A lifetime of questing has led me to this point. After three decades of ceaseless box watching I can finally present to you a very special assortment of TV's Jazziest Theme Tunes!!!!!!!!!!!
What on earth are we about? A jazzy theme tune is a little bit of excitement, a little bit of action, a little bit of foot tapping.
We're talking Bea Arthur as Maude throwing open her front door and looking pleased to see you, or the multicoloured opening of The Mary Tyler Moore Show - a self improvement anthem, "You're going to make it on your own", and a beret toss that reverberates through TV history.
Or the dancers from music show Solid Gold who bump and grind their way through the top ten in this 1982 clips show...
You never find them nowadays - that tune that gives you a little spring in your step as your make you way from the TV sofa to the drinks cabinet/kettle and back again after punishing day at the office. Here's a list.
Ten Eyewitness News The jazziest news theme - ever! We start in the early 1980s in Melbourne, Australia, in an era before computer graphics when the news began with, er, pictures of the news.
Channel Seven promotion - Be there!
At once both a hymn to the power of television, and a sociological justification of it, this Channel Seven station promo from 1984 will provide a rich seam for nostalgic UK fans of daytime television, with stars of A Country Practice and Sons & Daughters shamelessly mugging in front of the cameras.
Highlights here include Sounds presenter Donnie Sutherland arriving for work with his briefcase - on a horse! But pride of place goes to Rowena Wallace as Pat the Rat on Sons & Daughters. She might have been Australian television's greatest superbitch and winner of the Gold Logie, Australia's highest TV accolade, but could she clap a syncopated rhythm? Not a chance.
A secret agent confection from the 1960s ITVC powerhouse. With a psychedelic multicoloured stain glassed window effect. One of my all time faves.
This was the 1980s - as imagined in 1969 by Gerry Anderson. Brown on brown jumpsuits. People in blue jumpsuits jumping into evacuation chutes. Moon girls in silver mini skirts and purple hair.
1980s jazziness in a TV South Charlie's Angels rip off with a title sequence borrowed from PacMan and featuring Jill Gascoine and a youthful Leslie Ash.
"Somebody's nicked my bloody boat!" - crusty boat builder Jack Rolfe's immortal phrase segues effortlessly into the jazzy version of the seafaring 1980s BBC soap. So many memories, so many theme tunes. I can just imagine Jan Howard doing Jazzercise in leg warmers and head band to this.
Jazzy is the second series intro to the glam detective series, with Jaclyn Smith flicking on her straw sun hat at a jaunty angle and new recruit Cheryl Ladd gulping nervously as a carnival knife thrower lands a dagger next to her neck, adding an extra frisson.
Space 1999
Finally, a two for the price of one for the Gerry Anderson space opera.
A discordant Wagnerian space requiem introduces stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Suddenly a space hopper falls to the surface of the moon and everything changes to disco night at Studio 54!
Excitement all the way as Babs's blonde bangs bob up and down as she strides along Moonbase Alpha's immaculate corridors, while Martin zaps a green ray gun after leaping out of his office chair. It's RED ALERT! As exotic shape shifter Catherine Schell is brought in to - yup - jazz things up.
So that's my list. It's just for starters, really, and I am sure there are many worthy candidates I have left off it.
But while you might disagree with some of my choices, there's no denying - they don't make them like they used to.
