The Simpsons Theme (The Simpsons)

Danny Elfman opens with a theremin-like slide that sounds like a comet arriving from a dimension where everything is slightly wrong, and then the orchestra tumbles forward in a barely controlled avalanche of xylophone, brass stabs, and cartoonish pizzicato strings. The tempo is a breathless sprint, built on a melodic line that is simultaneously heroic and goofy — it promises grandeur and then immediately undercuts it with a pratfall. The harmonic language borrows from fifties science-fiction scores and golden-age Hollywood adventure, but Elfman runs both through a funhouse mirror, stretching the bombast just past the point of sincerity into knowing parody. Brass figures clash and scatter, woodwinds trill in mock urgency, and the whole ensemble behaves like a symphony orchestra that has accepted a dare. The emotional register is pure anarchic joy — the feeling of a joke told with a completely straight face by someone who knows exactly how funny it is. Elfman's background in new wave and theatrical rock bleeds through in the rhythmic irreverence; this is orchestral music written by someone who never forgot that music should be fun before it is impressive. The theme belongs to the era of the American animated sitcom as serious popular art, the moment the form decided it could be savage and warm at once. It is Sunday evening comfort food, nostalgia that was engineered to become nostalgia from the very first broadcast.