It's Garry Shandling's Show
Showtime, 1986-90

"This is the theme to Garry's show / the opening theme to Garry's show / This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits..." What could be more meta than that? Shandling co-wrote the lyrics, along with Alan Zweibel, for his high-concept cable sitcom, in which - like George Burns at the dawn of television in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show -- Shandling broke the fourth wall and addressed the audience directly, always aware his "life" was being captured by television. The theme song, with music by Joey Carbone, captured that hyper-aware perspective perfectly. Bill Lynch is the singer - and at the time he recorded it, he had no idea who Garry Shandling was. LISTEN

Seinfeld
NBC, 1990-98

"Composer Jonathan Wolff sampled his own mouth noises and finger snaps to complement the aggressive bass line in this inventively fluid theme song. In fact, it's so fluid that countless variations have been used on the series to connect one scene to another - and rarely is this entire theme song heard in its less-than-one-minute glory. LISTEN

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
NBC, 1990-96

Philadelphia teenagers Will Smith and his rap partner, Jeff Townes, had scored a novelty, non-threatening rap hit in 1998, billed as D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. The upbeat song, "Parents Just Don't Understand," was enough to persuade NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff that there was gold to be mined. (As with so many things, Tartikoff was right.) Two years later, he cast Smith, then 21, as the lead in a new comedy about an inner-city black kid who got shipped off to California to live with in a safer environment with wealthy relatives. Smith and Townes provided the bouncy, explanatory theme song: "I got in one little fight and my mom got scared / And said, 'You're moving with your auntie and your uncle in Bel-Air..." LISTEN

Mad About You
NBC, 1992-99

The name of this show's theme song is "Final Frontier," and it was written by the show's star, Paul Reiser, and by Don Was of the oddly named duo Was (Not Was). Recordings by two different artists were used on the show. Anita Baker sang the version used in most of the show's run, but the original theme song recording - and the one included on this compilation - was performed by Andrew Gold. Gold's status as the Mad About You theme-song vocalist could be summarized in three words: Was, Not Was. LISTEN

Law & Order
NBC, 1990-

Mike Post, one of TV's most innovative composers, won a Grammy Award early for arranging Mason Williams' "Classical Gas." When he began writing for television, partnered with Pete Carpenter, their groundbreaking work together included the rocking themes to The Rockford Files and The Greatest American Hero. Working alone, Post came up with the themes to Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, Wiseguy and this series, on which Post himself played guitar... and provided one of the most distinctive TV themes of the 1990s. And, for that matter, the 2000s. LISTEN

The Simpsons
Fox, 1989-

No show, period, has done more with music than The Simpsons. That's partly due to its longevity, and partly due to its creativity (remember the musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire?). Alf Clausen is the resident musical genius of The Simpsons, but he has plenty of gifted collaborators, from the regular and guest vocal talent to occasional additional composers. Danny Elfman - a super-gifted artist in the TV and film composition game - wrote this classic main theme to The Simpsons, and Clausen arranged it. By now, it's likely you can envision the entire main-credits sequence in your head as the music plays, down to the final Couch Gag of the Week. LISTEN

thirtysomething
ABC, 1987-91

W.G. "Snuffy" Walden and Stewart Levin wrote this jaunty theme, which went against the grain of the time by being a laid-back, almost acoustic theme. Its centerpiece, playing the melody, was a particularly unusual woodwind-type sound, difficult to identify. Recorder? Pan flute? Author Jon Burlingame, in his exhaustively researched TV's Biggest Hits, solved the mystery: It was the sampled sound of "air blowing across the mouth of a soda bottle." LISTEN

My So-Called Life
ABC, 1994-95

W.G. "Snuffy" Walden composed this theme without his former partner, and managed somehow to capture the wariness, anticipation, excitement and finality of high school, all in one brief instrumental - instrumental, that is, except for the frantic whisper at the beginning, the one that says, "Go now!" LISTEN

The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
NBC/Lifetime, 1987-91

I absolutely adored this show, in which Blair Brown starred as a thirtysomething divorce woman trying to make it alone in New York. It's the missing link (unless you know where to look for it) between The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Ally McBeal, and Patrick Williams' jazzy theme song set the tone, and fit the character of Molly Dodd, perfectly. LISTEN

Twin Peaks
ABC, 1990-91

Angelo Badalamenti's music for Twin Peaks, like director David Lynch's images and pacing, let viewers know immediately that they were in for an experience unique in TV history. It began with this moody, gorgeous title theme, which played as - among images of birds and waterfalls, trees and other sights from the Pacific Northwest - a sawmill blade was sharpened robotically in slow motion. It was poetry, pure and simple... and that goes for the melody as well as the imagery. LISTEN