Five Replacement TV Themes That Sucked

Continuing my unintentional theme this months on TV theme’s! I talked before about how a show will begin with an awful theme, and then replace it with one which is not only better but far better. So better you forget that awful one ever happened. Well, it can go the other way too. Sometimes for a show’s final season the creators will change up the familiar and popular theme, with one that isn’t. And I don’t mean changing the images or altering the length of the song. I mean re-recording a new version of the opening song, or a totally new song altogether, and it’s just awful.

Of course this often works fine. Like the evolving “Boy Meets World” theme’s which were always good, or “Alf”‘s jazzier theme in its later years, and of course changing up the song didn’t hurt “A Different World” any. But not all are so lucky.


Here are five examples of what I mean. And again, just opinion. If you love these versions of these shows openings then more power to you. I did not.’



Growing Pains
For some reason I will never understand around the season 7 it was decided to re-record the theme. BJ Thomas wrote and sung “As Long as we’ve Got Each Other ” and it was great, he even released it as a single. The new version? Some kind of acapalla version which is so awful. It’s slow and I hated it instantly. At least this clip is before Leonardo Dicaprio is painfully forced onto the series. Ugh.

Roseanne
Man is it kind of awkward to bring this show up these days. Now I’ve talked about the awful Season 9 to death, but one thing I did not mention yet was the revised theme song they used that year. It was awful. Actually Season 8 was bad too with visuals that looked something created on Photoshop. As bad as Season 8 was, the music on this one was the clincher. Especially that awful harmonica. And before I get yelled at, yes I know it’s Blues Traveler singing. That doesn’t help.

The Cosby Show
Roseanne and now Cosby. Man the list of shows I can’t easily talk about anymore just keeps growing. Anyway, as I’ve noted The Cosby Show switched themes pretty much every year. Most were good, but man was one awful. How awful? The first second I saw it I couldn’t wait for the next season so it would go away. Yeah, pretty bad. Imean what is, why do we get this grand operating opening for a silly sitcom? It doesn't match and it makes no damn sense. Who came up with this nonsense?? At least this was Season five and was replaced with the best theme the show would have the next year. But that’s another subject.

Designing Women
So when Delta Burke and Jean Smart left the show, loooong story, I guess the creators decided they needed to freshen things up. They brought in Julia Duffy and Jan Hooks as the new ladies and made a new opening. Rather than the instrumental version we’d get Ray Charles to sing it. Couple problems though, as beautiful a song as “Georgia on my Mind” is it’s kind of dour. At least the instrumental version was upbeat. The other problem was while Charles was singing they just had the cast stand around the piano…and that was it. I’ll grant you the song is beautifully sung but this is one of the most awkward and stilted opening’s I’ve ever seen. By the way how bad was the final year’s when I can’t even find a video of it?

Everybody Loves Raymond
So this is a little bit cheating but I still hated it, so here we go. Everybody Loves Raymond had different themes almost every season. That one theme where Ray does a back flip to lock the door on his family was so popular it stuck a few years. But it was finally replaced with this football inspired theme, possibly because the show was on opposite Monday Night Football. And while I love seeing Debra get nailed by Marie twice in the same twenty second segment, it was just so stupid and thankful disappeared fast.

So why only five when I hate ten last time? Honestly guys I couldn’t come up with any more. So if I missed one you think should be here, comment and let me know.