Saturday, January 18, 2014

theme tunes of my youth

70s
The Irish RM. I used to have a long flannel nightgown, white with little ropes of flowers, that had a full skirt that twirled when I did. I used to do 'Irish Dancing' to this - so not a traditional household, no Fheises for me :)



The Muppet Show. the song fills me with love. I still find myself singing it sometimes. Essential family viewing. Also Sesame Street, of course. It's time to put on makeup!

The 80s

Brideshead Revisited. All the poignancy in the world.





Chariots of Fire. No one does the slo-mo music anymore. Do do do do doo dooooo.



Fame. Of course.

Top of the Pops - the blessing of having an older sibling to educate you about pop music



The A Team. Whole family viewing. I have a fond place in my heart that will never close for the A Team.



Also Robin of Sherwood. Celtic Mysticism and a young Ray Winstone as Will Scarlet.
http://youtu.be/Z8jmZ77-bvw I had a thing about Robin Hood from an early age.


The 90s.

Scary, scary Twin Peaks.




Northern Exposure. Oh, Northern Exposure.



It sounds like Paul Simon wrote it, doesn't it. Did he? Very Graceland.

 Friends. Sigh. Featuring for the theme tune rather than the show itself.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Lord, I miss it so. I remember seeing the ad, and thinking, oo, that might be fun. Little did I know! I also had finger nails at the time, so I remember watching the first show and painting my nails a beautiful oxblood colour while watching. There is my little sense memory about it.




The OC. You can laugh but I loved the show. And the theme song was great.




I've heard that in the 80s, babies were born being soothed by the theme tune to Neighbours becaus they'd heard it twice a day throughout their gestation. Axel said his school changed the lunch time, because everyone was coming back to school late, due to Neighbours.

Theme tunes, they're significant. What are yours?

4 comments:

Andrew said...

Jo, you and I would both be kidding ourselves if we said that The OC was on TV in our youth. It ran from 2003 to 2007!

But hey, here's my list:

McGyver - Jesus Christ, I still get excited at the thought of it. I watched an episode a couple of years ago, though. It hasn't aged well, I regret to tell you.

The A-Team - See my McGyver comment, but with slightly more longevity.

Bosco - I used to go absolutely apeshit when that came on.

Haven't done that for months now, in fairness.

Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds - Very exciting altogether. I fancied Dogtanian's girlfriend way more than you should fancy a cartoon character.

Gladiators - Awooga! and all that. A delightful amount of sado-masochist eroticism when you're ten and eleven.

Xena - A delightful amount of sado-masochist eroticism when you're fourteen or fifteen. Just about stopped myself buying the boxset recently.

Jo said...

Gah, that's so true about the OC not being my youth. What was I thinking? Wishful thinking... I remember commenting at the time that I could tell I was too old for it because if I was to choose one of them to sleep with, it would have been Seth's dad, not Seth. Yup yup.

All for one and one for all! I have a pedantic issue with the title of this you might appreciate - Muskehounds, why not Musketeers? it's musket-eers, not musk-teers, surely? Ah well.
I relived my Mc Gyver love watching Stargate. In one ep, Sam slips in a 'why don't we just McGyver it' into the dialogue as they're struggling with some device, and the look RDA gives her when she says it suggests he didn't know it was coming. It was deadly. And so meta ;)

Steve Reed said...

Oh, I loved "Brideshead Revisited." So great.

Afternoon TV rerun themes are definitely my comfort memories -- "Gilligan's Island," "The Brady Bunch," "Star Trek," "That Girl," "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Stuff like that. :)

Jo said...

Yeah, but how insanely slow is Murder She Wrote now!? I can't believe I watched that enrapt when I was very young.