By: Chuck Miller
Ten for Thursday, Uncategorized

Ten Super-Cool Long-Forgotten Television Intros

Have you ever known of a television show where the best part of the program wasn’t the acting, or the storylines – it was the introduction?  The opening credits, the stirring musical introduction, something that just sounded great and looked great and was iconic and cool at the same time.  Yeah, sometimes the shows themselves were great, but wouldn’t you want to have some of these themes as your cell phone ring tone?  Sure you would.

I’m sharing ten of these classic television themes today, picking some great shows of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. You remember them, you love them, or at least you loved the opening credits. The shows themselves – hey, that’s your choice.

THE NBC MYSTERY MOVIE

Yep, it was either Columbo, McCloud, McMillan & Wife, or whatever the fourth movie was (sometimes it was Hec Ramsay, or the Snoop Sisters, or Lanigan’s Rabbi). But that theme music and the guy with the flashlight never changed. Trivia note – Jack Klugman’s “Quincy” was originally part of this NBC Mystery Movie package.
THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Of course, the NBC Mystery Movie was in response to this ABC anthology series – essentially the birth of the “TV movie.” The graphics for this intro, which premiered in 1969, was not done with CGI – it was a technique involving something called a slitscan camera.
DARK SHADOWS

Twilight? Pfft. Vampire Diaries? Ho-hum. True Blood? Yeah, they may be popular right now, but nothing ever made high school girls RUN HOME FROM SCHOOL to catch the latest episode of the original supernatural soap opera.
MUTUAL OF OMAHA’S WILD KINGDOM

This generation had Steve Irwin and Bear Grylls. My generation had Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler, as they brought us the wonders of nature. Of course, we all knew that Jim was risking his life with the tigers and the elephants, while Marlin Perkins stayed in the helicopter or back at the studio, shilling for Mutual of Omaha. Really fun show.
THE NAME OF THE GAME
Another NBC anthology series, this one centered around three people working for a major publishing company. Tony Franciosca was the crusading reporter, Gene Barry was the publisher, and Robert Stack was a crime magazine editor. Each episode featured the adventures of one of those three men, in a full-length 90-minute episodes.
THE RAT PATROL

Probably one of the most action-packed half-hours of television, The Rat Patrol ran for two seasons and told the story of a team of soldiers as they harassed the Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel. Great theme music, too. Pay no attention to the sponsorship ad at the end of the clip, this was the best YouTube clip I could find for the show’s intro.
DAKTARI

Oh my God you have no idea how popular this show was back in the day. And it’s almost forgotten now. And yes, that’s Erin Moran, who later became Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days.
LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE
A popular 1970’s anthology comedy series. And yes, the clip I found actually has what became the pilot episode for the 1950’s-tribute sitcom “Happy Days.” Trivia note – the theme song was actually sung by the 1960’s pop group The Cowsills.
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Long before David McCallum was working on NCIS, he was the cool Russian spy working with Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo character in this classic spy spoof series. Cool intro, cool music, and this – along with another espionage show, I Spy – was a lot of fun to watch.
THE MOD SQUAD

Let’s see… Pete stole a car, Linc was arrested during a riot, Julie was a runaway – and they worked to try to keep bad guys from preying on teenagers. If nothing else, the opening credits are nothing short of energetic.

Yeah, I know I left off some of your favorites. So feel free to add to the list – tell me what your favorite long-forgotten TV shows are – especially the ones where the intro was cooler than the episodes themselves.