The best-ever TV theme songs

A Facebook conversation this week touched off a discussion of the best television show theme songs of all time.
A couple of friends chimed in that the “Dr. Who” intro is the best TV theme song. A lot of sci-fi fans share that feeling. Part of the reason is that when Delia Derbyshire created the theme, it was innovative electronic music for its time.
I was not a “Dr. Who” fan, so I was unfamiliar with the theme song until listening to it on YouTube. It’s OK if you like that kind thing, but it really didn’t do much for me in the way of supplanting my favorite television theme songs.
A few other favorite themes mentioned in the discussion included “Law and Order: UK,” “The Prisoner,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Green Acres” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
My top five, in order, are “Hawaii Five-0,” “Cheers,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “M*A*S*H*” and “The Partridge Family.”
I also liked, in no particular order, “The Flintstones,” “Love, American Style,” “Bonanza,” “High Chapparral,” “Bullwinkle and Rocky,” the original television version of “Mission Impossible,” “The Odd Couple,” and, I take a lot of ribbing for this one . . . “The Lawrence Welk Show.”
It seems like there are fewer memorable television theme songs these days. In fact, I have to think hard just to whistle one. But I can still sing all the words to “Go Go Gophers.”
Go figure.

Granny vs. The Fighting Conch

Grandmothers toting tweezers probably ought not to be going after Florida’s Fighting Conches, which by the way is not the nickname of a high school football team but an actual sea creature.
My mom is in Florida for a month hanging with one of her pals and putting her toes in the sand. That’s one of the benefits that comes with retirement I guess, something I won’t likely realize for quite some time.
As native Midwesterners, we have some hillbillies in the family tree. Although we have traveled a bit over the years and are no strangers to warmer climates and sandy beaches, we don’t have an ocean in Illinois, which I realize may come as a surprise to some of you. As a result, our rural upbringing did not provide us much in the way of proper Fighting Conch (pronounced “konk”) etiquette. We are, however, very schooled in all things stinkbug.
The Florida Fighting Conch — Strombus alatus — is essentially a sea snail in a decorative shell. The Illinois Vacationing Granny — Feistyius Oldladyius — likes to collect decorative shells. You may be able to see where this is going.
So during a phone call this week, Granny was telling me of her recent shell-hunting expedition on the south Florida beach near her condo.
“I put all the shells in the sink to clean them and one of them was moving,” said Granny. “So I got out my tweezers and tried to pull the dadgummed thing outta there, and boy did it start hissing and squealing at me.”
Fighting Conches apparently do not like being yanked from their home with a pair of tweezers, and in addition, they likely will raise quite a ruckus when someone tries to do so.
By the way, that’s all new information for me, my mom and the rest of the Corncob Crowd from Calico County.
Granny decided it was best to let nature takes its course and placed the highly agitated conch on the back deck. Her thinking was that after a few days in the sunshine, the critter would buy the farm and could then be easily tweezed from the coveted shell.
No such luck. After three days, the conch was still giving Granny seven kinds of heck for the armed and attempted home invasion, so she took it to the beach and tossed it in back the drink.
Since she still has a few more weeks of vacation, further beach expeditions are pending. No doubt with tweezers at the ready. I anxiously await her next report.

End of the original 'Book 'em' era

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of James MacArthur, who played Detective Danny “Danno” Williams, the right-hand man of Jack Lord’s character Steve McGarrett on the television show “Hawaii Five-0.”
The original television series, which ran from 1968 through 1980, was one of my favorites as a kid and the attraction lasted into my college years. No matter what was going on with my schedule of toga parties, I always tried to find time to catch the show. At the very least, I tried to get in on the last few minutes of the episode, just to hear McGarrett say to Williams, “Book ’em Danno, murder one.”
Although I never got to meet MacArthur, I did get the opportunity to meet another “Hawaii Five-0" regular before the end of the original show’s run.
In 1979, our college baseball team’s spring trip was to Hawaii. (It was a good time to be a baseball player in Iowa in 1979.) We were there for 10 days and were scheduled to play 10 games against the University of Hawaii.
Many of those games were played during the day, which left us the evenings to explore as much of Hawaii as we could with our limited free time.
My folks went along on the trip, and one evening we attended a nightclub act by Al Harrington, who played Detective Ben Kokua, another cop in McGarrett’s crew, for several years on the show. (On rare occasions, McGarrett would ask Ben to “Book ’em.”)
In addition to his television gig, Harrington was a singer and dancer in Waikiki, and along with Don Ho, helped define Hawaii’s entertainment industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
I got to meet Harrington after his show and asked him to sign my program, which he did. He signed it, “Book ’em Mike.” Given that I was such a big fan of the show, I got a kick out of that. Unfortunately, I haven’t been back to Hawaii since.
All the main actors on the original “Hawaii Five-0” are gone now. I’ve watched the new version of the show Monday nights on CBS and it’s OK. Hawaii is still Hawaii, so the scenery is still fabulous. And the McGarrett character still says “Book ’em Danno” to the Williams character.
As with a lot of things, in this instance though, the original still outshines the remake.