The 35 greatest TV theme songs
Mar. 19, 2024Sometimes, they’re actually the best part of any episode
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
If television shows are a gift, then a good theme song is like the color-coordinated bow on top. Be it jingles made for the show or pre-existing pop songs the producers obtained the rights for, a good TV theme song does so much more than mark the start of a new episode. The best of them expand the world of the show just a teensy bit wider, making the stories being told and the characters in them feel that much more alive, and maybe even relatable. More often than not, TV themes help make a show more iconic in pop culture than any single episode could.
Frankly, if you’re one of the privileged few who have control over a TV show, choosing the right theme song ought to be one of the most important decisions you ever make. While the long history of television is brimming with amazing theme songs, only few deserve recognition as “iconic.” From cartoons to prestige dramas, these are the 35 greatest TV theme songs of all time.
35. X-Men: The Animated Series
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
3, 2, 1… Let’s jam!A massive hit on both sides of the Pacific, Cowboy Bebop was one of several ‘90s anime from Japan to properly introduce western audiences to the medium. This ultra cool sci-fi noir had an appropriately bodacious theme song, a high-energy jazz track performed by jazz rock outfit The Seatbelts (so named because they actually wear seatbelts as a safety measure during hardcore jam sessions). While the song is synced perfectly to the show’s trippy title sequence, it also stands alone as a great piece of music. This one’s for all the space cowboys out there.
For the influential NBC detective series Peter Gunn, which aired on TV between 1958 to 1961, composer Henry Mancini created this impossibly cool track that still drips so much style after all these years. Just listening to it makes you want to put on a trenchcoat and a fedora and go snooping for clues. In Mancini’s 1989 autobiography, he said of his work: “The Peter Gunn theme actually derives more from rock and roll than from jazz. I used guitar and piano inunison, playing what is known in music as anostinato, which means obstinate. It was sustained throughout the piece, giving it a sinister effect, with some frightened saxophone sounds and some shouting brass. The piece has one chord throughout and a super-simple top line.”
They’re moving on up. With George and Louise “Wheezy” Jefferson moving from Queens to upper Manhattan - and spinning off from the hit All in the Family - The Jeffersons got its own theme song: an upbeat, gospel-inspired tune about upward mobility co-written by Ja’Net DuBois and Jeff Leary. (DuBois provides vocals.) The song was made by DuBois when series creator Norman Lear simply asked her to write one, describing The Jeffersons to her only as a show about a dry cleaning business. DuBois coincidentally wrote the theme based on her own aspirations working towards the American dream. When Lear finally heard her song, he was stunned to find out how much DuBois accurately summarized the show’s premise.
The sensual and dangerous world of Miami plastic surgery, as seen in the hit FX drama Nip/Tuck, has an appropriately eerie theme song in “A Perfect Lie” by The Engine Room. A downtempo electronic dance piece that sounds like being in the waiting room of a spaceship, the song conveys the inhumane nature of cosmetic surgery, with the song’s narrator begging to be made “beautiful.” The song pairs exceptionally well with its equally creepy title sequence, where real-life physical models are transformed into ghostly white fashion mannequins, obfuscating what’s real and what’s plastic.
While the blockbuster film franchise starring Tom Cruise has ensured its iconic status, its origins actually lie in the 1960s spy-fi television series that inspired it. Written and recorded by Lalo Schifrin (also known for orchestrating the scores to films like Bullit and Enter the Dragon), his inspiration for Mission: Impossible comes from Morse code; the initials for “M” and “I” are two dashes and two dots, which is how Schifrin found the rhythm to his composition. It’s no wonder why, when Mission: Impossible leapt to the big screen, it kept the theme song mostly intact.
It may be a shock to learn that Joe Raposo, the composer behind the funky, groovy theme song of Three’s Company, is also behind the music of children’s shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company. But the hysterical premise of Three’s Company, about a single guy (John Ritter) who poses as a gay man so he could live in an apartment shared by two women - which is the source for the show’s abundant jokes involving sexual innuendos - allows Raposo to reveal a different side to his musicality. It’s simply a stupid catchy theme song (“Come and knock on my doooooor…”) that justsoundslike being young, hot, and single in the 1970s.
What music can inspire anyone to go where no man has gone before? From the aptly-named composer, Alexander Courage, is the theme song to Star Trek, a dreamlike piece that verges on big band bombast. Most notable for its organ and melodic vocals by soprano singer Loulie Jean Norman, the theme to Star Trek evokes the show’s principle themes of discovery, adventure, and the betterment of mankind somewhere in the stars. Amusingly, series creator Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the song, though he never intended them to be used. It was seemingly only so that he could be an accredited lyricist and thus claim royalties.
It’s hokey to the point of irritating, but there’s no denying that The Brady Bunch’s sunshine pop theme song keeps a rightful place in television history. Co-written by Frank De Vol and Sherwood Schwartz and originally sung by the Peppermint Trolley Company, The Brady Bunch’s unbelievably corny but catchy theme helpfully summarizes its then-unusual household. (“Here’s a story, of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls…”). While the heads-in-boxes visual motif of the title sequence is maybe more iconic than the song itself, The Brady Bunch theme is just so emblematic with its specific, and groovy, time and place.
Joe Cocker’s slowed-down cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends” was already 20 years old when The Wonder Years made its television premiere in 1988. But the show’s heartfelt nostalgia for late ‘60s Americana makes it a case of perfect pairing of show and theme. Its title sequence is memorable too; watching the Arnold family enjoy a summer barbecue through a vintage Super 8 camera can make anyone want to dig up their own home videos. We don’t know we’re living the best days of our lives until they’re over. That’s what The Wonder Years is all about, with a little help from Joe Cocker.
Composed by Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson, the theme song to Knight Rider evokes a striking, if also frightening vision of the future that only the 1980s could imagine. Knight Rider is centered around the super intelligent sports car KITT and the dashing crime-fighter (played by David Hasselhoff) behind its wheel. Its theme song mixes the classical compositions of “Marche Et Cortège De Bacchus” Act III – No. 14 fromSylviabyLéo Delibeswith modern drums, bass, and synthesizers. (The synths were mandated by the network to emphasize the show’s science fiction elements.) Next time you’re driving late at night on an open highway, play this at full volume. You’ll feel like the coolest person on Earth.
Two years before Dawson’s Creek aired on The WB, singer/songwriter Paula Cole wrote the very personal “I Don’t Want to Wait” in her New York apartment in tribute to her dying grandfather. In the song, Cole reflects on the mistakes her grandparents admitted to making in their lives, while musing if life is all about taking risks. Fast forward to January 1998, and a last-minute decision by Dawson’s Creek’s producers leads to their abandonment of “Hand in My Pocket” by Alanis Morissette and instead choose Cole’s music, already used in the show’s promos, as the official theme song. While all six seasons of Dawson’s Creek features a soundtrack of popular alternative music, “I Don’t Want to Wait” is synonymous with Dawson’s Creek, its introspective lyrics fitting the show’s impactful coming-of-age melodrama.
In the spacefaring future envisioned by Firefly, the old ways of the Old West are back, only now on distant planetary systems. America and China are the remaining two superpowers whose cultures have reached into the stars. Speaking to this imaginary future, the theme song “The Ballad of Serenity,” written by series creator Joss Whedon and performed by Sonny Rhodes, features a mix of traditional Chinese and American folk music instrumentation to create something completely new. The result is one of the best TV themes of all time that lives up to the spirit of science fiction, in how our collective past can be instructive of our coming future.
What ever happened to predictability? Full House, about a widower whose best friends move into his San Francisco home to help raise his daughters, featured the soft rock song “Everywhere You Look” as its theme tune. (Series creator Jeff Franklin was involved in its production.) Written and recorded exclusively for the show, the song is bespoke to Full House’s wholesome spirit with angelic backing vocals and lyrics that express yearning for a simpler time. When the sequel series Fuller House hit Netflix, pop star Carly Rae Jepsen covered the song, re-energizing it for a whole new generation.
We have R.E.M. to thank for “I’ll Be There For You,” performed by The Rembrandts. Originally, the series was going to use R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People” as its theme song until the band rejected its usage. The suits at Warner Bros. chose to commission new music, with series co-creator Marta Kauffman enlisting her husband Michael Skloff to write the lyrics to what would become “I’ll Be There For You.” The only band contracted at Warner Bros. Records at the time - and whose style was similar to R.E.M. - was The Rembrandts, who balked at the opportunity at first. After the song became a hit on the radio, The Rembrandts expanded it with new lyrics written by themselves. It’s now one of the most iconic TV theme songs of all time, its high-energy jangle rock textures so ‘90s yet still so timeless.
For a show set in the cutthroat world of New York City advertising in the 1960s, using the instrumental version of a rap song by electronic artist RJD2 is a bold choice. But it was the only choice after creator Matthew Weiner heard RJD2’s “A Beautiful Mine” on NPR when it was played as a segue between news stories. After tracking down the song’s information, Weiner obtained its rights to use after musician Beck backed out of writing and recording an original piece for the show. “A Beautiful Mine” is an unexpectedly suitable fit for a show like Mad Men, a show that uses our deceptively difficult past to evaluate our equally complicated present time.
It’s easy to assume that a show about an Italian-American mobster from New Jersey would use something recycled from The Godfather soundtrack, or maybe Frank Sinatra. But The Sopranos defied all expectations, especially in its music soundtrack. This included its theme song, a sultry, sensual remix of “Woke Up This Morning” by British acid house artist Alabama 3. Set to visuals of Tony Soprano making his way through rush hour traffic on the Lincoln Tunnel, the song adds an otherworldly flair to the life of a family man-slash-mafioso, his navigation of mundane scenery feeling like a warlord overseeing his domain.
On one hand, I Love Lucy is an obvious choice to rank as one of the greatest TV themes of all time, because I Love Lucy is simply one of the greatest and most influential shows of all time, period. But few may know it has lyrics; they’re sung by series star Desi Arnaiz, in the Season 2 episode “Lucy’s Last Birthday.” But with or without lyrics, I Love Lucy’s theme is foundational to TV as an evolving art form as one of the first truly original TV themes. Composed by Eliot Daniel and characterized by instrumentation reminiscent of Golden Age era Hollywood, the piece simply cannot be overstated, showing generations of audiences just how much music can help create an original world.
No TV show defines the 21st century like Game of Thrones. A political high fantasy based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling novels, series composer Ramin Djawadi - also behind the music of blockbusters like Iron Man, Pacific Rim, and the HBO series Westworld - had already finished scoring several episodes of the show’s first season before he got to work on the series’ overall theme suite. Djawadi, along with the show’s creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, paid a visit to the visual effects house that made the show’s equally iconic title sequence. Upon watching a preview, Djawadi was prompted by keywords like “mystery,” excitement,” and “journey” to craft what is now one of the most seminal themes in TV history.
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
Anime’s biggest day of the year is fast approaching - expect updates on Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, the Chainsaw Man movie, and more
Green Lantern star breaks silence on upcoming DC role, teasing the “extensive” prep he’s undergoing to do the comics justice
Todd Howard “rolled his eyes” at the idea of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones in the Great Circle, but the Bethesda boss later told him “you’re doing a hell of a job”
