The Guitar Train’s Favorite TV Theme Songs

Quirky T was switching the television channels the other day and stumbled upon an episode of one her favorite TV shows from the 1980’s, “The Facts of Life”. I was surprised to see in the credits that Alan Thicke was one of the composers of that show’s theme song. I remember him playing the father on “Growing Pains”, another favorite 80’s show of mine. I was also surprised to see in the college episodes of “The Facts of Life” that the girls had the same wicker desk that I have. Watching this show made me think of TV show theme songs. It also made me think of all the 80’s posters I have from teen magazines. Unfortunately, I could not find them in time to use them to illustrate this Guitar Train stop. (That’s probably because I made a minimal effort to actually look for them!)

 

Here’s the list of the shows which contained my favorite theme songs:

 

1. “The Wonder Years”
2. “Life Goes On”
3. “Muppet Babies”
4. “Gilmore Girls”
5. “Veronica Mars”

 

“The Wonder Years” and “Life Goes On” both use Beatles songs as their theme songs. Neither of the shows use versions sung by The Beatles. “The Wonder Years”, a show set in the 1960’s, uses the Joe Cocker version of the song, “A Little Help From My Friends”. “Life Goes On” uses “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” sung by the cast of the show including the Broadway star, Patti LuPone. The title of the show is actually in the chorus of the song. Of course I like these themes songs since I am a big Beatles fan. I generally don’t tolerate Beatles songs being used for other purposes by other people but with these two shows, at least it gave the band a wider audience by introducing the songs to a younger audience twenty years after the songs were first released.

 

“Muppet Babies” was my favorite cartoon in the 80’s. The show featured Jim Henson’s Muppets as babies with very active imaginations. The theme song features all the Muppets singing about themselves and sets up the cute show with the amazing Muppets.

 

The theme song for the great mother-daughter show, “The Gilmore Girls”, is a perfect fit for the show as it is sung by real life mother and daughter, Carole King and Louise Goffin. Carole King wrote the music for the theme song, “Where You Lead”, which originally appeared on her highly acclaimed 1971 album, “Tapestry”.

I apologize to any fans of The Dandy Warhols for only associating them with the TV show, “Veronica Mars” which uses their song “We Used to Be Friends” for the theme song. I’m sure they’ve done more to merit acclaim but at least the song is associated with an excellent TV show. I know what that is like as a Beatles fan but, as I wrote for “The Wonder Years” and “Life Goes On”, it gave the band a bigger audience. The song fits well with a main theme of the show which is the alienation of Veronica from her old group of friends after the death of her best friend.

 

Guitar Train passengers, what are your favorite TV show theme songs?

 

Hop back aboard The Guitar Train for the next stop which continues on the track of TV show theme songs with Quirky T’s favorite instrumental TV show theme songs.