11 INTROS TO TACKY 80s SCI-FI/FANTASY TV

Desi Arnez Jr vs

Crazy animal noises and awesome MANIMAL statement at end vs

Short Indiana Jones vs

Guy from Taxi?!?!?! and swords crossing a lot vs

Everyone having three names (and lol Dean Paul Martin--fuck you Desi Arnez Jr--AND young Courtney Cox AND Dad from ALF) vs

Z-Files The Night Stalker vs

so far the best. Sweet synths andbizarre graphics and voiceover vs

Wow his hair and LOUIS GOSSETT JR he was totally slumming must be pre-Officer and a Gentleman vs

Only one I watched when it was on--awesome theme to this one (is this original movie theme?) vs

lol okay so far best cast (Rod Taylor CHARLES NAPIER and Richard Roundtree) and hilarious premise (Wait they form a detective agency?!?!?) vs

okay I couldn't really pay attention to this one.

Outlaws has to take this.

I see Starman theme is Jack Nitzsche who also did movie... is it actually from movie soundtrack? It's definitely a cut above most of eighties TV themes.

The Phoenix one just kills me (your "so far the best") one though the "Misfits of Science" one is pretty dense in its eighties-isms

needs VOYAGERS! - the first show i remember being sad when it was canceled. was a big manimal fan also though i got annoyed he always changed into the same damn animals every time, dude had a pretty limited manimal repertoire. i remember watching misfits of science cuz it was a huge deal that the girl from the 'dancing in the dark' video was in it. starman i vaguely recall - was it a syndicated show? highwayman i loved though it feels like it was a bit later on (probably in reality only four years after manimal), jacko was in it. i would watch the hell out of outlaws. voted outlaws purely cuz they form a detective agency.

misfits was totally "eighties" at the time, very much meant to be new wave, tartikoff's fingerprints all over it (fingerprints famously all over manimal as well god rest his soul), suspect he wrote 'what if we mtv it up?' on half his notes for a while there, sometimes you got miami vice, sometimes you got misfits of science.

voyagers intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP6ET-fYg2M

i loved that show so goddamn much. totally forgot jon-erik hexum was on it.

and it totally doesn't really qualify for this thread since it was a hit show and the shows above were failures that were generally pretty quickly canceled but no way we do a thread on 80s sci-fi tv intros and this gets left out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO8kFHCXiEg

as soon as I saw the thread I was itching to vote for Phoenix

when i was in college it was a running joke that one of our classmates was actually meeno peluce

I can't believe 11 episodes of Outlaws were actually shown. 5 of the Phoenix seems more on track.

Manimal, starring that guy who looks like Aaron Eckhart...

Also, no Street Hawk, no credibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCItnKrXvMM

^^^ best theme no private detective agency so cannot get nod.

Voted 'Automan' anyway. Which brings in the question: compare the unintentional homoeroticism/fetishisation of the male body in Street Hawk with the probably intentional homoeroticism/fetishisation of the male body in Automan (like in the episode where they're tailing a female suspect and she goes into a bar that happens to be women only, and the only place men are allowed is on the stage as strippers - so what do our heroes do? Send in that flashing cursor to eavesdrop on the woman? Hack the payphone with some magically arcing electricity? No, audition as male strippers, of course!)

Best fact about Wizards and Warriors on Wikipedia: The series' hairstylist Sharleen Rassi lost a Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling to Edie Panda for the made-for television film Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story.[6]

I'll concede the point on Street Hawk not counting because of it's awesome music (Tangerine Dream! how dis that even happen?). But I counter with the generic action theme laziness of Blue Thunder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBIk5RA0EQ
(which, with it's themes of surveillance and over-reaching of police powers, etc., would probably go over well today)

(starring James Farentino as 'budget Roy Schieder', Dana 'Garth from Wayne's World' Carvey, that guy who plays Hightower in the Police Academy movies, and some poor bastard who was cursed with the name Dick Butkus (which always brought the lols from a young snoball))

This is dreadful and hilarious at the same time, especially Shatner's tryhard action hero movements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7S6JW5EfD8

Also, watch Bill get out-Shirtless-Kirk'ed by Adrian Zmed.

And I'm going to class it as 'fantasy', because no way would someone be able to get away with a toupee like that IRL.

Then there's this from the UK. A bit of story background: it's the 21st century and what's left of England has been taken over by a dictatorship with a major boner for Arthurian imagery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgHALw3kE3M

was a big manimal fan also though i got annoyed he always changed into the same damn animals every time, dude had a pretty limited manimal repertoire.

so otm

Oh my god, Outlaws

Also otm re: Manimal, should have been called Manipuma

How many fucking animals can you guys turn into? I bet not even ONE! Bunch of fucking critics.

I just love that they start a detective agency in Outlaws so much. Hollywood obv has no respect for how difficult it is to get a PI license.

Ok what the hell happens at the end of the Misfits of Science theme? "Ooo-ooh science is over, KLAA! JE DJTHAA!"

(about 5:15)

The answer is "something awesome"

But not as awesome as THE HIGHWAYMAN. Riding the interzone between fact... and baloney.

"Co-starring JACKO as JETTO" = my new favourite tv credit.

H

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Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Streethawk 4 lyfe, yo.

Phoenix, for it's ancient aliens + copious use of masking and backlit glowy animation

Misfits of Science looks like the most entertaining show though.

no "otherworld", no credibility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8idvQeM0kA

ernest borgnine. john amos. (not that) michael shannon. in...

FUTURE COP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZdLuz9SKGU

o jeez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfZerhRy8lc

next poll maybe (unless virtually nobody votes in this one)

Did Ernest Borgnine get paid based on how many times he said "cop"?
Time Express might be worth watching just for Vincent Price, in the same way that Burgess Meredith makes the second series of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century more watchable.
The Fantastic Journey I might have actually seen as a kid. Roddy McDowell as an android?
The Invisible Man was repeated on UK TV in the early 90s - top made-up material name: Dermaplex.
Gemini Man - vaguely remember this, seems to have been solely made for the purpose of selling digital watches.
Man From Atlantis - I think this was a spin off from a movie, cancelled after like two episodes?
Project UFO - never heard of it.
Beyond Westworld - interest premise, but a pale shadow of the movie and the acting was pretty 'robotic' lol rofl etc.
Tales of the Unexpected - the UK version of this was massive.
Spider-Man - another spin-off fro a movie. Shitty special effects and the animated version captured the spirit of the comics much better.
Logan's Run - hope you don't notice our budget replacements for the big stars from the movie! oh you did...
Buck Rogers in the blah-di-blah - mentioned above, this was far from a flop, even if the second series wasn't as fun as the first. I wonder if the guy who played Dr. Hewer was cast because of his resemblance to Carl Sagan?
Battlestar Galactica - again, not a flop, but cancelled because of it's dire final series (Battlestar Galactica 1980). Patrick McNee narrates the intro, in a later series he turned up as a character in one episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVcfW5sHSU

fun fact: the lovely connie sellecca has been married to john tesh for over twenty years but for much of the 80s she was married to gil gerard. they had a son they named gib gerard.

She was also the lawyer in this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Q3orQhEcA

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

How a show could be made out of a 70's malfunctioning amusement park movie is something of an enigma

http://youtu.be/mOmSV8Vj5qE

Logans Run, seriously

http://youtu.be/owNi60LLK1c

and there's this.

http://youtu.be/qwXtFFZ4mo8