"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale" of a time when television shows began with awesome TV Theme Songs. "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name" and sometimes you want to go back to when TV Theme songs were special. "Here's a story... of a lovely" time when TV Theme Songs served to identify, distinguish and set the stage for the television program that followed. "You take the good, take the bad, take them both and there you have" what unfortunately has become a lost artform. "Believe it or not", sadly it seems no effort or pride is taken in the TV Theme Song ever since Seinfeld proved a short synth-bass riff could be used instead. “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” This regular feature may not "make all our dreams come true", but it will remember some of the best TV Theme Songs from years past (with a focus on the '80s decade). "Come aboard, we're expecting you."
This time we will cover the theme song for Newhart. The sitcom debuted on October of 1982 and went on to run for eight seasons and 184 episodes. The show starred it's namesake Bob Newhart playing a new character to the one he played in his previous sitcom The Bob Newhart Show from 1972-1978. Newhart is about an author and his wife who own and operate the Stratford Inn in rural Vermont.
The instrumental Newhart theme song was written by the great Henry Mancini (one of the few shows to even credit Mancini in the opening credits). In his career, Mancini won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. Some of his earlier work includes the theme and soundtrack for the Peter Gunn television series as well as the music for The Pink Panther film series including the iconic "The Pink Panther Theme" as well as "Moon River" from the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mancini composed many film scores including the 1986 Disney animated feature The Great Mouse Detective. He composed a personal favorite of mine with the 1976 What's Happening theme song which was also used in the '80s for What's Happening Now. Also in the '80s, Mancini composed the theme songs for Remington Steele, Ripley's Believe it Or Not and Hotel as well as the 1983 mini-series The Thorn Birds. He even composed the "Viewer Mail" theme for Late Night with David Letterman.
Here is the opening for Newhart featuring the theme song performed by the Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra (note Mancini's onscreen credit for the theme song during the opening as well)...
Interesting trivia is that the opening credits for Newhart are actually outtakes and B-roll from the 1981 film On Golden Pond. They say if you look closely, you can see Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in the car.
Hope you enjoyed tuning in for another "episode" of TV Theme Songs!