Television theme songs are powerful. Some—“The Brady Bunch,” for example, or “Laverne and Shirley—are my first line of defense against fussy infants. Indeed, few babies are indifferent to my soothing rendition of the story of a lovely lady, or my delicious recitation of schlemiel, schlimazel, and hasenpfeffer, incorporated.

But there are those songs with a more sinister intensity.

Last night, Rob and I discovered that, when we were children, the same three themes induced in us terror and despair. These were “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Taxi,” and “The Odd Couple.” I am not certain if it is a coincidence that all three of these were set on the streets of the city in which we now live, but we did both overcome our initial aversion to the “M*A*S*H” theme, which was set in South Korea (and filmed near Malibu).

I was not all that thrilled with the “Barney Miller” song, either, but I have not yet had a chance to run that by him.

Clearly, we are a match made in heaven.