A few weeks ago, Megan introduced me to a show called Psych that ran from 2006-2014. It’s a 45-minute show, so we’ve been watching it during dinner. It’s a light comedy involving a perceptive detective for hire, his friend, and some cops. It’s dated on many levels, but it does something I really enjoy, and I’m curious if other shows do it.
Specifically, the show has a 20-second or so theme song. Around half of the episodes run the actual theme song (or a slightly longer version of it).
But the other half are thematic variations on the theme song. For example, we just watched an episode that featured a singing group similar to Boys 2 Men. For that episode, the theme song was completely redone in that style. There was an episode focusing on Diwali earlier this season, and the song had a Bollywood flair to it. And so on.
The footage used for the theme song is almost always the same–it’s just the music that changes.
I think this is so much fun, especially now that I almost always skip the theme song if possible (and prefer when shows just don’t have a theme song as a result). But the thematic variations always make me curious about the next episode of Psych.
Are there other shows that do this?
Pysch is my favorite! also that theme song is amazing… in between the lines there’s a lot of obscurity, i’m not inclined to resign to maturity…. Yes i have it memorize. I always perfered the original to the thematic ones because the thematic ones arent as easy to sing along to. lol
Jamey,
Yes, we enjoyed Psych when it first aired…watched it with my daughter during dinner (post-dinner). I don’t watch a lot of tv, but recently I viewed Ozark which doesn’t have a theme song per se, but every episode begins with a giant “O” and inside, there are four visual cues to what’s going to take place during the episode and each of the visuals form the letters Z, A, R, and K.
Cheers,
Joe
Joe you just blew my dang mind. I’ve always enjoyed the Ozark crests but I never saw those letters. Thank you for this public service!
Also to answer your question I think Community did this sometimes when they’d do an episode, say, in claymation? My memory is fuzzy. But now I want to watch Psych! I love Dulé Hill.
LOVE Psych. I never skipped through the intro… mostly because I actually watched them when they aired.
The Simpsons would probably be the closest ones to doing this.