What score Main Titles, once heard, stay in your head all day? Two that come to my mind, having played both scores this week, are OVERBOARD by Alan Silvestri (insanely catchy Hill-Billy Banjo Rock) and LINK by Jerry Goldsmith (insanely catchy drums and electronic Gremlins moans Carnival Rock).
Neal Hefti too - his How to murder your wife is uber catchy. John Barry and Morricone would have plenty of candidates, like Ipcress File and Grand Slam.
(Now watch this degenetate into everyone's favourite main title...and nothing to do with catchiness!!)
Tons of 'em, esp. in the sixties. One for a film I've never seen is Franco Micalizzi's, I Due Volti Della Paura (Two Faces Of Fear) 1972. I bought it on a two-fer CD for the western score that accompanied it. I just find it so catchy, & it doesn't hurt that the voice on it belongs to Edda Dell'Orso.
…& an example of a title that didn't grab me when I saw the film, but I loved it when I heard the soundtrack album, Jerry Goldsmith's, In Like Flint. This has been in my head for over 50 years.
For feature film, "Take The Money And Run" and "Bananas" (Marvin Hamlisch), almost anything by John Morris (Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, The In-Laws, The Elephant Man, etc.) and...of...course...The Pink Panther (both as a film and TV theme).
For television, any of Earle Hagen's great themes (Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Gomer Pyle, Mod Squad, That Girl). The French Chef theme (Morris), Mannix, Stingray and UFO (Barry Gray), Hawaii Five-O, Get Smart, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Flintstones/Jetsons, Captain Kangaroo (actually a British music library track, also the signature tune for BBC's "Children's Favourites").
THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. Kids actually clapped along in rhythm, doubtless stimulated by the heavy promotion on TV.
I saw it first in a cinema in the early seventies, and in a double bill with Jason and the Argonauts. They both got my foot tapping and were so memorable I looked out for them on records until one day I found them and it was there my love of film music started.
