TV shows that completely changed their theme tune

Although this is probably one of the most well remembered theme tunes of them all.

And they were still using elements of that look into the early 00s.

I don't remember this look, although the theme tune remains very familiar!



Then they moved onto this theme which I remember quite well (Quite odd having an assistant do part of Deadly's job!)



Then onto a couple of 'Lottery HQ' visits





Followed by the quite heavily promoted Chris Evans revamp (I don't remember the audience bit at all!)



Then the more recent ones which are still partly used now they only do the draws online, including that memorable epic fail moment with the machine!

I was in the Countdown studio audience in 1996 when they were using the updated clock music. By the time the episodes I saw recorded were broadcast they had edited the usual music back in. Someone must have really hated it for them to have bothered to have done this.

Not quite as good as the 1996 machine failure, handled superbly well by the late great Bob Monkhouse.

I'm sure I remember hearing it was actually distracting the contestants in the studio.

The music was introduced in 1996 - here's a clip with the video from the old titles and the (full) music from the new titles in a 1996 programme (45 secs in):


I believe the new animation for the titles was introduced in 1997 with the BBC rebrand.

Fascinating looking back at the hype around the Lottery draws and now nobody really gives a toss nowadays. I wonder if it stayed as integral to the tie-in gameshows that it'd still be on TV nowadays. IIRC the live audience was removed after the Fathers 4 Justice invasion rather than somebody just not seeing a point in having an audience anymore.

I couldn't tell if the contestants were distracted, although Richard Whiteley at one point called the programme 'Calendown' and they had to re-take. Maybe it was him who was distracted.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch springs to mind for changing its theme twice during the run as Melissa (and the Sabrina character) grew up, despite Melissa still looking young these days.

The show had become quite poor by the time the third title sequence came in. The final season was particularly dire.

When it reached a point where her aunts were no longer featured in the series and there was hardly any witch related business it just became any other sitcom.