I love watching a show's opening credit sequence. They're like mini-films. However, I'm sure others have noticed this, but it seems like more and more shows are foregoing a full-blown credit sequence and instead opting for a brief title placard while the credits roll during the opening scenes of a given show. Take Grey's Anatomy. They used to have a pretty nifty show open complete with sex in a hospital bed. Now it's gone. Boo to that. I like seeing the credits and it's lousy that some shows have tossed it in favor of what probably ends up being a few extra seconds of time for ad buyers to purchase. Oh well. Some shows still have a lengthy open and with that comes some good music. Here are some of my favorites (old and current) in no particular order.

1.) C'mon C'mon by The Von Bondies [Rescue Me] - Awesome tune. It's loud. It's angry. And it goes perfect with the imagery of a fire engine roaring down a Manhattan avenue. I'm not sure if it's still on the F/X website, but there used to be a blurb about how Denis Leary picked music for Rescue Me and apparently he stumbled onto this song one day while his son was listening to it. Good find.

2.) Title Theme by JJ Abrams [Alias] - This is a short instrumental that I think most folks are probably familiar with. I can't get enough of it though. After much effort, I was able to record the theme off one of my Alias DVDs. I converted it to an MP3, looped it about 30 times, and then burned it to a CD. I don't care what you're doing. By playing the Alias theme, it makes whatever your task is that much cooler. Picture yourself cleaning the toilet while jamming out to "bumph... bwaa naa naa... dunph... dwa nah nah." Those are actual words. Sure.

3.) Calling All Friends by Low Stars [What About Brian] - I've been humming this song for weeks now and just this morning I finally decided to track it down. Not an easy task. But twenty minutes of Google searches finally led me to this MySpace page. The band is called Low Stars and the tune is really good. I love the opening sequence to What About Brian and how they cut it together using the drum beat from this song. Good stuff.

4.) California by Phantom Planet [The OC] - Stop lying to yourself. You may hate the show but this song is just way too catchy to not like it. I'll leave it at that.

5.) Teardrop by Massive Attack [House] - This is just such a cool song and the fifteen seconds we get of it at the beginning of House unfortunately doesn't do it justice. It's not an instrumental as some believe. There are lyrics and they're very good. I just love relaxing, beer in hand, with this song on. It's very soothing for whatever reason.

So there you go. I'm not saying these are the best TV themes. They're just some of my favorites. I feel like this could spark a good debate though. What else needs to be on the list?