Did Binge-Watching Ruin The TV Theme Song?

In the six days since Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s first season hit Netflix last Friday, there’s one thing people haven’t stopped talking about (other than the controversial racial humor): the theme song. A spoof of the “Bed Intruder Song,” which became a stupidly viral hit nearly five years ago, the Kimmy Schmidt theme song was written by Jeff Richmond (who composed all of the music on 30 Rock and is married to Tina Fey) and remixed by the Gregory Brothers, the group responsible for the “Bed Intruder Song” and Songify the News. The theme song is catchy as hell; after all, it was engineered to get stuck in your head. But more surprisingly, it’s a genuine hit and crowd-pleaser.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fkKhLBvrGs]

Like the sitcom itself, which uses a wacky situation to serve as its premise, the song is a throwback to classic TV sitcom theme songs that essentially tells its audience how these characters got to where they are. The modern, viral Internet twist is just a red herring; Kimmy Schmidt‘s theme owes a debt to classic show theme songs like Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch.

The sitcom theme song has fallen out of favor in recent years; they’re mostly considered hokey and old-fashioned, and replaced with either instrumental music or pop song-style themes. The most recognizable cases of the latter range from classics like the Full House theme song to the more polarizing “I’ll Be There for You” by the Rembrandts.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLisEEwYZvw]

Personally, I liked the Friends theme song the first, oh, fifteen times I heard it, and then, like everyone else (including the Friends cast), it felt like that catchy tune began to drill inside of my brain, slowly sucking out the inside of my skull through my ears. Have you tried to binge Friends since it was released on Netflix in January? If you’re like me, you hit fast-forward as quickly as possible to avoid that damn song. How can you stand hearing it every 24 minutes?

But it’s not just the bad songs that become intolerable when binge-watching. A few years ago, I slowly made my way through several seasons of Cheers, and that show’s theme song is inarguably the most beloved TV sitcom of all time. But by the end of the first season, I couldn’t bear hearing it — which is a shame, because it’s a great song.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS0VQOHX7lM]

Sitcoms aren’t the only victims of binge-watching’s destruction of the theme song. I may be one of the few who really enjoyed Regina Spektor’s “You’ve Got Time,” which serves as the theme song for Orange Is the New Black. I think I like it because I usually don’t care for Spektor’s music, but I know so many people who have a visceral hatred for it — especially given for its length at the top of each episode.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBITGyJynfA]

And though I love everything about my beloved Gilmore Girls, it is with much pain that I have to admit that I wanted to rip off my ears every time I heard Carole King’s “Where You Lead,” which is a bummer because Carole King is the THE BEST.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdd7REkQoCU]

What is it about Kimmy Schmidt‘s theme song that hasn’t inspired such overwhelming rage? I don’t know, I’m not a scientist! But it could be a combination of several factors: it’s catchy, it’s both timely and a throwback, and it’s short (although there is a longer version available on YouTube). Will the tides turn? Will a second season — or just repeat binge-watching — make us change our minds? Time will tell. For now, let’s just bask in the glory of this perfect theme song.

 

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