YouTube Treasure: The Golden Girls Theme In Its Nascent Form

When he wrote "Thank You For Being a Friend," Andrew Gold probably didn't expect it to end up as an anthem for Depends-wearing Golden Girls, but his obscure ditty did find its place as the bouncy theme song to that classic '80s sitcom.

Here is his own version of the song, and it's surprisingly almost semi-rock-and-rollish, with extra verses and choruses than we've come to know, and even a surreally creepy middle section (which is very similar to MY surreally creepy middle section.)

But who the fuck is Andrew Gold? Well, his father happened to be Oscar winning screen composer Ernest Gold, and his mother is none other than Marni Nixon, beloved dubber of movie "singers" like Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood.

Even more impressively, Gold's voice was the first human one ever heard on Mars' surface. No, he didn't go there to sing "Thank You For Being a Friend" to little green creatures. According to Wikipedia, "His rendition of the theme from the television series Mad About You, entitled 'Final Frontier,' was used as the wake-up call for the Mars Pathfinder space probe in 1996."

I might use it for my colonoscopy!