Going Places (American TV Series) - Theme and Title Sequence

Theme and Title Sequence

The series' theme song was self-titled "Going Places", written and composed by Bennett Salvay and Jesse Frederick (who had also composed the title tracks for other Miller/Boyett shows such as Perfect Strangers, Family Matters and Full House) and sung by Mark Lennon, of the band Venice; Lennon was aided by a chorus of male and female backup singers. Similar to title tracks on its sister Miller/Boyett shows, the theme was very lyric-heavy with upbeat instrumentation and an inspirational sentiment in its lyrics. Such lines as "Sparks are flyin' from your heels, nothing's gonna hold you back this time!" and the chorus, "Going places, brand new faces/Wide open spaces for my dreams, no one figured it." kept in tune with the show's underlying theme, a bunch of young people working to find success in Hollywood. Also, as in other series from Miller/Boyett and Lorimar, sweeping exterior views of the show's setting were seen in the title sequence; the show's four leads even traveled up a major highway in a vintage convertible as the title was shown, just as in the opening credits of Full House.

The opening sequence begins with the side-view of an airplane landing at the Los Angeles International Airport, followed by the view of a "Welcome to Los Angeles" sign under a highway bridge. Other quick overhead views are seen, including the clover-leaf rotary of a Los Angeles highway, the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, the Hollywood sign, and the entrance of the Santa Monica Harbor. These lead into an overhead shot of Charlie, Jack, Alex and Kate running down the sands of Santa Monica Beach in the late afternoon, where in the next scene the four, in different clothes, commence a game of volleyball at the beach in the early afternoon. The volleyball scenes are arranged so that Charlie serves the ball to Alex, who in turn hits the ball to Kate, who then aims the ball to Jack. Jack palms the ball, which appears to travel back to Kate, and a close-up shot follows of the volleyball falling from the air and onto camera view. The ball shot originally gave way to a scene of Jack driving the gang down a major highway in their vintage Ford Thunderbird convertible, while all are looking out and pointing at their surroundings. An ascending, panoramic side-view of the Thunderbird traveling up the highway is then shown, as the show's title appears on the screen.

Following this, an exterior view of the palace entrance of Mann's Chinese Theatre is seen, as the Thunderbird stops in front of it. The cast was then seen exploring the section of Hollywood Boulevard's tourist and shopping district at and around the theatre, with the four principal characters posing on sidewalk hand and knee imprints left by past Hollywood legends within the landmark. In order, Charlie fit his shoes into the shoe prints of Jack Benny, Alex placed her hands inside those of Betty Grable, Kate fit hers into the prints of Bette Davis, and Jack kneeled down into the knee prints of Al Jolson. Jerry Levine was the last to appear with "and" billing; for the first half of the season, Holland Taylor and Staci Keanan appeared between Hallie Todd and Jerry Levine, in scenes in which they were seen walking and stopping within the Chinatown courtyard. After the cast credits, the next scene features the principal four making dinner in their kitchen, while dancing and huddling around their kitchen's island. It is over this scene that the "Produced by" credit appears. The closing scene features the four riding a sailboat along the ocean of Santa Monica Beach in late afternoon, with a close-up shot of them visibly in the boat that pans out to feature the sunset-stricken ocean, with the boat appearing in the foreground as the sequences fades. Additional producing credits are shown over this entire scene.

In Episode 13, "The New Job", the first changes and edits were made to the opening credits. Philip Charles MacKenzie and Steve Vinovich, in that order, have shots placed between Taylor and Keanan. MacKenzie and Vinovich's shots remain in these spots for the remainder of the series. In order to accommodate their shots, the clip of the volleyball falling onto the camera lead directly into the side-view of the Thunderbird driving up the highway, with the show's title shown, eliminating the portion where the gang is seen in the convertible from the car's front side. The kitchen scene was also edited down, but only by a couple of seconds at the beginning. From Episode 14 ("New Kid on the Block", aka "New Kid in Town") onward, J.D. Daniels has a cast shot replacing Taylor (who had departed from the series). Christopher Castile, due to his recurring status, was billed in the closing credits only during his entire time on the show.

The closing credits, as on Full House and Family Matters (and also on The Hogan Family during most of its run), featured additional exterior views. The first closing scene centers itself on the facade of the gang's beach-front house, as the door opens with Alex leading the gang outside, as they jog down the walkway and out to the sidewalk in the direction of the beach. The camera ascends and follows and stops to show them from the rear as they turn the corner from the walkway and jog down the sidewalk. This cross-fades into the scene of them running down the sands of the beach, which was the same footage used in the opening, but extended. The camera slowly pans out from them to feature the beach landscape as a whole, and the four become less visible as they turn to run parallel with the shore. After a few more seconds, the camera turns left into the ocean, with the movement stopping as the sunset is positional directly in the middle of water view.