Last week, while talking about the 1966-1968 Batman television series, I pointed out that the theme song for that series had become iconic to such a degree that it was almost universally known. I also noted that the theme songs for other live-action super-hero shows of bygone eras such as The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman have not had nearly the same cultural resonance, and seem to have mostly been forgotten.
That is pretty much all true, but even so, some of the theme songs for these shows were pretty good. Wonder Woman, for example, had a catchy, mildly funky, and vaguely disco-ish theme song that had elements reminiscent of the Batman theme song in some parts (such as the repeated refrain of "Wonder Woman!"). The theme song, like the show itself, evolved over the years, replacing the anti-Nazi themes found in the first season with more general crime fighting lyrics in the second, and eventually losing most of the lyrics entirely in the third season as the show attempted to rebrand itself as a more generalized "action adventure" show. Personally, I think that the theme song was better in its earlier iterations, but it is still good no matter what version one is listening to.
Previous Musical Monday: Batman Theme (1966-1968)
Subsequent Musical Monday: The Amazing Spider-Man Theme Song (1977-1979)
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