Top Ten 90s TV Themes - Number 3

As I touched on in my review of “I’ll Be There For You,” sometimes the theme song of a show crosses over from television theme into part of the American consciousness. “I’ll Be There For You” showed its relevance to the country pretty immediately as it reached as high as #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 (when those figures still mattered). The song at number three, however, has shown its reach of the American consciousness by being the one song (outside of “Happy Birthday”) that everyone aged 20-35 can sing off the top of their head.

Top 10 90s TV Theme Song #3 “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” by Will Smith and Quincy Jones.

Unfortunately embedding was disabled for this particular intro so here it is in its hyperlink glory.

Talk about iconic, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” pretty much hits any benchmark I’ve previously set for successful television theme songs. Not only do you get the vibe of the show from hearing the theme, you immediately recognize the song when it comes on and flock to the TV to enjoy it.  A nice extra point for this particular theme is that the star of the show performs it as well.  Can you say “double threat!?”  I pretty much had to put it in the top three, and many would argue that it deserves to be even higher on the list. 

Here’s a breakdown of the little things that I noticed in the intro:

1.     I always loved that special effect at the very beginning of the intro. Smith turning over in this chair looks pretty bad ass and coincides with “flipped, turned upside down” quite well. Still not sure how it was accomplished. I’m guessing that Smith is stationary and the camera and background are being turned simultaneously to create the illusion that Smith is moving. If anyone has a better idea, I’m all ears.

2.     The quickness by which Smith recovers from being sprayed in the face via an aerosol can is remarkable.  Taking paint directly to the eyes would have knocked me out of commission for at least an hour.

3.     I feel that the line “they were up to no good” is too grammatically correct. I always hear “they was up to no good” in my head. Clearly Will Smith’s letter of admission to MIT was not sent erroneously.

4.     The rhyme between “near” and “mirror” still sounds great.  Classic Smith.  However, I must note that the location of the airport is nowhere near the Hollywood sign thus the only conclusion I can draw is that Smith hitch hiked to that locale from the airport and then decided to hitch a cab. I’m guessing Uncle Phil did not supply the fare if that was the length Will went to to avoid paying for a full ride.

5.     Talk about a rude move telling the cabbie “smell ya later.”  Doesn’t that seem unnecessary and a little offensive? The cabbie was even nice enough to give Will a thumbs up on his new location.  Didn’t notice any tipping of the cabbie going on either, Uncle Phil would teach Will such important practices in the future.

6.     Will’s outfit. That’s all I really have to say about that.

You can tell that Quincy Jones not only produced the show but the song too.  It is littered with slick beats and samples that the master of production can knock out in his sleep.  Having worked with the likes of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra,  Quincy knows how to make interesting, fun music.  Now for no good reason, here’s a picture of Quincy’s lovely daughter Rashida Jones. We can only pray Parks & Recreation returns soon.

Now what many people tend to forget about “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is the theme I linked above (which everyone knows by heart) is only part of the original theme for the show.  In actuality, the extended intro version has four more verses.  Since you probably don’t remember it, here is the original intro that  only aired during select episodes in the first season.