Ta na-na-na, na-na-na-na., wee-ooo-eee-ooo. Dee-dee-doo-doo! Doo-doo-doo-doo, wee-ooo-eee-ooo!
Catch my drift yet? No? I promise we’ve all heard this song before. It should be familiar to any TV fan, though we probably verbalize it differently. Try the oh-so-famous guitar riff of everyone’s favourite teen drama, Beverly Hills 90210! And boy, what a theme song it was, transcending all manner of TV title-tunes more than a decade later.
There is no TV-equipped place on this earth that a viewer couldn’t recognize the ‘90210 riff’, which is exactly what a good theme song should aim for. Television is littered with different variations of them; some shows opt for catchy, mainstream songs like Phantom Planet’s E.T-go-home ode to California on The O.C., and others, for modern wordless compositions that are the brainchild of the odd, unknown band from Los Angeles. Then, there are the theme songs to J.J. Abrams shows, which defy all classification, and are either well-placed gaseous beats, or a cyclone of melodic mesh that just make you go, Huh?
Whatever they may be, television shows carry title tunes that should, when appropriately placed, act as anthems that incite nostalgic remembrance of plotlines past. A measure of that success can be credited to the compatibility of two things, the song and the subsequent pictures that play during it, totaling up to they’re ultimate OooOO-Factor.
Despite the fact that I often get squeamish watching entire episodes of Smallville, I’ve never had the same difficulty when confronted with its shiny opening-credits and Remy Zero’s characteristic Save-Me plea. The show may have its flaws, but its opening credit OooOO-factor rates high, with a thematic song, and digitally gifted credit lines that look far beyond their time.
Not every show has to be so fancy in their output, however, sometimes deeming themselves separate from the images that mark the opening credits. This, may put the OOooOO-factor at risk (think of Abrams’ Alias), but often times can do just the opposite depending on the strength of the song. A good example of this is Angel, which utilized the work of fairly unknown Darling Violetta and their cello-love in the theme song. Though the pictures were never anything much to remember, the haunting quality of the theme song threw back to the character’s Irish roots, and created the dark overtone for the show. X-Files was another similar candidate, with the foreign flute melody converting even the most conformed to believe in widespread conspiracy before the start of the commercial break.
Next time you tune in to your favourite show, make sure to pump up the volume—it might elicit a harmonic OooOO.
