Please take some time to check out Part 1, otherwise you’ll be totally confused. 

I ran across a video on a Generation X page I follow on social media that was taking a trip down Memory Lane involving television “outros”, which is the closing segment, often featuring end credits, that appears at the conclusion of an episode. While not as important as theme songs, the outros featured in the video made me feel nostalgic and reinforced the key role music plays in our entertainment.

90 Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? (Sesame Street)

Sunny day

Sweepin’ the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street

The Muppet Show  (The Muppet Show)

It’s time to play the music

It’s time to light the lights

It’s time to meet the Muppets

On The Muppet Show tonight

Both shows were an integral part of so many childhoods. The Muppets have been a pervasive presence on the entertainment landscape since the 1960’s, including multiple incarnations of a television variety show. Sesame Street has aired on PBS since 1970. 

89 Benson (Benson)

The show was a spinoff of critically acclaimed Soap, although I remember it much more fondly than its parent program, which went away when I was nine years old (but did gift us the legendary Billy Crystal). The spinoff lasted well into the 1980’s. Its theme is an upbeat, jazzy instrumental.

88 There’s No Place Like Home (227)

With your family around you you’re never alone

When you know that your loved

You don’t need to roam

Cause there’s no place like home

227 was adapted from Two Twenty Seven, a stage play about the lives of women in a predominantly black apartment building. Marla Gibbs had found fame as smartass housekeeper Florence on The Jeffersons and was chosen as the lead. However,  co-star Jackee Harry became the breakout star and was eventually given an eponymous spinoff (which only aired the pilot episode). Gibbs sang 227’s theme song.

87 Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now (Perfect Strangers)

Standing tall on the wings of my dream

Rise and fall on the wings of my dream

Nothing’s going to stop me now

ABC kept moving the show around to different nights thru much of its eight seasons, and it was never a big hit, but there is an audience of people who are happy the wacky adventures of tightly wound Chicago photographer Larry and his cousin Balki, a well-meaning immigrant sheepherder from a small Mediterranean island, were available for our entertainment in the late 80s/early 90s. The theme song is the kind of upbeat, quasi-inspiring pop tune that seemed to be a thing for TV shows of the era.

86 In Living Color (In Living Color)

How would you feel knowin’ prejudice was obsolete

And all mankind danced to the exact beat

And at night it was safe to walk down the street

In Living Color

In Living Color is a show that I was aware existed, but can’t say I ever watched with any regularity. I was in college at the time and probably watched television less than at any other time in my life. Perhaps, due to my limited worldview at the time, I didn’t think the show was for me, if you know what I mean. Or maybe, like so many others, I was destined to look at it in retrospect and recognize its considerable contribution to pop culture while fans that did watch can assert a level of superiority for appreciating what others didn’t. At any rate, while In Living Color can lay claim to launching the careers of Jim Carrey, J-Lo, Jamie Foxx, and the Wayans Brothers while also giving us gems like Fire Marshal Bill, Homey D. Clown, and Men on Football, the theme was a hip-hop song with a message, and it’s still a fun lil earworm.

85 Here I Come to Save the Day (Mighty Mouse)

Here I come to save the day!

That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way!

Comedian Andy Kaufman famously utilized the theme song as part of his act. As a matter of fact, more people may be familiar with the character & the tune thru the association with Kaufman than by actually watching the various television shows & theatrical shorts produced since 1942.

84 Green Acres (Green Acres)

Green Acres is the place to be

Farm livin’ is the life for me

Land spreadin’ out so far and wide

Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside

Having its original CBS run from 1965-71 means I wasn’t born yet when Green Acres was a Top 10 show. However, growing up in the 1980s means reruns of such programs were ubiquitous. I can’t say it really frosted my cupcake like other old shows I enjoyed such as The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, or Sanford & Son, but the theme song, performed by series stars Eddie Albert & Eva Gabor, is quite memorable.

83 Fame (Fame)

Fame!

I’m gonna live forever

I’m gonna learn how to fly high

Fame!

I’m gonna live forever

Baby, remember my name

Irene Cara’s life was far too brief, but she did leave a legacy that includes two absolute bangers. She wrote & performed the theme song for the 1983 film Flashdance (winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song in the process), and also starred in & performed the theme song for the 1980 film Fame, which was adapted into a television show that aired for six seasons.

82 Moonlighting (Moonlighting) 

Some walk by night

Some fly by day

Some think it’s sweeter

When you meet along the way

Moonlighting was one of those shows that I was aware of but not that interested in. I may have watched a few episodes when I was really bored, but otherwise it really didn’t register on my radar. Having said that, the Grammy nominated title tune written & performed by R&B legend Al Jarreau once topped the Adult Contemporary charts and was a sophisticated departure from typical TV themes of the era.

81 I Don’t Want to Wait (Dawson’s Creek)

I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over

I want to know right now what will it be

I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over

Will it be yes or will it be sorry?

I am comfortable enough with my smoldering machismo to admit that I went thru a Dawson’s Creek phase around the turn of the century. I don’t remember how it started, but I believe I began watching sometime during the 2nd or 3rd season. Perhaps it was earlier. I was in my late 20’s at the time, which was certainly outside the target demographic. Anyway, I make no apologies for my affection toward Lil Joey Potter, Pacey, and the rest of the gang from Capeside (which was actually set in Massachusetts despite clearly being filmed in North Carolina). The song is synonymous with the show, which I suppose is the point. Singer Paula Cole never became as big of a star as contemporaries Alanis Morrissette & Jewel, but Dawson’s Creek cemented her musical legacy.

Stay tuned for Part 3!!