I Can't Stop Watching These Bizarro-World TV Show Opening Credits
I've got Friends, you've got Friends/Let's put our Friends together/All those friends in one bed/Makin' love forever/Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey/Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey/Chandler, Chandler, Chandler (Ross)/Chandler, Chandler, Chandler (Ross)
Above, the lyrics to "Friends Opening Theme (Full Version)," one of an astounding 70 surreal alternate-universe TV title credit songs composed and recorded by a YouTuber who goes by dotflist. The songs—for a gamut of shows including The Office, Parks and Recreation, Girls, Game of Thrones, and Pokémon—are fully disguised, with no indication that what you're about to watch isn't the actual opening theme you searched for until you press play. They are also funny as hell.
Often, the lyrics to a dotflist theme will simply give a straightforward account of the premise of its attendant show. Take Girls.
A bunch of twentysomethings living in New York (they won't leave for no reason)
They work shitty jobs, do coke and all the time (mom and dad would be so mad)
They say funny things, fuckin' funny things (witty banter is so good)
It's called Girls
Other times, they add a left-field twist. Every single show in dotflist's bizarro world airs on HBO, and the theme songs are peppered with references to the network ("Live your life without a care, don't be a square/'Cause you already know the show's on HBO/Get in the park, open your heart/It's Parks and Recreation"). In The Simpsons, Bart, an alcoholic, is married to Marge, and the pair gives birth to Homer and twin girls Maggie and Lisa. The only constant is the absolute and saccharine earnestness with which the lead singer delivers his lines.
The internet is littered with homespun content that "remixes" pop culture, and most of it is cynical garbage created with the hope that familiar source material might help it hit the front page of Reddit or get posted on some content-starved blog. Dotflist's videos, though here they are on the pages of a content-starved blog, are different. They're smart, and genuinely funny, and probably too weird to go viral, anyway.
"Seinfeld Full Intro HD," his latest, was uploaded today. Watch that and some other highlights below, or a playlist of all 70 videos here.