza on a sewer manhole cover.

    07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles · 1987

    Written by Chuck Lorre and Dennis C. Brown on a $2,000 budget and a 48-hour deadline, with Lorre singing. It lists all four turtles, their personality quirks and their sensei. Lorre went on to make The Big Bang Theory. The turtles remain his best-explained ensemble.

  5. A pitchfork leaning against a farmhouse porch beside a pair of sequined evening gloves and a pearl necklace draped over a milk pail.

    06. Green Acres

    Green Acres · 1965

    Vic Mizzy wrote it as a duet: Eddie Albert wants the farm, Eva Gabor wants Park Avenue, and the stars sang it themselves. That is the entire show, all six seasons. Mizzy also wrote The Addams Family theme, so he knew his way around a strange household.

  6. Three theater seats silhouetted against a glowing movie screen inside a spaceship, with a gumball machine and a bowling pin nearby.

    05. Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000

    Mystery Science Theater 3000 · 1988

    Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein wrote lyrics, Charlie Erickson the music, covering a janitor, two mad scientists, a satellite, bad movies and homemade robots. It also tells you not to take any of this seriously, which is the best note a theme ever gave.

  7. A crude oil gusher erupting from a muddy swamp next to a rickety jalopy loaded with a rocking chair, a banjo leaning on the wheel.

    04. The Ballad of Jed Clampett

    The Beverly Hillbillies · 1962

    Paul Henning's song covers poverty, a missed rabbit, an oil strike and a relocation to California in about a minute. Flatt and Scruggs played it, Jerry Scoggins sang, and it became the first bluegrass record to top the Billboard country chart. Wealth management by banjo.

  8. A wall of nine square picture frames arranged in a three-by-three grid above a 1970s orange sofa.

    03. The Brady Bunch

    The Brady Bunch · 1969

    Schwartz again, with Frank De Vol: a widow with three girls, a widower with three boys, one merger. The tic-tac-toe grid did the org chart. By season two the kids sang it themselves, which is how you know the family was legally binding.

  9. A yellow taxi parked in front of a grand white mansion with palm trees, a basketball resting on the curb beside a suitcase.

    02. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

    The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air · 1990

    Will Smith wrote it after reading the pilot scripts, which shows: one fight, one worried mother, one cab, one mansion, premise delivered. Quincy Jones had pitched his own version first. Thirty-plus years later, millions can still recite the entire pilot from memory.

  10. A small white tour boat beached on a palm-lined tropical island under a clearing storm sky, a white sailor hat floating in the surf.

    01. The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle

    Gilligan's Island · 1964

    Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle wrote a sea shanty that covers the boat, the storm, the wreck and all seven castaways. Season one lumped two of them in as the rest until Bob Denver threatened to pull his own name. Labor organizing, on a lagoon set.

Honorable mentions

  • An orange muscle car flying over a dirt road creek bank, an acoustic guitar leaning against a fence post in the foreground.

    Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys)

    The Dukes of Hazzard · 1979

    Waylon Jennings wrote it, sang it and narrated the show, so he explained the plot in two formats. The single went No. 1 country in 1980. The radio version jokes that he only appears on the show from the neck down. The car did most of the acting anyway.

Dishonorable mentions

  • An orange velvet couch in an empty coffee shop with a single fountain splashing behind it.

    I'll Be There for You

    Friends · 1994

    Ten seasons of six friends in a coffee shop and the theme mentions jobs, money and love life in general terms only. A Nashville DJ looped it into a full song and the Rembrandts had to record more verses. Still no plot. Just clapping.

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