Which TV theme tunes topped the Billboard Hot 100?
“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”; “God bless Hooky Street”; “I’ll be there for you…”; “Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Batman!”—the TV theme tune is an institution that will never quite get the credit it deserves. The music heralding our favourite shows might just be some of the most beloved songs ever written, certainly some of the most famous. Despite this, they’re considered a frivolity when compared to so-called “real music”. One might as well celebrate advertising jingles for their artistic quality, so it would seem.
Yet, there are two TV theme tunes that have achieved something that the likes of Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin never did—a number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. To be clear, it’s not that this legitimises them as an art form or, God forbid, makes them more worthy of respect and acclaim than those previous artists. However, it does speak to the level of love we already have for them and how we may take that love a little for granted.
The first came in 1976. The previous year, production was underway for an upcoming ABC sitcom called Welcome Back, Kotter, about a wise-cracking teacher returning to his old Brooklyn high school to teach a remedial class charmingly nicknamed “The Sweathogs”. One of the show’s producers was Alan Sacks, who was keen for the show to have a theme tune evocative of the sound of The Lovin’ Spoonful. After a number of LA songwriters couldn’t get the feel he wanted, Sacks decided to go straight to the source.
He tapped up The Lovin’ Spoonful’s singer, John Sebastian, to write a new song to serve as the theme tune, and just as no one was quite expecting the show to become the phenomenon it became, no one was expecting the theme to do the same. Especially when the song itself had to have its name changed from ‘Kotter’ to ‘Welcome Back’ as Sebastian couldn’t find much to rhyme with the title character’s name.
Then, in the year following the show’s premiere, the song rode the wave of popularity generated by the show all the way to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It’s since taken on a life of its own, being covered by many different artists and featured in other shows, which makes sense. The song itself is an agreeable folk-rock hoedown, much like the kind that made The Lovin’ Spoonful stars the previous decade. The other theme to achieve this level of chart success is a much more standard example of the medium.
Welcome Back, Kotter was a big, big hit. Famously, the show that broke John Travolta into the mainstream. Miami Vice, on the other hand, was a phenomenon. An all-action cop show shot like a Hype Williams music video, all immaculately tailored pastel suits and Ferraris. Music was also a huge part of the show. A band getting featured on the show could make your career, which the show seemingly demonstrated by releasing its immortal theme tune as a single in August 1985. The song peaked at number one and was the last instrumental to top the charts until 2013.
While we might live in the “golden age of TV”, it’s unlikely any show will have the kind of power today that Welcome Back, Kotter and Miami Vice had in the 1970s and 1980s to take their theme songs right to the top of the most important singles chart in the world.
