the CREEPIEST tv themes

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Picture Box! distant, ethereal, something like what Boards Of Canada tapped into with 'Beware The Friendly Stranger' on 'Geogaddi' albeit briefly - an empty ramshackle carousel in it's death throes, staffed by one shifty glass-eyed carny questioning his love for the traveller's life as yesterday's balloons expunge the last gasps of helium, Summer fires fade out and the gentle rain cascades down tactlessly...

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 17 March 2005 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Dramarama

― wo ist meine keybords? (Lynskey), Thursday, 17 March 2005 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

No idea what you're talking about, Sven, but that was very poetically worded.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 17 March 2005 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Theme to Picturebox

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Thursday, 17 March 2005 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

doctor who theme for goodness. ...distant, ethereal, (mesmerizing).... don't know about all the rest.

― e, Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe Afred Hitchcock Presents for use of "Peer Gynt" man-in-the-moutain themez.

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

AH Presents used Gounod's "Funeral March of the Marionettes"

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

The Twilight Zone theme was pretty damn creepy.

― BanjoMania (Brilhante), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Tales from the Darkside. lock thread.

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

xypost: then what's the pop use of peer gynt again?

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

inspector gadget? maybe not so creepy.

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

the theme for Fortean TV was a really cheesy remix of "In the Hall of the Mountain King." sleighbells, cows, vibraslaps, the works.

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.maniacpony.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fortean.mp3

Inspector Gadget theme could almost be considered a pop rewrite of Grieg's piece.

the Smurfs used a lot of Grieg (including "Mountain King"), Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov.

seriously, though:

Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.
But there is, unseen by most, an underworld,
a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit...
A DARKSIDE

and that's just the voiceover. add in the visual shift to negative, the droning CMI arpeggios, the final dissonant chord; TV themes don't get much creepier.

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 March 2005 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Friends

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 17 March 2005 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks for putting up the theme Chriddof - i heard it tacked on the end of Tom Middleton's 'The Trip' mix - sadly it's all too brief but still induces that sinister sensation

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 17 March 2005 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Dr Who is maybe too euphoric to be truly creepy, or it's just so engrained in mainstream pop culture as to have had it's original macabre tone diluted a tad

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 17 March 2005 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Tomorrow's World (80s edition) springs to mind tho i can barely remember it - was it a commercially available Jarre composition or was it recorded for the show specifically?

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Thursday, 17 March 2005 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Friends
Haha!

That Picture Box theme song sounds like a Fats Waller organ piece, and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually was.

― Quit glaring at Ian Riese-Moraine! He's mentally fraught! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 17 March 2005 23:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The Prisoner. Not the main theme, but the ooh-spooky minor-key organ reprise after he wakes up in The Village and opens the curtains to reveal the episode title...

― Telephonething, Friday, 18 March 2005 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

m*a*s*h

― jones (actual), Friday, 18 March 2005 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Get Smart's end credits theme--very menacing.

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:17 (twenty-one years ago)

The nauseating original theme to Dark Shadows was creepy and painfully repetitious.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

The ominous dum-dum-dum music that introduced each segment in "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" scared the holy crap out of me when I was little.

― ffirehorse (firehorse), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Twilight Zone - 1980s version (Grateful Dead)

Night Gallery (1st season version)

― Joe (Joe), Friday, 18 March 2005 03:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I second Dr Who. Paired with that endlessly twisting silver tunnel during the end credits, scared the bejeebus out of a young Sharon, did it wot. No euphoria there, no sir.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 18 March 2005 04:13 (twenty-one years ago)

doogie howser

― Kim (Kim), Friday, 18 March 2005 04:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually used to find the X-files theme pretty creepy

― provv, Friday, 18 March 2005 04:29 (twenty-one years ago)

In Search of...

That was some creepy TV music.

― Cisco Pike Jr., Friday, 18 March 2005 05:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I dunno if its creepy so much as morbid and monumental and dark, but the theme to season 3 Bab5 is amazingly gothic-orchestral and rather cool. Berlin Symphony, it is.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 18 March 2005 05:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Twin Peaks: sexy creepy.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Friday, 18 March 2005 05:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The Invaders.

― lupine lupin (lupinelupin), Friday, 18 March 2005 06:03 (twenty-one years ago)

x-files!

― latebloomer: damn cheapskate satanists (latebloomer), Friday, 18 March 2005 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

The "In Search Of..." theme isn't very creepy on the face of it but when combined with Stonehenge, Nessie and Amelia Erhart it really disturbed me as a kid.

― King Canuck, Friday, 18 March 2005 07:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Ironsides snippet from "Kill Bill"

― avery schreiber, Friday, 18 March 2005 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

LOST haha

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 18 March 2005 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

The theme to Are You Being Served? is a very strange and creepy piece of music, kind of a dark flipside to that whole 70's lounge / tijuana / Herb Alpert vibe. The huge string bit drives that thunderous beat and discordant horns... *shudders*

It used to scare me witless when I was a child, but then perhaps I was abused in a lingerie department.

― Huey (Huey), Friday, 18 March 2005 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

For me it's down to Full House ("everywhere you look") and Who's the Boss ("brand new life - brand new life - brand new life around the bend"). Television simply doesn't get any more frightening.

― Jason Toon, Friday, 18 March 2005 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

yeh now you mention it 'My Two Dads' really gave me the willies (DO YOU SEE I HOPE YOU SEE)

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Friday, 18 March 2005 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

Re: the Picture Box theme - I've finally discovered what this is. It's an experimental piece called "Manege" by Jacques Lasry and Francois Baschet, played with "mutant" instruments, some built with - eep - actual bones. According to a thread I found on the Cook'd & Bomb'd message boards, it was played in full on BBC 6Music a few months ago, with Stuart Maconie and another guy discussing it. Unfortunately the show is no longer archived on the BBC's site.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

The Patty Duke Show - "Identical cousins" WTF!?!?!? I don't even want to think about what kind of sexual miscreance was involved in that scenario.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

I have a cd of crystal organ (which is the instrument used on the PB theme) by Jacques Lasry, it is awesome and creepy.

― mzui (mzui), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

Twilight Zone and Invaders are good.

The end title music to UFO (starring the bloke who did the voice for Captain Blue) is very dark ambient as the camera zooms out from earth to this unknown planet just hanging there.

(start title music is anything but: http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/themes/ufo.mp3)

loads more here:
http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/themes/1.htm

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

unsolved mysteries

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

The Patty Duke Show - "Identical cousins" WTF!?!?!? I don't even want to think about what kind of sexual miscreance was involved in that scenario.

"A hot dog makes her lose control." Say no more!

― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

The late eigthies Twilight Zone with the Grateful Dead doing the title theme.

― Old School (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

m*a*s*h seconded. that's definitely the creepiest.

― Billy Pilgrim (Billy Pilgrim), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 20:37 (twenty years ago)

"suicide is painless" makes me melancholy every time. but i wouldn't say it's creepy.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 21:23 (twenty years ago)

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