Monk originally had a peppy little jazz guitar piece that was replaced by a Randy “Mumbles” Newman dirge.
Regarding that song: I heard it on the radio decades before I knew it was a theme song, and my reaction was “What is this tripe?” So-so melody, and lyrics that sounded like generic soft rock goop–except that they were exceptionally pointless and emotive. The lyrics just did not add up.
When I eventually caught the show (time-filler on a local church-owned station), the lyrics and the emotion suddenly made sense. And the melody grew on me a little. Still, I can’t be very enthusiastic about the tune because without context it was bad.
It’s not the worst ever but I find the Outlander theme really underwhelming. I generally enjoy Celtic music but it is REALLY blah.
What??? I LOVE the theme of The Greatest American Hero! I have a theme radio station on Pandora and sing my lungs out in the car if that ever comes on.
One, thing, I don’t hate, but find puzzling, is the theme to Quantum Leap. Yeah, it’s from the 80s, but the juxtaposition of a generic 80’s TV jazz theme to a sci-fi show makes NO sense to me.
Ugh. Yeah. Totally. It’s a Scottish Themed show. I get it already.
The original, pre-Mike Post opening credits song to “Magnum, p.i.” was somnolescent, better suited to Jessica Fletcher or Barnaby Jones. The Mike Post-orchastrated theme, on the other hand, is iconic, and feels like a good ‘Eighties complement to the Hawaii Five-Oh theme.
Stranger
To each his own. Lux Aeterna is one of my all-time favorite pieces of movie score.
Hey, that’s one of the fondest memories of my childhood…
Aw, come on now. If it weren’t for The Greatest American Hero, we wouldn’t have George Costanza’s answering machine greeting.
“Believe it or not, George isn’t at home…”
Bosch
“I’ve got a feelin’ and I can’t let go.” That’s the entire lyrics, repeated something like 100 billion times.
Hal Linden said pretty much the same thing about the theme to “Barney Miller”.
I find that opening bass line totally iconic.
To be fair, Linden was comparing the theme to his show against those of other hit shows of the time.
That’s all it took to get me humming and playing air-bass. 
Killer jazz riff.
Automatically skipping intros when watching back to back episodes is turned on by default. I find it horribly annoying, and after much searching found out that you have to go to Netflix in a browser on a computer so you can go to a sooper seekrit menu to turn it off. And it still shows the ferschluggin’ skip intro button every. stupid. episode.
If you ever get your own TV show, don’t change the theme song.
–Marci Maven
You are correct, but at least the mirrored images look cool.
How can anyone not like the Barney Miller theme? That’s one of the greatest bass lines of all time!
More than made up for by the catchy tune and the accomplished singing. I haven’t heard the theme for over thirty years but can still hum the whole thing.
Facts of Life
The theme song to “The Fosters” is just about the lamest, most treacly excuse for music extant. The show itself isn’t bad, but even the first few notes of the theme is enough to make me sprain a finger trying to stop it so I can skip ahead.