10 of the worst TV theme songs of all time

by Jeremy Mersereau

September 21, 2016

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Not all television themes are created equal.

Not all television themes are created equal.

The rare few are as perfectly intrinsic to their show’s success as say, “Woke Up This Morning”, “Hey Sandy”, or the Cheers theme, which was so charmingly re-interpreted by the Dayton Family. More often, theme songs miss the mark, just don’t fit, or are plain wrong for the show in question, but eventually, they find their place in viewers’ hearts through sheer repetition and nostalgia.

These are not those songs.

These are the TV themes that are utterly, bafflingly bad, even though the show they complement might be perfectly fine (not the case with The Nutshack). In reverse chronological order, here are the worst TV themes we could find:

Justified (FX, 2010)- Gangstagrass – “Long Hard Times To Come”

It’s time to admit it: trying to create an even vaguely listenable hybrid of hip-hop and country just doesn’t work. How many more times do we need to cringe through another one of these abominations before throwing in the towel on an entire crossover gimmick “genre”? Anyway, take out the awkward rapping about God getting at his boy and doing it by your lonesome, and instrumentally, “Long Hard Times To Come” by New York’s Gangstagrass (ugh) is a pretty damn good theme for the Kentucky-fried, rootin’-and-shootin’ adventures of US Marshal Raylan Givens and his nemesis Boyd Crowder. Nothing against those who continually try to graft hip-hop verses on top of banjos, but count this one as the most recent example of a bad, clunky television theme.

The Nutshack (Myx TV, 2007) – NUMP TRUMP – “Nutshack Intro”

I swear, not all of these bad themes are going to be hip-hop. The theme song for poor-quality, short-lived Filipino-American animated show The Nutshack is so low-effort, its amusing shittiness has given it a second lease on life as a memeThe Nutshack only lasted 2 seasons, but thanks to the magic of the internet, now everyone can have the words “it’s,” “the” and “Nutshack” drilled into their skull approximately 48000 times. If you really want to test the limits of your sanity, by all means, click here. It’s, your, funeral.

The L Word (Showtime, 2004) – Betty – “The L Word”

“Talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, fucking, crying, drinking, running, winning, losing, cheating, kissing, thinking, dreaming!” According to NYC bargain-bin alt-rockers Betty, lesbians are capable of all this – AND MORE! It isn’t just that The L Word‘s theme is so hilariously amateur-hour lyrically, it’s that describing an entire sexual orientation as “girls in tight dresses” and “ingenues with long lashes” is so reductive, Betty might as well be singing “girls who love girls, who love girls, who love giiiiiirls”. Hey, that reminds me of …of…something. Anyway, speaking of repetitive non-lyrics:

Two and a Half Men (CBS, 2003)

Ok, I take back everything I said about The L Word theme being lyrically bad – at least they bothered to write some. This masterpiece stemmed in part from the mind of 2+1/2M creator Chuck Lorre, which should tell you a lot about his creative acumen. At least he had the good sense to hire the Barenaked Ladies for his show about nerds, and be glad nobody put Lorre in charge of penning the lyrics for a show with themes a bit more complex than men being manly men, like say, The Wire. “Wire, wire wire, wirey-wire wire” *cashes enormous royalty check*. Fun fact for the 2 Men/Gabor Csupo heads out there: the woman singing the half-man’s part in the theme song is Elizabeth Daily, aka Tommy Pickles.

Star Trek: Enterprise (UPN, 2001) – Russell Watson –  “Faith of the Heart”

Here it is, the theme song that set a thousand Trekkie faces to ‘stunned.’ How anyone thought an English tenor’s cover of a Rod Stewart song from the Patch Adams soundtrack made for an effective theme song to space adventures, we’ll never know. Though the choice of theme was greeted with dismay by every Trekkie worth their Geordie LaForge body pillows (one petition stated that the song “was not fit to be scraped off the bottom of a Klingon’s boot,” which I’m sure in Trekkie-speak is quite damning), “Faith of the Heart” made inroads with real-life spacefarers, serving as the mission day wake-up calls for astronauts on four separate occasions. Makes sense: hearing the song, I wanna get as far away as possible too.

California Dreams (NBC, 1992)

“CALIFORNIA DREAMS” PRODUCER: “Hey, Jerry…what’s missing from this theme song? Why does our show about carefree California surfers sound so sad and haunting, like it was made for surfer’s funeral?” *Sees guy with drums onscreen* “Oh yeah!” *fades up huge gated drums on mixing board*.

Mann & Machine (NBC, 1992)

When in doubt, just lace some extremely irritating beeps with a ridiculous hair-metal guitar solo and some improvised non-singing. This sci-fi police drama sprung from the always-fecund mind of Law & Order’s Dick Wolf (what is it with that guy and ampersands?) and only lasted 9 episodes before being cancelled. Well, at least the dude from Vibrations probably likes it. “Dude…this is so primal, headed for cosmic”.

Small Wonder (Fox, 1985) – “She’s A Small Wonder”

This one makes the list more for reducing the troubling ethical implications of constructing your own child slavebot to a jaunty, breezy lil’ tune. Small Wonder, a television show about a robotics engineer who makes a little girl robot and raises her as his daughter / live-in servant somehow lasted an entire 4 seasons before short circuiting. Spanish translators apparently cut right to the point when localizing the show for their market: in Spain, it was known as Un robot en casa. *Listens to 6 seconds of the theme song* Oh, also this is very bad.

K-9 and Company (BBC, 1981)

Ah, Dr. Who, the show for the dozens of people who wish Star Wars was nothing but C3PO scenes. Delia Derbyshire’s realization original 1963 Dr. Who theme is very highly regarded, both for being a pretty damn good composition and the first fully electronic television theme. This…is not that song. K-9 and Company was a proposed spinoff of the beloved British sci-fi series starring a robot dog (“it tests so well with kids!” – every producer behind a failed production since time immemorial), but its pilot did not end up going to series. The theme song didn’t exactly do it any favours: a decent enough Who knockoff that gets interrupted every 0.02 seconds with the world’s most annoying robot voice doesn’t invite repeat viewings.

Mr. T’s Be Somebody… Or Be Somebody’s Fool (home video, 1984)

“Hey Matty, can y’come back in for another session? T wants more cowbell on the theme song to his one-off motivational video”.

Tags: Film + TV, Lists

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