Do You Recognize These Classic TV Theme Songs?

Comedian Gabe Kaplan and TV producer Alan Sacks, both born Brooklynites, teamed up to make a TV show about a teacher returning to the New York borough to educate tough kids, originally titled “Kotter.” They got Lovin’ Spoonful singer John Sebastian to write the theme, but he had trouble coming up with rhymes for “Kotter” (maybe if the show featured more otters...). Instead, he focused on the returning aspect and created “Welcome Back,” which proved so popular it was added to the title of the show.

The creator of the theme songs for “Wonder Woman,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and “The Love Boat,” Charles Fox is known for bringing elements of popular music to the genre, although he had to mine an earlier sound for “Happy Days.” Heeding ABC's request to model the theme after the 1954 hit "Rock Around the Clock," Fox and lyricist Norman Gimbel reeled off a cheerfully nostalgic ditty, only to see the network go with "Rock Around the Clock" for the opener instead, pushing their song to the end credits. It wasn't until season 3 that a re-recorded "Happy Days Theme" took center stage.

The avant-garde composer Marius Constant sold a series of brief musical stings to CBS in the 1950s. In general, these five-second bits would be used as accents during a show, and even then their unusual sound made them not terribly useful. However, when CBS’s musical director needed a new theme for the eerie anthology series “The Twilight Zone,” he combined Constant’s "Etrange No. 3" (the spooky four guitar notes repeating) and his "Milieu No. 2" (the harsh mix of guitar, bongo, brass, and flute).

When “Jeopardy!” creator Merv Griffin hummed a made-up lullaby for his son, he never imagined it would earn him millions. Griffin claims he came up with the song — titled “Think!” — in less than a minute, and later realized it would be a good fit for his new game show. While “Jeopardy!” tried out a few theme songs throughout its earlier years, “Think!” has always played during Final Jeopardy.

A worse indignity than trying to use a radio made of coconuts, the season 1 theme of “Gilligan’s Island” lumped together the Professor and Mary Ann as “the rest.” According to actress Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, Bob Denver (Gilligan) told producers that if the characters' names weren’t added, he wanted his character’s name removed too. The producers relented in season 2, but for years to come, Wells and actor Russell Johnson (the Professor) would send each other Christmas cards signed from “the rest.”

Actress Ja’Net DuBois had already compiled an impressive list of credits, including roles on Broadway and the sitcom “Good Times,” when she earned the chance to write the theme song for producer Norman Lear’s upcoming spinoff of “All in the Family.” DuBois teamed with 1960s hitmaker Jeff Barry to pen a song that reflected her rise from humble beginnings. The result was "Movin' on Up," the opener for “The Jeffersons” (1975 to 1985), which featured DuBois' powerhouse vocals and a 35-member choir.

Nearly everybody can recognize the synth-bass sounds of the "Seinfeld" theme song, but each episode actually features a slightly different track. The opener for the 1990s sitcom was composed by Jonathan Wolff, who based the theme for each episode on Jerry's opening monologue, which featured different jokes every time. Wolff would add bass, snapping, and other sounds during the vocal pauses between each joke, and the end product would contain slight musical variations from episode to episode.

During his 30-year run as host, Johnny Carson kicked off "The Tonight Show" with a jazzy, instrumental tune called "Johnny's Theme." The song was written by singer-songwriter Paul Anka, who had become famous in the 1950s with hits including "Diana" and "Lonely Boy." Throughout Carson's "Tonight Show" stint, the theme song earned Anka massive royalties: At the peak of the show's popularity, Anka was taking home $800,000 to $900,000 annually.

Quincy Jones knew Redd Foxx long before he became the star of “Sanford and Son” in 1972; Jones had written the music that played when Foxx walked onstage at gigs at the famed Apollo Theater. When Jones was approached about writing the theme for "Sanford and Son," he was shocked producers wanted to put the explicit comic on national TV, but he signed on anyway and wrote the song in 20 minutes.

From 1965 to 1971, “Green Acres” was the place to be. As on other series at the time, the memorable theme song explained the sitcom’s premise in a brief musical number — but unlike other shows, "Green Acres" tapped its lead actors, Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, to sing the tune. Gabor was nervous about singing and required coaching to work up the courage, but she nailed her recording in a single take.

Also known by the song's official name, "The Fishin' Hole," the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show" is a timeless classic highlighted by a simple yet catchy whistle performed throughout. The song was purportedly written in 15 minutes by composers Earle Hagen and Herbert Spencer, with the former providing the whistling we know and love.

As Archie and Edith warbled out “Those Were the Days” at the piano before each episode, they waxed nostalgic about Glenn Miller, Herbert Hoover, and the days of yore, recalling, “Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.” Audiences had trouble interpreting the words in this line of the song, so it was re-recorded for the final three seasons, with Carroll O’Connor changing his enunciation to make it easier to understand.

“Friends” producers reportedly wanted to use R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People” for the show's theme song, but the band wasn’t interested. However, producer Kevin Bright was a fan of the Rembrandts and thought they could reproduce a similar sound. They finished the song in just a few days, and less than a week later, on September 22, 1994, it was on TV.

Bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were tapped to play the instruments on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme song for "The Beverly Hillbillies," but almost turned down the gig when they heard the name of the show, which premiered in 1962. Their manager, Louise Scruggs, didn’t think country folk would appreciate the term “hillbillies,” but relented when she learned those hillbillies would get the best of the big-city types.

Hats off to Sonny Curtis for creating the memorable theme song for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Early episodes of the show included the lyrics “You might just make it after all,” but Curtis was asked to change the line since it sounded too doubtful, and after the first 1970-1971 season, Moore’s character had clearly made it. He swapped the line for “You’re gonna make it after all” in season two.

Gary Portnoy came up with the lyrics for the "Cheers" theme song in a taxi cab en route to the recording studio in the early ‘80s. Before "Making your way in the world today, takes everything you've got" became the opening line, an early version of the song started with "Singing the blues when the Red Sox lose, it’s a crisis in your life.”

To come up with the “altogether ooky” sound of "The Addams Family" theme, composer Vic Mizzy combined the harpsichord with finger snaps. Mizzy's idea for the theme song was so specific, he even directed the filming of the opening sequence, coordinating all seven actors to snap in unison with the song. (The show originally ran from 1964 to 1966.) Later in life, he would jokingly say he owed his home in Bel-Air to those “two finger snaps.”

Show creator Garry Marshall directed his sister Penny Marshall (Laverne) and Cindy Williams (Shirley) over the course of 120 setup shots to make the opening of “Laverne & Shirley,” which premiered in 1976. As they started losing light, he asked his sister to reenact a childhood song. The chant is essentially nonsense; according to Merriam-Webster, a “schlemiel” is an unlucky bungler, a “schlimazel” is a consistently unlucky person, and “hasenpfeffer” is a kind of rabbit stew.