Rich Appel is the host of the weekly That Thing With Rich Appel, the syndicated weekend show targeted to Oldies and older-leaning Classic Hits stations. The show’s annual “Tele-lection,” where listeners vote for favorite TV themes, is one of their most eagerly awaited and most engaged shows of the year. Here are this year’s winners along with Appel’s commentary.
That Thing’s 10th annual “Tele-lection” saw the most activity to date, with a record number of listeners voting for the first time. That may explain five of the six themes that bounce back into the top 15 this year. The sixth, “All In The Family,” reaches its highest rank ever, clearly due to the death of Rob Reiner. (Other TV star deaths have influenced the countdown in years past.)
There’s change at the top this year with “Gilligan’s Island” in its first year at No. 1. Only three other theme songs have topped “Tele-lection”: “Hawaii Five-O” (5 years), “Mary Tyler Moore” (3 years) and “Cheers” (1 year).
One-third of the top 15 themes were national top 40 hits during their series’ first run, including the themes from “Hawaii Five-O,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Friends,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Happy Days.” While “The Monkees’” theme was not released as a single in the U.S., it charted on many stations’ local surveys, driven by sales of the group’s debut album. (Note that “Meet The Flintstones” was not a top 40 hit until the movie version in 1994 from the “B.C. 52’s.”)
Here’s this year’s listener voting: (
| TY | LY | SHOW | ARTIST - THEME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | Gilligan's Island | Eligibles - Ballad Of Gilligan's Isle |
| 2 | 19 | All In The Family | Carroll O'Connor & Jean Stapleton - Those Were The Days |
| 3 | 1 | The Mary Tyler Moore Show | Sonny Curtis - Love Is All Around |
| 4 | 2 | Hawaii Five-O | Ventures - Hawaii Five-O |
| 5 | 8 | Laverne & Shirley | Cyndi Grecco - Making Our Dreams Come True |
| 6 | 4 | Cheers | Gary Portnoy - Where Everybody Knows Your Name |
| 7 | 20 | I Dream Of Jeannie | Hugo Montenegro - Jeannie |
| 8 | 36 | The Flintstones | Hoyt Curtin - Meet The Flintstones |
| 9 | 14 | Friends | Rembrandts - I'll Be There For You |
| 10 | 9 | Mission: Impossible | Lalo Schifrin - Mission-Impossible |
| 11 | Bewitched | Howard Greenfield - Bewitched Theme | |
| 12 | Happy Days | Pratt & McClain - Happy Days | |
| 13 | 15 | The Monkees | Monkees - (Theme from) The Monkees |
| 14 | 16 | WKRP In Cincinnati | Steve Carlisle - WKRP In Cincinnati |
| 15 | The Munsters | Jack Marshall - The Munsters' Theme |
The complete listener-voted “Tele-lection” top 40, counted down on “That Thing,” includes nine other themes that hit the top 40 during each show’s network run—the themes from “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Miami Vice,” “The Greatest American Hero,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and “Secret Agent” (Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man”). There was also “The Golden Girls” theme (Cynthia Fee’s version of “Thank You For Being A Friend,” a hit for Andrew Gold) and the “Batman” theme, where both the original from Neal Hefti and a cover version by the Marketts were top 40 hits.
It’s also notable that these 15 themes are still heard nearly every day, as their shows are readily available on cable channels such as MeTV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV, TBS and others, as well as via streaming services like Paramount+, HBO Max, Pluto TV, Sling TV and YouTube.
That Thing with Rich Appel is playing somewhere around the world every weekend. You can link to any of the stations streaming the show here.
