Oddest TV Themes

[Guy Rowland]

There was a British children's TV show in 1977 that features what has been widely described as "the most inappropriate Children's TV theme in history". It aired at 4.45pm on a Monday, before teatime. You know, for 10-year-olds. The show scarred an entire generation (me very much included), with its cult and pagan rituals - the plot involved time loops, black holes and - most notably - luring people towards a light shaft from the heavens which turns people into stone to stand for eternity. It's The Wicker Man for kids. But the music by Sidney Sager puts it above the Wicker Man, I find it hard to think of anything that is more unnerving quite frankly. This would have freaked out Krzysztof Penderecki.

Note 1 - the happy burbly HTV West logo music before the show starts still triggers terror in me to this day.

Note 2- this clip edits the closing theme on to it as well, which isn't as full-on terror.



One other contender. When I say "quiz show music", you probably think bright and bubbly, evoking fun and fascinating quizzing. The ancient BBC Mastermind theme instead evokes the gestapo. This is actually library music, KPM's Approaching Menace by Neil Richardson, and way back in the day someone deemed this appropriate for their new prime time evening quiz programme. Jeapordy it ain't. I love the strings chords and time signature that wrong-foots you.



This is the full library track:

[scherzo]

Oh wow. I was only vaguely aware of Children of the Stones, having seen it mentioned more than a few times in "films that traumatized you as a child" type discussions, but I never actually looked into it beyond that. Intriguing though. That theme is quite something. Even without any kind of personal connection to the show, that's sounding remarkably dreadful and unsettling. I love it - now I really wanna see the show! Although I do have some questions for whoever thought this was kid-appropriate material...

Mastermind is interesting too. I had never heard of the show so I went and found a random episode on YouTube just to hear it in context. The music makes it feel pretty surreal and weird - it sure sets the Gestapo mood alright, but that's a surprisingly dystopian choice for a quiz show. Man, the 70s were wild!

This is a great thread idea. Coming up blank on examples of my own at the moment though, I'm afraid.

[Guy Rowland]

Oh wow. I was only vaguely aware of Children of the Stones, having seen it mentioned more than a few times in "films that traumatized you as a child" type discussions, but I never actually looked into it beyond that. Intriguing though. That theme is quite something. Even without any kind of personal connection to the show, that's sounding remarkably dreadful and unsettling. I love it - now I really wanna see the show! Although I do have some questions for whoever thought this was kid-appropriate material...

It's all on YouTube! Some of it is horrific in a dated sense of the word. Multicamera TV drama on a tight schedule with cheap video effects kind of horrific. But watch the first five minutes of the first ep, there's a camera shot and edit that is to this day one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen, brilliantly executed. I'm kinda obsessed with it, it could have been a jump-scare, but it's way more effective than cattle-prod cinema (JUMP!!!), genuinely disturbing.

The 70s WERE wild. We were all scarred, but perhaps it was healthier. Although COTS was terrifying, it wasn't violent or nasty. Solid good and evil, but with the evil masquerading as good - great life lesson. It was (arguably) a safe way to experience the dark side of life. Also much has been made of the portrayal of teenagers as intelligent and curious, which to this day is more accurate of many teens lives than scoring drugs, getting laid etc.

As to the music - well hey it's only music! So it's an extension of that argument, it's ultimately safe. The show would have been nothing with a crap score. Why not introduce kids to the good stuff, push the boat out? So they won't sleep for a week or two, they'll get over it. By the time they're 57 they'll look back and think it's all great fun.

I remember working on one kids show where the exec producer banned any kind of music in it that didn't sound like current chart music, because that's "all kids are interested in". I think that one comment alone should of excluded him from ever working in kids TV again.

[scherzo]

I watched the opening to the first episode. Well, you weren't kidding - that one shot was pretty brilliant. Even freaked me out a little! And I'm a supposedly old and jaded seen-it-all adult who walked in fully aware and expecting, so if it manages to get under my skin, it must have been quite the experience seeing it as a child back then. I'm quite impressed actually, I may have to watch the whole series now.

The topic of kids' shows tackling more challenging material is an interesting one in itself, isn't it? My general sense is that it can (and perhaps should) be done, though it obviously needs to be handled with care. Must be hard terrain to navigate though, both for creators and parents. I wonder if something like COTS could get made today. Even most of what I watched Back In My Day seems pretty safe and tame by comparison. I did have a few traumatic viewings, but mostly from regular films aimed at adult audiences that I happened to see perhaps earlier than I should have. I was usually glad in retrospect though, precisely because they did have something more substantive to say about life and the world.

I think I might go on a 70s bender next. In doing some casual clicking around reading about COTS, I came across a number of old TV shows from back then (all of them British, it seems) with similarly creepy reputations. Some look quite interesting.

I find this weirdly unsettling, partly because of the unstylized 1970s-ness of it that makes it look like documentary footage:



So.... I gather it's a kids' show about all the adults having a psychotic break and smashing everything in sight, and then stuff explodes and society collapses and we're all plunged back into a pre-industrial age? You know, family-friendly fun!

Cool synth though.

[Guy Rowland]

So.... I gather it's a kids' show about all the adults having a psychotic break and smashing everything in sight, and then stuff explodes and society collapses and we're all plunged back into a pre-industrial age? You know, family-friendly fun!

What the freaking freak was that?! Never seen this before, definitely one of the oddest trailers I’ve ever seen. YT comments from people watching it when they were SIX.

Man alive, the 1970s in Britain.

I’m struggling to top the current entries. Of course, the original Dr Who theme still has to be celebrated. 1963 – what an incredible sonic achievement by Delia Derbyshire and Dick Mills, based on Ron Grainer’s theme. What on earth people made of it on first broadcast, put to the surreal graphics, goodness only knows – there truly was nothing else like it.



This is a wonderful if all-too-short look at how on earth they did it.



I wanted to showcase the opening titles of 1970s sitcom Porridge, which was notable for having no music at all. Just 30 brutal seconds of the sound of keys and prison doors slamming under the reverberant court judgement, all cut to images of a Victorian-era prison. A right barrel of laughs that was. But for some inexplicable reason there isn’t a single record of it on YouTube I could find. The chirpy closing theme is there, but not that austere opening that always sticks in my memory.

But keeping on a tonally odd sitcom theme, how’s this for contrast – beloved British classic Dad’s Army. This plays VERY oddly today. The song is a pleasing little ditty sung by show star Clive Dunn, over gently cheeky animated union jacks and swastikas. “Who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler, If you think we're on the run? We are the boys who will stop your little game…” Having watched Schindler’s List and The Zone Of Interest, it does jar rather.

It’s things like this that give us our reputation in Britain, isn’t it?



And finally, how’s this. For a current affairs theme, World In Action went for solo distorted rock organ (and maybe acoustic bass guitar?). Together with the graphics, I don’t really know what it is supposed to represent, but it’s pretty hypnotic you have to agree.

[scherzo]

Never actually saw the show, but the Dr Who theme is legendary of course, in all its incarnations.

I wanted to showcase the opening titles of 1970s sitcom Porridge, which was notable for having no music at all. Just 30 brutal seconds of the sound of keys and prison doors slamming under the reverberant court judgement, all cut to images of a Victorian-era prison. A right barrel of laughs that was. But for some inexplicable reason there isn’t a single record of it on YouTube I could find. The chirpy closing theme is there, but not that austere opening that always sticks in my memory.

I found this - might be what you're looking for:



And this, in lower quality - similar but different, I'm guessing from a different season:



I love that the video is titled 'Porridge Theme Tune' because it's really not all that tuneful, is it? The Merzbow school of melodic writing maybe. Strangely uninviting choice for what I gather is supposed to be... a comedy?

It’s things like this that give us our reputation in Britain, isn’t it?

Heh, Britain is also the country that gave us this old gem called Heil Honey I'm Home - styled as a spoof of old-school American sit-coms, only... ya know... with Nazis. About the Hitler family's hilarious struggles with getting along with the Jewish family next door. Cancelled after the first episode and dubbed 'perhaps the world's most tasteless situational comedy'. I'm hesitant to even mention it, but if we're going for weird....

► Show Spoiler

I guess the pilot that aired had a different non-animated opening sequence but with the same song. I don't even know what to say, I'm just sort of giggling nervously at the inappropriateness of it all. Of all the "wtf were they thinking!?" oddities, this might just be the oddest theme to the oddest TV show I've ever heard of.

Brits be crazy, I tell you!

The World in Action theme is unironically very cool sounding though. Cool sounding and cool looking. Weird choice, but I like it.

[Guy Rowland]

That's the one, well found! I think the first version may have been the very first episode only, not sure, I don't recognise that one. But this is the one that the nation watched week after week. As sitcom openings go, let's call it a bold creative choice. I love it.

► Show Spoiler

If it were Family Guy you'd think it was daring, but yes incredibly that was very very briefly a thing. A real-life Springtime For Hitler. I won't begin to defend it, but I guess the context was that from the 60s-80s WWII was seen as ripe for gentle comedy - the aforementioned Dad's Army and then Allo Allo (the hilarious tales of the French resistance where the French accent itself was the endless source of mirth). War films used to be quite cosy. I think probably Schindler's List in 1993 changed forever the way we thought about the war, and there's no going back.

This is another good 70s bit of disturbing kids TV - a science fiction show called The Tomorrow People where adolescents would get powers of telekinesis etc. The theme I think is actually quite brilliant. It gets wilder as it goes on and the surreal visuals trigger a hypnotic state.

[scherzo]

Good find! I like it.

If it were Family Guy you'd think it was daring, but yes incredibly that was very very briefly a thing. A real-life Springtime For Hitler. I won't begin to defend it, but I guess the context was that from the 60s-80s WWII was seen as ripe for gentle comedy - the aforementioned Dad's Army and then Allo Allo (the hilarious tales of the French resistance where the French accent itself was the endless source of mirth). War films used to be quite cosy. I think probably Schindler's List in 1993 changed forever the way we thought about the war, and there's no going back.

I also took it in the spirit of Britain's general culture of humor and piss-taking (that's why we love you! ). For me personally, something like Heil Honey kinda crosses the Uncanny Valley of Offensiveness and becomes so absurd I really can't take it seriously enough to find it upsetting anymore. Also didn't watch the actual episode, so who knows, maybe it's really hilarious. I can see why some might feel that particular thing should never be turned into a laughing matter though of course. Kinda astonishing it got greenlit at all, even back then.

The concept of a cosy war film is a little odd when you think about it, but it's true. I did see a good number of those old-timey ones when I was little, and most were really pretty harmless - stylized more like adventure movies. And then, every now and then you're surprised by one of those gritty and realistic ones, and spend the next couple weeks not sleeping so well. Thanks dad!

In other news... I'm so far down the YouTube rabbit hole at this point that I think I might disappear forever. I like weird and obscure though so this is all very interesting.

Sky. Another mystically themed sci-fi/fantasy kids show from 70s Britain (of course! where and when else would it be from!?). I like it. The music, that is.



Doomlord. Also the UK, but the 80s this time. I guess this was an obscure sci-fi that never quite took off? It's... weird-looking. And the upbeat music being seemingly at odds with the imagery makes it even weirder. Or at least that's what my left ear thinks.



Picture Box. Some kind of long-running kids program that shows short films from around the world, or something along those lines. Strangely hypnotic theme, allegedly played on a crystal organ. I can't quite decide if I think it's creepy or cosy, but it's intriguing.



They don't make 'em like this anymore, do they?

We need to restore some balance to the Force though and find some examples from countries other than the UK. Surely there must be weird TV from other countries too, right?

[Guy Rowland]

More fine finds schezo. Sky and Doomlords have totally passed me by, both clearly bonkers. Picture Box I vaguely remember - the crystal organ is like nails on a chalkboard to me, so I have my own unique reaction to that!

Yes, also very keen to hear some other country's quirks.