A couple of months ahead of the premiere of “Matlock” on CBS, I went back and revisited episodes of the original legal drama starring Andy Griffith. It ran from 1986 to 1995 and its case-of-the-week structure still makes for easy viewing all these years later. A funny thing I noticed as I made my way through its nine seasons: I wasn’t compelled to fast-forward through the opening credits. It’s such a great Dixieland jazz melody. I wanted to hear it every time.
The new “Matlock” doesn’t have a theme song. Few shows these days do.
Often, the opening credits have been reduced down to a title card and maybe a few bars of music. There’s no time for a theme song, which can — or at least used to — do important subconscious work of re-introducing you to the world of a show.
Maybe network TV executives think main titles are a waste of real estate that could be better sold to advertisers. On streaming platforms, maybe there’s data showing viewers hit the “skip intro” more often than not. But the trend of abandoning theme songs actually predates streaming. As early as 2006, the Associated Press ran a story with a headline riffing on a lyric from “The Brady Bunch” opening credits: “Here’s the story … of the dying TV theme song.”
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but I was struck by a cognitive dissonance that defined the Emmy broadcast earlier this year. Paying homage to shows from decades past, theme songs from old favorites were heard throughout the night, including the theme from “Hill Street Blues” — one of the best melodies to come out of Hollywood, courtesy of Mike Post — and it was just a reminder that so many current shows have given up on this altogether.