MentalFloss.com has a list of "surprising stories" behind 11 TV theme songs, and these are the five highlights:
1. "Friends". Everyone knows that The Rembrandts performed the theme, but the producers were originally using "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M. as a placeholder, so that's the vibe they were aiming for.
The Rembrandts were surprised when the theme premiered on the show, because they didn't add the four claps . . . the show's producers tacked them on.
2. "Gilligan's Island". The original theme was composed by John Williams, who would later become famous for "Star Wars", "Jaws", and "Indiana Jones", among others. The sound was totally different . . . and so were the lyrics.
In that version, the professor is just a "high school teacher," Ginger and Mary Ann are "two secretaries," and the passengers take a "six-hour ride" instead of a "three-hour tour."
Even after they changed their minds, the theme was tweaked. In the version that aired during Season One, the list of passengers ends with "the movie star, and the rest," omitting the Professor and Mary Ann. They were added for Season Two.
3. "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". They wanted to embrace that they were "basically doing the hip-hop 'Beverly Hillbillies'," and they wanted the theme to tell the story of how Will ended up in Bel-Air.
They only had about three weeks before the show premiered . . . but Will Smith didn't need that much time. He wrote it with DJ Jazzy Jeff in just 15 minutes.
4. "The Andy Griffith Show". Composer Earle Hagen, who also did the themes for "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "That Girl", was struggling with it, until he figured out that it should be simple.
He said, quote, "I thought 'That thing ought to be simple enough to whistle.' And it took me about 10 minutes to write it." He whistled it himself on the track . . . despite the fact that he'd "never whistled before in his life."
5. "Cheers". The original theme was more about Ted Danson's character Sam, and included the lines like: "Singing the blues when the Red Sox lose, it's a crisis in your life. On the run 'cause all your girlfriends want to be your wife."
The producers had the songwriters re-work it to be "more universal," because they were optimistic that the show would be a success and "run forever."
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