When all was said and done, a total of 390 different television themes were nominated for our 2020 poll. (This includes a handful of write-in votes that occurred after the final ballot was circulated. NONE of these new titles were deemed eligible once the final ballot of 213 titles was published ... but we WILL feature a few of them next hour, so be sure to stick around for that!)
Of these 213 final nominees, 70 earned 100 points or more. (Coming in at #70, with 101 votes, was this one):
THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR (#44 in 2013)
The Master Of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock hosted his own television series for a total of ten seasons (between Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.)
Most famous for his movie credits (Psycho, The Birds, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dial M For Murder, Vertigo, Rear Window and at least a dozen more), Hitchcock pulled together one hour storylines that held you spellbound in front of the small screen, too.
That famous opening of the hand-drawn outline of Hitch’s massive girth is one of early tv’s most vivid images. And the theme is downright classical! Listen to this extended version!
Since you'd have to drop all the way down to #142 to find the first song that earned less than 50 votes, we've decided to expand our new permanently posted countdown to Your Top 100 Television Theme Favorites. (Watch for this to appear as soon as this weekend's countdown wraps up on Sunday Night here:
A total of 24,492 votes were cast in all ...
Besides the 70 that earned 100 or more, 34 earned 200 or more, 17 earned 300 or more and six earned 400 or more. And one of those actually earned more than 500 votes (nearly 600, in fact!) to become the runaway leader in this year's poll.
Here's how we put the whole thing together ...
We had an open nominations period of two weeks, which generated 360 nominees. You may recall that we then did an elimination round to allow you to "save your favorites" ...
At this point, any title with less than ten votes was eliminated ... and titles that fell into the 10-35 vote category were given one last chance to survive. (By this point, 35 votes already got you a Top 100 berth so there was no point in focusing on themes that were never going to make the list anyway.)
We also told you at the time that of all the themes that had earned the required ten votes to qualify, only ONE theme stayed at those ten votes ... and that theme was MIGHTY MOUSE.
We asked you to share the love for this one and nine of you did, boosting its tally to 19 and pushing it to #195 on the list.
That left ADAM-12 as the lowest ranking theme on the list with just twelve votes.
In addition to MIGHTY MOUSE, a number of other animated show themes also made the list, including tracks like THE PINK PANTHER, THE JETSONS, SPIDER MAN, BUGS BUNNY, YOGI BEAR, ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, THE ALVIN SHOW, MAGILLA GORILLA, CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST, THE ARCHIES, WOODY WOODPECKER and HUCKLEBERRY HOUND. (One animated theme even made The Top 25!!! Betcha can guess what THAT one was!!!)
Here are two of my favorites that we're going to feature this hour ...
TOP CAT (did not make the 2013 list) 59 votes, #125 in 2020
Here's another cartoon theme that earned some of your votes … And a VERY catchy theme at that!
GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE (this one was an “Extra” in 2013) 87 votes, #83 in 2020
Once again, we prove that “Catchy Is King” … as they don’t get much catchier than this one!
(Now if only Sonny Bono had listened to George’s advice!!!)
And here's another one, just for fun ...
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR (did not make our 2013 list) 89 votes ... and #79 in 2020
I always liked this one.
Of course, I was a MAJOR fan of The Smothers Brothers at the time … And this cute little piece of incidental music provided the perfect background for what was in NO way a cute little tv comedy!
And how cool is this???
