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The TOS Opening Credits/Theme

Space:1999 (first season) and Hawaii: 5-0 are old favorites, but there were so many great ones, Batman, Hogan's Heroes, Magnum:PI, the list goes on and on.

The "golden age" of TV theme music seems to be far behind us now.
 
One of the things I love about Netflix series is that they actually have opening themes and creative opening title sequences, just like good ol' series.

Trek's opening theme music is way up there in the 'classic and memorable' category, but the visuals weren't all that creative, IMHO. Spaceship goes by, name goes up, rinse and repeat. Mission: Impossible, Mannix, WW West, The Avengers, 5-0, were all more interesting to watch.

And cartoons - well, The Jetsons had one of coolest opening themes ever. Top Cat, Underdog, Courageous Cat... There was a LOT of good music and fun visuals.
 
agree, Hawaii 5-O but my close second (and already mentioned) is Johnny Quest.

Search and ye will find the Claymation remake by Roger Evans of the JQ intro ... frickin' unbelievable! His website even contains a detailed accounting of how he made it.
 
Great topic !

I am outraged that when they remastered "Star Trek" they changed the theme song.
Some Soprano does this really cheesy solo which just takes the theme from "soaring and inspring" to "cheesy and dumb".

I'm sure you've all heard it by now...but this has caused me not to BUY the new Blu Rays...
 
I hear it as my wife watches eps on Netflix as she exercises in mornings. Boo!
 
The music is great. But I agree that the visuals could have been better. Other series had more visual variety in their opening credits sequences.

Kor
 
Apparently, according to Justman and Solow, the main titles were cobbled together from whatever f/x footage was acceptable at the time. So, that explains why it kicked off that way. Apparently, Roddenberry liked it and it was just refined for the later seasons. Star Trek didn't need a fancy opening sequence, it had strong teasers. Leave it to Irwin Allen to have arresting opening credits, he sure wasn't gonna wow audiences with a giant fish hand or a guy in a grey sheet...
 
Ssosmcin said:
The Herculoids had a GREAT opening. Actually, it had two, but one was more serious than the other.

This one...

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Click to expand...

I'm glad you selected the version without Don Messik's (Zandor's) monologue.

I've always loved the quasi Theremin quality to the music.
 
Steve Gennarelli said:
I'm sure you've all heard it by now...but this has caused me not to BUY the new Blu Rays...
Click to expand...
The original main titles are on the Blu-rays. You can select between mono and the new recording, which is in dts 7.1.

Be aware that the new recording does sneak into a few episodes on the mono track, but for the most part, the original recordings are present.

Neil
 
Indysolo, thanks for that feedback.

Would it be easy for me to watch the opening scene in remastered mode...
toggle to the original theme song and then toggle back to the remastered scene 1
 
To go back and forth between remastered and regular version, you switch viewing angles. My blu-ray player is a little finicky with that.

Kor
 
Steve Gennarelli said:
I am outraged that when they remastered "Star Trek" they changed the theme song.
Some Soprano does this really cheesy solo which just takes the theme from "soaring and inspring" to "cheesy and dumb".

I'm sure you've all heard it by now...but this has caused me not to BUY the new Blu Rays...
Click to expand...

You can detect a slight difference in the main title, because it's a different woman's voice. Loulie Jean Norman sang the original, and Elin Carlson performed the remastered version. But the new stereo recording is purposely very close, and it's not fair to call it cheesy. It was done with tremendous care on all counts.

Steve Gennarelli said:
Would it be easy for me to watch the opening scene in remastered mode... toggle to the original theme song and then toggle back to the remastered scene 1
Click to expand...

On the Blu-rays, just select remastered fx and mono soundtrack. I'm not sure if you can switch the soundtrack back and forth in mid-episode. I haven't tried that.
 
Last edited:
My top five from the 60's:
5. Hawaii 5-0
4. The Man From Uncle
3. Mission: Impossible
2. Star Trek
1. The Wild Wild West

The 70's is a whole other discussion.
 
Steve Gennarelli said:
Great topic !

I am outraged that when they remastered "Star Trek" they changed the theme song.
Some Soprano does this really cheesy solo which just takes the theme from "soaring and inspring" to "cheesy and dumb".
Click to expand...

True, although not as cheesy as many of the new effects are.
 
As mentioned above, I'm loving that Netflix has honest-to-god creative opening titles. Daredevil's drippy CGI is amazing, and Marco Polo's real-life watercolor bleeds are astounding. I love Jessica Jones' sketchy look, and Luke Cage's Maurice Binder style closeups-with-projected-images. Stranger Things' John Carpenter-style tribute to the 80s makes me smile. On cable, the openings to Black Sails and Game of Thrones are just epic.
 
The Time Tunnel. I only like that and LIS amongst Irwin Allen shows, but he did do good opening titles that kept making me want to try watching again. VttBotS especially. This is an incredible show! ... part of me responds... then a leprauchan (sp?) pops onto the sub, and no, I was right before...
----------------------
Remastered S3 Trek does substantially camp up the vocal. I can tell they cared, but that doesn't mean they made all the right choices. I didn't like the voice on the original, but at least it blurred into the rest of the sound enough to save it from being totally in the foreground. The remastered re-recording separates it out from the music, and intensifies it, assuming we all love it to death, and maybe that they're just correcting some mistake that caused it to be less out front in the original. Some people love the original vocal in a sort of ironic love of camp. It may be that they wanted to play that up. Anyway it ended up campier.
 
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