More fun with TV theme songs

TV 93 (93.1 MHz on your FM band) is playing all TV theme songs, all the time. And of course this puts your correspondent, an incorrigible pop-culture obsessive, in his element.

I have a few observations:

Disco was huge in TV theme songs of the late 70s! "Wonder Woman" and "Dallas" particularly come to mind.

In the mid-80s, a sort of adult-contemporary, DX7-y, warmed-over-Boz-Scaggs motif came to prominence, especially in sitcom theme songs. "Family Ties," I believe, pioneered the format (smooth jazz sound, super banal lyrics), but I'd argue that Al Jarreau's "Moonlighting" theme ("Some walk by night, some fly by day") perfected it.

So many of the instrumental themes from shows of, I'd guess, the 50s and 60s aren't familiar to me, but I'd likewise say that there are any number of Gen-Y'ers who wouldn't be able--as I just did, in a blissed-out moment--to identify the instrumental theme of "Mork and Mindy."

I love the "Soap" theme--another great 70s instrumental. Dig the Fender Rhodes.

God bless Flatt and Scruggs, whose "Beverly Hillbillies" theme is playing right now. Sometimes I wish Lester Flatt were my uncle.

The "Eight is Enough" theme--another disco classic--features this imponderable: "We spend our days like bright and shiny new dimes."