The Leftovers made extensive use of the theme from Perfect Strangers. An episode of Adventure Time uses the theme from Mr. Belvedere. Any other examples? I’m especially interested in examples so old or obscure that the primary target audience of the newer show may not get the reference at all.
The show Newhart used Schubert’s Piano sonata No. 20 as it’s theme song. The show Wings used the same piece for their theme song. Both shows took place New England. Wings gives full credit to Franz Schubert for the music while on Newhart the credit is given to Henry Mancini, pretty shabby treatment of a righteous dude like The Franz.
Zillions of shows have made use of the theme from The Lone Ranger whenever there is a race. Two and a Half Men frequently played a portion of the William Tell Overture as well (although not the Lone Ranger part).
George uses a parody of the theme song from Greatest American Hero as his answering machine message on Seinfeld.
From How I Met Your Mother -
Perfect Strangers, itself, had Balki humming the theme of I Dream of Jeannie in one episode - I can’t remember the context, but I remember the image of him dancing down the stairs at work as he did so, vividly.
Another episode of Adventure Time featured Simon singing the theme song from Cheers.
Well it could be me, I have tin ears. The two versions are played with different instruments and don’t start the same way. Maybe that is confusing me, but the underlying melody sounds very much the same to me.
In the Bonanza episode “Bank Run”, they used a riff similar to Dragnet’s (DA-da-da-Dum) a couple of times when Hoss was standing guard outside of a bank.
Speaking of Bonanza
Star Trek: The Next Generation stole their theme song from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Does that count?
*Friends *used the Odd Couple theme (and a short piece of I Dream of Jeannie) in one of thecold opens.
There’s also a scene in London in which a homesick Joey finds Cheers on TV.
I can’t think of any obscure examples, however.
Here’s an old school one: Card Sharks used the same theme as the original 1970s CBS version (not the one with the obstacle courses) of Double Dare.
On Scrubs, Ted’s group The Blanks went thru a theme song phase. They covered Facts of Life, Charles in Charge, and Underdog. (Maybe others?)
The Greatest Event in Television History recreates the openings of 4 TV series. In particular, there’s a scene where Adam Scott and Paul Rudd are correcting Billy Joel on the words to “My Life” (the theme to “Bosom Buddies”).
The BBC radio series Cabin Pressure and the CBS sitcom Mom both use Mikhail Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila as their theme music. It’s not obvious if you watch the opening of Mom; the piece is five minutes long and the two shows use different snippets in their openings. The closing credits of Mom use the same section of music as Cabin Pressure.
While googling this, I found an interview asking Chuck Lorre why he chose to use classical music for Mom and he doesn’t mention Cabin Pressure, so it may have just been a coincidence.
In the Seinfeld episode “The Cigar Store Indian”, a crazy guy ends up with a copy of TV Guide he thinks belongs to Elaine and he hums the theme to “I Love Lucy” to himself as he turns it into a bouquet of paper flowers.
I’d say yes, but I’d also point out that you’d be more correct in pointing out that TNG combines the themes from TOS and TMP.