Songs That Remind You Of Television Shows

All right!  It's time to bring back the pop culture to this blog!

It was nice to take a few months off to get a little more personal in this blog.  It helped me sort out a few lingering feelings about life, it made me realize that my life hasn't been all that bad, and it's certainly made me feel a lot better about things.

It also gave me a bit of an opportunity to come up with brand new ideas for the rest of the year.  In fact, if you look at the right hand side of the blog, you'll see that I have a new poll up.  You can choose which of the four classic cartoons you want me to review.  Yes, your votes will cause me to sit through a maximum of 65 episodes, and I will have to watch and comment on EVERY SINGLE ONE.  Your choices are "The Care Bears Family", "Inspector Gadget", "Jem and the Holograms", and "The New Archies".  Please make your vote heard before July 1.  I'll have the first entry posted sometime during the week of July 2-8, 2015.

Oh, in case of a tie, I'll be doing two shows at once.  So, if you want to torture me, vote for the show you think I will hate the most.  Or, if you have a favourite show, make your voice heard too.  Remember, I'll be reviewing each episode of each show with sarcasm and acerbic wit.  You'll love it.  At least, I hope you will.

In the meantime, I want to discuss a pop culture topic that surprisingly came out of nowhere.  I guess you could say that I was inspired to write this post from a song that played on my iPod while it was on shuffle.

I often take my iPod to work with me to listen to on my lunch hour.  It kills the time in between eating, and it drowns out all the workplace gossip.  Win-win in my book.

Anyway, one of the songs that I have on my iPod happens to be this particular one.

Now, the song is by a girl by the name of Loreta, and the song is 1999's "Trouble With Boys".  I don't think it charted in Canada, but in the United States, it was a minor dance hit.

But I couldn't stop but think...where have I heard that song before?  I know there was a reason I downloaded it onto my iPod, but I couldn't figure out why.

But then I remembered.  I heard it being played in an episode of "Friends" a long time ago, fell in love with the song, and immediately downloaded it. 

You remember that episode, right?  The one where Ross and Monica attend a taping of the dance party scenes for Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve show and they perform the routine?  Here's a little clip to refresh your memory.

So, it got me thinking.  What other songs out there remind me of a particular television series?  Well, I composed a small list as well as finding episodes that use the song as a part of the episode's plot.  See how many you can remember.

Like, take this dance single released by Stacey Q back in the spring of 1988.  The track is "Don't Make A Fool Of Yourself", and it appears on her album "Hard Machine".  Although not as successful as Stacey's previous album, "Better Than Heaven", the song did make an impact on the dance charts.

Yet for some reason, I keep having a "Full House" flashback whenever I hear this song.  I wonder...

Oh, yes.  It was the episode in which D.J. Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler ditched school to head down to the record store to get Stacey Q's autograph...only to be caught by Joey and dragged home by a leash.  Considering that Stacey Q hasn't had a hit on the charts since 1989, I wonder if the effort was really worth it.

You know, "Full House" wasn't the only sitcom that Stacey Q appeared on during the 1980s.  She also appeared on another one where she sang a couple of other songs.  But she wasn't the only one to appear on "The Facts of Life". 

How many of you remember this song by DeBarge?

Well, okay, maybe you're more familar with the single "Rhythm of the Night", which was released in 1985.  But for some reason, I seem to remember the song above being used in an episode of "The Facts of Life".

Oh, yes...I remember it well.  Blair, Natalie, Jo, and Tootie dancing along with the music.  Probably why I don't really watch that episode much anymore.  Too traumatic.

Say, this is kind of fun.  What else do I have in my arsenal?

Oooh...The Pointer Sisters!  They were all the rage in the mid-1980s.  And, I seem to remember the song "I'm So Excited" playing on the radio all the time.  But sometime around 1990, the song took on a whole new meaning.  I think most of you know where I'm going with this one.

SHE'S SO EXCITED!  SHE'S SO EXCITED!  SHE'S SO...SCARED!!!

I'm sure Ruth, June, and Anita Pointer never expected that their song would be linked to one of the most ridiculous scenes ever shown on the series "Saved By The Bell".  To this day, I admit that I can't listen to the song without picturing Elizabeth Berkley half-screaming, half-singing in my face.

Okay, so we have a few examples from the 1980s here.  Let's try some more modern pieces.

I said MODERN!  Come on!  Baba O'Riley was released in the early 1970s!  That was over forty years ago!  Though it is one of my favourite songs by The Who. 

And it happens to have been used in one of my favourite shows that aired during the 2000s.

Yes, CSI: NY used this theme for the duration of its time on CBS.  Come to think of it, all CSI shows used The Who songs for their theme songs from "Who Are You?" to "Won't Get Fooled Again" for CSI and CSI: Miami respectively.

Okay, let's do one more.

So here's a song by Cathy Dennis.  The song is "Touch Me (All Night Long)" and it was a #2 hit in May 1991.  It was also a song that was played on an episode of "Beverly Hills 90210".

Remember when Donna Martin got drunk at the senior prom and she was almost expelled from graduation - which spawned the "DONNA MARTIN GRADUATE" chant?  That song played in the background.

So whenever I hear Cathy Dennis singing, I think of a drunken Tori Spelling...sigh.

So, what other examples of songs spawning memories of television shows can you remember?