Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 The ab rdic utterance in situation comedy theme songs, 1960-2000 Joni Melissa Butcher Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Butcher, Joni Melissa, "The ab rdic utterance in situation comedy theme songs, 1960-2000" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3403. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3403 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE BARDIC UTTERANCE IN SITUATION COMEDY THEME SONGS, 1960-2000 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agriculture and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Department of Communication Studies by Joni M. Butcher B.A., Louisiana State University, 1990 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1994 December 2003 © Copyright 2003 Joni M. Butcher All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Ruth Laurion Bowman for her enthusiasm for my study and for her tremendous sacrifice of time and energy to make this study possible. I am greatly indebted to her for helping me bring this study to fruition. I would also like to thank my committee members Dr. Michael Bowman, F. Nels Anderson, Dr. Patricia Suchy, and Dr. Stephen Beck for graciously serving on my committee. Their individual insights and knowledge greatly enriched this study. I could write for a week and still not have enough words to express my thanks to by best friend and colleague Jacqueline D. Burleson for her help in keeping me sane during this process. Her words of encouragement served as a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Thank you for all of the cards and phone calls. Thank you for letting me vent my frustration and not taking it personally. In the words of the theme for The Golden Girls, "Thank you for being a friend." An early 17th century proverb states that "every little helps." I have found this to be true. I would like to thank those individuals who, by helping with the little, in turn, helped me immensely. Thank you to my Grandmother for spending hours loading sheets of paper into my word processor. Thank you to my Mom for the countless trips to Starbucks to supply me with iced mochas. Thank you to my friend Kellie Jolivette for inquiring about my progress on a weekly basis, and to my friend Edward Prawitz for informing me about ASCII conversion. Thank you all for your compassion and understanding. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to some of my feline friends. Thank you to Skimbleshanks for the encouraging "meows" and head-butts while I was typing and for keeping my company when I chose to write at the table on the back patio. Thank you to Grizabella for sitting up with me at all hours of the night and for keeping my chair warm when I took a break from typing. Thank you to Squeak for keeping track of my manuscript by sleeping iii on top of whichever chapter I needed at the time. And thank you to Buster and Otis for being warm, friendly greeters during my rewrite meetings. Once again, thank you to my director, committee, family, friends, and fur friends. You each helped me realize that being present is sometimes all that is needed to impart hope. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.....................................………………………………………. iii ABSTRACT.............................................…………………………………………………. vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………….........…………………… 1 Subject and Limitations of the Study.....……………………………………………. 2 Methodology….................................……………………………………………..… 9 Significance of the Study.......................……………………………………………. 13 Organization of the Study………………………………………………………... 17 Notes............................................………………………………………………….. 19 CHAPTER TWO: THE 1960S: A CUNNING AND CAUTIOUS BARD...........………… 20 Historical Overview..............................……………………………………………. 20 Television Trends...............................……………………………………………… 32 Analysis of Themes...............................……………………………………………. 36 Notes............................................………………………………………………….. 68 CHAPTER THREE: THE 1970S: A TEASING AND TEMPERING BARD...........……… 69 Historical Overview..............................……………………………………………. 69 Television Trends...............................……………………………………………… 88 Analysis of Themes...............................……………………………………………. 90 Notes............................................………………………………………………….. 122 CHAPTER FOUR: THE 1980S: A MEDIATING AND MODERATE BARD..........…….. 124 Historical Overview.............................……………………………………………… 124 Television Trends...............................……………………………………………… 143 Analysis of Themes..............................…………………………………………….. 145 Notes............................................…………………………………………………… 182 CHAPTER FIVE: THE 1990S: A DIVERSE, DIGITAL AND REFLEXIVE BARD..……. 183 Historical Overview.............................……………………………………………... 183 Television Trends................................……………………………………………… 203 Analysis of Themes...............................…………………………………………….. 208 Notes............................................…………………………………………………… 247 CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION..................………………………….. 249 Notes………………………………………………………………………………… 258 WORKS CITED..........................................…………………………………………………. 259 APPENDIX A: SELECTED THEME SONGS OF THE 1960s…………………………….. 265 APPENDIX B: SELECTED THEME SONGS OF THE 1970s……………………………… 270 APPENDIX C: SELECTED THEME SONGS OF THE 1980s……………………………… 278 v APPENDIX D: SELECTED THEME SONGS OF THE 1990s……………………………. 283 VITA..................................................………………………………………………………. 292 vi ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the function of the bard in situation comedy theme songs. This study calls upon Fiske and Hartley's concept of television as a cultural bard, a singer and teller of stories that create and conserve community. The bard reaffirms the culture's identity while delivering social and political messages relevant to the culture at specific times throughout history. This study also draws upon social-historical and cultural perspectives, and a selective semiotic analysis to investigate the visual, vocal, and musical themes from four decades of television sitcoms. The shows and themes from the 1960s include The Beverly Hillbillies (1962- 71), The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), Gomer Pyle, USMC (1964-70), Bewitched (1964-72), and That Girl (1966-71). Those from the 1970s include All in the Family (1971-79), The Jeffersons (1975-85), Maude (1972-78), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), M*A*S*H (1972-83), and Three's Company (1977-84). Those from the 1980s include The Cosby Show (1984-92), Cheers (1982-93), The Wonder Years (1988-93), The Golden Girls (1985-92), and It's Garry Shandling's Show (1988-90). Lastly, the shows and themes from the 1990s include Roseanne (1988-97), Married. .With Children (1987-97), The Simpsons (1989-), Home Improvement (1991-99), Dharma and Greg (1997-2000), Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-), Frasier (1993-), and The Drew Carey Show (1995-). The results of the analysis reveal that the themes address relevant cultural issues such as race relations, the role of the domestic woman, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, class conflict, and the construction of reality. To date, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the area of television theme songs. Given that television is a central part of popular culture, and that sitcoms and theme songs vii comprise a significant amount of television air time, it is important to understand their relationship to culture and culture making. This study concludes that theme songs are concise bardic utterances that offer brief yet powerful rhetorical statements. Through the performance of these texts, the bard speaks to the prevailing values of the culture, using familiar means to uphold a sense of community and offer the audience a reinforcing idea of themselves. viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. ." --Paul Henning, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" Jon Burlingame states that television music is "the soundtrack of our lives" (1). Many of us in the United States live and grow up in front of our television sets, and television theme songs become ingrained in our minds. Theme songs are catchy jingles that tell a brief story. Just as advertising jingles stay in our minds to remind us of a product, theme songs stay in our minds to remind us of a particular show. One could walk into a room of people and start singing, "Here's a story of a lovely lady. ." and, more than likely, almost everyone present would be able to join in the song. As John Fiske and John Hartley state, television is our current culture's bard. This singer of songs and teller of tales performs a "bardic function" for the "culture at large and all the individually differentiated people who live in it" (85). As with bards of old, the TV bard seeks to draw all members of a society together