And we are back! I can’t believe we have already been doing this for 4 years. Our bracket last year found of favorite breakfast food: Breakfast Tacos and Burritos. There was never any doubt. Our second year bracket crowned The Sandlot as our champions of the Best Sports Movie Bracket. Our first champion was in the music bracket where The Beatles reigned victorious. It’s my pleasure to announce our topic this year: TV Theme Songs.
This was absolutely impossible. Getting this bracket down to 68 teams was the hardest one yet. Again, we tried to keep the personal biases as low as possible, but of course we made some decisions based on our personal likes and dislikes. I tried to be as scientific as possible, scouring the internets for lists and rankings at Complex, Paste, and Ranker (to the people!). Like previous years, “scores” will be posted as the percentages from the polls.
I’ll set up polls in each round. To keep from completely swamping everyone’s Facebook and Twitter timelines, I’ll post the polls here and put a link up at the start of each new round on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. *Shameless plug* Give me a follow!
For the sake of transparency — again, I get it – it’s incredibly important when talking about teevee songs on a hardly ever updated blog for sure — here are the unbelievable number of theme songs I had to cut to even get this bracket down to a usable 72 teams with 2 play-in games in each region. Hard arguments could be and were made for every one of these that barely missed out and quite a few I fought for until the end. There was just not enough room.
Classic Drama
None – this was decidedly the hardest region to fill. I even had to stretch the 1980 cutoff between “Classic” and “Modern” and allow a game show to get 18 teams for the play-in spot.
Classic Comedy
| The Munsters (64) |
| Mr. Ed (61) |
| The Muppet Show (76) |
| The Dick Van Dyke Show (61) |
| The Odd Couple (68) |
| All in the Family (71) |
| What’s Happening!! (76) |
| WKRP (78) |
| The Facts of Life (79) |
| The Monkees (66) |
| Welcome Back Kotter (75) |
| Get Smart (65) |
| Taxi (78) |
Modern Drama
| The West Wing (99) |
| Twin Peaks (90) |
| House M.D. (04) |
| The Greatest American Hero (81) |
| Friday Night Lights (06) |
| Stranger Things (16) |
| Veronica Mars (04) |
| Miami Vice (84) |
| The Daily Show (99) |
Modern Comedy
| South Park (97) |
| Animaniacs (93) |
| King of the Hill (97) |
| Growing Pains (85) |
| 30 Rock (06) |
| How I Met Your Mother (05) |
| Community (09) |
| It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (05) |
| Bob’s Burgers (11) |
| Parks and Recreation (09) |
| Arrested Development (03) |
| That 70’s Show (98) |
| Pinky and the Brain (95) |
| BoJack Horseman (14) |
| The Big Bang Theory (07) |
| Family Guy (99) |
| Malcolm in the Middle (00) |
We had 8 play-in games this year to determine our 15 and 16 seed in each region. There were some really close games.
Classic Drama
Perry Mason (a sneaky good song that most people don’t recognize by title of the show) put the beat-down on The Rockford Files, winning 94-6 and claiming the 15 seed.
Jeopardy! also had an easy time of it with their competitor Doctor Who, getting in the tourney at the 16 seed with a 83-17 victory.
Classic Comedy
I’m not going to lie y’all, I fought tooth and nail for I Love Lucy to get into this bracket. Our girl fought valiantly against the eventual winner and 15 seed I Dream of Jeannie. A 1 point victory – 52-48.
In a bit of a surprise to me, The Partridge Family knocked off The Mary Tyler Moore Show with ease 71-29.
Modern Drama
Justified is another one of those theme songs I’m not sure a ton of people know, but it bangs. It dispatched The Wire fairly easily 69-31.
In a result that will kill my wife, The A-Team streamed to a 3 vote 59-41 win over Gilmore Girls to get the 16 seed.
Modern Comedy
Our last and most stacked category (see what was left out above) started with two great animated theme songs as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got a 1 vote 53-47 win over The Jetsons to claim the 15 seed.
Our 16 seed in this region was also a 1 vote win as Curb Your Enthusiasm got the 53-47 victory over my dark horse that was pushed all the way into a play-in spot by a ridiculously strong field, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
With that, our bracket is set. Some big names didn’t make it again and I know you may (read: will) have issues with the seeding – please take it easy on me. The first round of voting will start Thursday March 21 and voting will close Sunday March 24 at 5pm. The second round will begin on Monday. Starting with round 2, new rounds will begin on Mondays and Thursdays. Let’s get to voting! Polls are under the bracket.
CLASSIC DRAMA REGION
CLASSIC COMEDY REGION
MODERN DRAMA REGION
MODERN COMEDY REGION
There you have it. Let’s get to voting and see who gets into the Round of 32!
The Clumsy Optimist 
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