Here are eight more shows that changed their TV themes during their run…
James at 15 aka James at 16
Starsky & Hutch
Hardcastle & McCormick
The New Flipper
Baywatch Nights
1-800-Missing aka Missing
Baywatch Hawaii
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
More TV Theme fun. Here are seven series that changed the name of their show and their theme during their run.
1-800-Missing became Missing...
Sanford and Son became Sanford Arms
Baywatch became Baywatch Hawaii
Temperatures Rising became the New Temperatures Rising
Danger Man became Secret Agent
SeaQuest DSV became SeaQuest 2032
SeaQuest
THe Virginian became The Men from Shiloh
I’ve been having fun with these TV theme posts. So here’s another one. There have been a few shows that began with instrumental themes…and then added lyrics to them…or that started with theme songs and then later dropped the lyrics. Here are five examples:
Here Come the Brides
That Girl
Baretta
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Buck Rogers
Pilot Theme
I had such a great response to my post 12 TV Shows That Changed Their Themes that I’ve collected fourteen more examples of shows that scrapped one theme tune for an entirely different one.
The Bold Ones
Sheriff Lobo
Season 2
Ohara
Happy Days
Baywatch
Cagney & Lacey
OHara
I Dream of Jeannie
The Drew Carey Show
Nash Bridges
Hazel
(changed the theme twice.. in seasons 4 & 5)
The New Dick Dyke Show
Julia
The Smith Family
Babylon Five
I love TV themes. The best ones become iconic, part of our cultural fabric… like Hawaii Five-O, Peter Gunn, Star Trek, The Addams Family and The Brady Bunch to name just a few. But several famous shows completed scrapped their opening themes… some early on as they were finding their way and some later in their runs to revitalize the series. Here are 12 examples (three of them shows that I worked on):
Kojak
Bonanza
Lost in Space
Season 1
Season 3
Magnum PI
Land of the Giants
Season 1
Season 2
Simon & Simon
The Avengers
SeaQuest
Space: 1999
Walker Texas Ranger
Monk
Martial Law
Season One
Season Two
After nearly fifty years, I thought there wasn’t anything more to be said, or any more books that could possibly be mined, from the original Star Trek. Hasn’t that show been talked about, and examined to death, down to every last detail?
You’d think so. But then along came These Are The Voyages: Season One by Marc Cushman and it may be the best book yet about the production of the series and one of the best books ever written about any TV show. It’s a shame the book is presented as yet another fan-written curio for the diehard trekker…because it’s a must-read for students of television, and aspiring TV writers, regardless of whether they watched, or liked, Star Trek.
These Are The Voyages is an exhaustively detailed look at the writing and nuts-and-bolts production of every single episode, from the first, failed pilot onward. Everything in the book, like a TV series, starts with the scripts…and Cushman walks us through every draft and every change, whether they were prompted by creative issues, budgetary concerns, production issues, or network notes.
The author relies on extensive interviews with the show’s surviving writers, producers, directors, and actors (and archival interviews with those who have passed away) and never-before-released memos, budgets, shooting schedules, and other internal documents. Best of all, Cushman manages to remain, with only a few slips, remarkably objective and scholarly about his subject, leaving the book refreshingly free of the kind of cringe-inducing, fannish drool that usually typifies books about “cult” shows and Star Trek in particular.
These Are the Voyages is a treasure trove of information and a fascinating look at how a TV show is written and produced…and all of the forces that shape it. I’m eagerly looking forward to the next two volumes.
There are two great new books out that deal with forgotten entertainment: Richard Irvin’s Forgotten Laughs: An Episode Guide to 150 TV Sitcoms You Probably Never Saw and Brian Ritt’s Paperback Confidential: Crimes Writers of the Paperback Era.
Forgotten Laughs is a fantastic book from Bear Manor Publishing that focuses on comedies that lasted six episodes…or less. Many of the sitcoms were initially picked up for thirteen episodes but didn’t survive past their first or second week on the air. Some of the shows were cancelled before even one episode got on the air. The book includes detailed episode guides for the aired, unaired or, in some cases, unproduced episodes of each series and gives the backstories on their development and cancellation. It’s a treasure trove of information and a fascinating glimpse into the world of network television scheduling and development. It’s an exhaustively-researched, smoothly written, must-have reference book for TV industry followers. I absolutely loved it. I hope Irvin will follow up with a sequel covering forgotten one-hour dramas.
Paperback Confidential is an essential reference book for lovers of hard-boiled/noir paperbacks of the 1930s through the mid-1960s, most of them forgotten by most readers today. Ritt profiles 132 of the best loved, and also some of the most obscure, authors of the era. Authors include David Goodis, Norbert Davis, Marvin Albert, Dolores Hitchens, Fletcher Flora, Cornell Woolrich, Ann Bannon, Harry Whittington, and so many others. Ritt not only tells you all about them and their books, he also provides their pseudonyms and a selected bibliography of their work (some of these authors wrote dozens, if not hundreds, of books). Now whenever I pick up a vintage paperback from some author I’ve never heard of, this book will save me the hours I would have spent on the Internet searching for more information. It’s no surprise that this terrific book comes from Stark House Press, the people who’ve so lovingly republished “lost” and/or long out-of-print books by Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, Dan J. Marlowe, and James Hadley Chase among others. The people at Stark House are doing God’s work, as far as I’m concerned.
(For the record, I independently bought both of these books…there were not provided to me for review)
In honor of the imminent publication of THE HEIST, here are the main title sequences from a few TV shows that inspired us…