What He Said: Good Shows with Bad Theme Songs

What a whiny excuse for a post. "There's a song that criticizes where I live & people like me! Waaaaaaaaa!" Toughen up, cupcake.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't speak - I am from Texas, after all, a place & people that NOBODY EVER makes fun of, so maybe I'm just spoiled.

Brilliant song. Kudos to the show's producers. Folk music ain't exactly getting a lot of love, let alone exposure, these days.

"I am from Texas, after all, a place & people that NOBODY EVER makes fun of"

Are you serious? That's cause people don't make fun of jokes, they just tell them
I think you meant that people IN Texas don't make fun of Texas. And that's only out of fear for starting a yee-haw faux-poke firefight, I'd wager

(Sorry, couldn't help myself. Please tell me I'm dumb for having missed your sarcasm.)

@anon #1: I'm not sure whether you mean my post or Carlin's, but he makes clear that he doesn't live in the suburbs or even particularly like them. And I'm pretty sure Malvina Reynolds was not exactly thinking of Brooklyn when she wrote Little Boxes either.

I just finished Season 2 on DVD. What a great show. Although I think their idea of time is a little skewed and makes the show awkward. I'd love to see a chronology of the events in the show. When I first started watching I thought the husband had just died but now it seems he died a few years earlier or maybe the show has been going on that long but it really doesn't feel that way.

Great acting and characters though. Very funny. I kind of hope that there isn't that much cheating going on in most marriages though, that'd make me sad.

Entourage has a horrible theme song. "OH YEAAHHHHHH OH YEAHHHHHH"

Ugh, Star Trek: Enterprise.

I love the Weeds song! My god, it is one of my favorite blasts against conformity, and it is really funny. I think that it is a perfect intro for the show, considering what it is about (breaking through cliches, fighting conformity and social control). Folks need a sense of humor.

"My god, it is one of my favorite blasts against conformity and it is really funny"

Yes, dazzle poor ex-suburban me with examples of your nonconformity, and its incredible success, so that we may all learn how to delude ourselves into thinking that we are Unique and Different and Better Than Those Other People.

But then again, I get the feeling that tons of other people (suburbanites included) will already have done and lived those very same things. Oh well, yay for stereotyping and lack of nuance, eh?

"Folks need a sense of humor."

Yes.

I don't think "Little Boxes" is meant ironically for Weeds.

If you subscribe to the idea that the metaphor of what a "weed" is applies just as much to the characters' lifestyles and values as it does to pot, you could make the argument that Nancy et all are "weeds" in the conformist community. (After all, the show is called "Weeds" not "Weed").

The song then highlights the juxtaposition of the "conformist" and bland suburban community's values versus the "weedy" survivalist non-conformist lifestyle of Nancy and her family.

Or, you could take the metaphor to the (perhaps absurd) next step: that in any ordered, cultivated "garden" (substitute suburbs) "weeds" (substitue hidden self-serving agendas) are inevitable. Conformity is hypocracy, or, there's really no such thing as real conformity.

OK, maybe it is ironic after all.

"...there's really no such thing as real conformity."

This is interesting, I actually like arguing the opposite. People think and behave more similarly than they'd wish, and stuff like smoking weed isn't really enough to be "non-conformist". I know hippies like to think it is, but I'm fairly sure you'll find ex-potheads (and not-so-ex) in suburban communities worldwide. Hell, go to Holland and the act of smoking pot is probably about equally rebellious as drinking a beer.

Real non-conformity is pretty far and few between, it seems to me. It would entail actually not conforming instead of just not quite keeping to all of "society"'s little rules. No one does that, you see. Being "sub-culture" or "alternative" mostly just makes you conform to a slightly different set of values.

Incidentally, back on subject, I've never liked the X-files theme. So hokey...

The Saving Grace song by Everlast is much better than the show itself. I think the song is only available on TNT's website, as a video with hokey dialogue interrupting the music.

I hated Miami Vice but loved the theme song - still one of the greatest TV themes ever.

His humorlessness in response to that song is hilariously ironic.

And they all complain the same, too, apparently.

The worst part about that Weeds opening is the different singer each week. It's stupid and VERY annoying.

I loved the theme song for The O.C. I used to tune in to yell "California! Here we Cooooooome!" And then I'd change the channel. But I enjoyed that song before the show used it.

I really liked the Six Feet Under opening theme but when I heard the Rome one it felt like a remix of the Six Feet Under theme and also seemed totally out of place for a series about Rome. I still hate it.

Dear anonymous #2 -

You're dumb for having missed my sarcasm.

-anonymous #1,
unable to spell his own name because he's from Texas.