Originally I had Growing Pains in this spot, but the more I listen to “Show Me That Smile” it just doesn’t work. I love Jennifer Warnes, but she’s only in one version of this generic theme song. Dusty Springfield ruins the one he’s in. Plus, the theme song just reminds me of Cameron’s religious fanaticism and the scripts that helped drive Gold to anorexia. So, eff, that show.
So, to something more innocent. My nineteen month old son loves this theme song, and I can’t blame him. Unlike most themes meant for pre-school kids, there’s no ear-piercing crescendo. And the theme of the show is driven home without connecting every dot. Like most kids themes, they name all of the characters in the song, but the melody isn’t ruined in order to do it. It’s a fun jingle without being an annoying earworm.
Never seen the show, but this song won Mancini an Emmy and two Grammys for whatever they’re worth. Hard to go wrong with orchestras including trumpets.
Title: The Ballad of Paladin Composer: Johnny Western, Richard Boone, and Sam Rolfe Performer: Johnny Western
I’ve seen perhaps five episodes of every TV western ever made, but I do like the music. I don’t really care for the theme to Bonanza (a bit too twangy), but I enjoy this ode to Paladin, which has more restraint than most.
I listen to theme songs. Like, I have an entire playlist devoted to them on my mp3 player. I think that qualifies me to prattle on about them for a month.
A lot of work used to go into creating catchy, original songs for the opening or closing credits of your favorite shows. These days, most shows either forgo songs all together (e.g. Lost) or they grab something already in existence that fits the show’s personality (e.g. Friends, Wonder Years, Scrubs).
For the next five weeks, we’ll cover two songs per day. These 50 are the ones most likely to get stuck in my head all day, but in a totally good way.
Bosses, especially in NES games, fall into one of two categories. They’re either insanely easy once you determine the trick to beating them, or they’re insanely hard, requiring perseverance and multiple hits. Wart is neither of those. While there are strategies to defeating him and avoiding getting hit, there’s no automatic road to victory. On the other hand, it is very possible to get very good at defeating him, taking no to minimal damage. In a way, he’s like Mike Tyson.
No game in the Mario series was more willing to dispense with established rules than the second game in the series (yes, I know, “Doki Doki Panic”, etc, etc). Of all the rules it broke, though, the most sinister was clearly the one that most of us took for granted.
When I was 9, my parents, my brother and I house-sat for a couple who lived on a lakeside lot. This family happened to have a Nintendo with a copy of Super Mario Brother 3. My parents didn’t want us to waste our time playing it when there was so much natural beauty to behold. They had a point, of course, but my brother and I still set our alarm clocks for absurdly early hours so that we could sneak down to play it. Every day for two weeks, we would get to the same exact place in the game.
I wrote that up a couple of years ago when I was going through my list of favorite video game moments. This one was number 27, which seems just about right. We so badly wanted to beat this level and it just didn’t seem possible to do so. We had no problem getting here – whistles made that almost trivial. For some reason that I don’t seem to recall, we always used our P-Wings elsewhere, which (in one of this level’s – and indeed, this’ game’s – biggest failings) would have rendered this level stupidly easy.
Oh yeah. Big fuckin’ hero flying over the entire level.
At the end of nearly level in SMB2 you are faced with the impossible large face of a hawk. Once you’ve completed the level he opens his large gape and invites you inside to play at the casino.
We* knew what this was all about. We had all heard that there were eight worlds in Super Mario Brothers, and there were only 4 levels per world, so in the closing moments of 8-3 (easily the hardest level in the game, btw. There was no easy way around those damn hammer throwers with the entire level taking place on flat ground. We died SO MANY TIMES on that level), we knew what was coming – the last level, the end castle… the final boss.
Of course, we had two lives left, so we died in the first room, unable to figure out the logistics of that first jump.
The screen that spawned a million minces oaths form children around the world.
Once you get the hang of things in Super Mario Bros. the game becomes pretty easy. Enemies have predictable patterns, and with a little patience, there’s little in the way of challenge outside of timing your mad dash for every Bowser visit. But there’s one area of the game that never gets easy and to this day still makes me nervous.
Death By Troggles 
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