In the latest season of “Only Murders in the Building,” the show’s trio of amateur detectives are investigating yet another murder and discover a theme — and a song — from an unlikely source: another TV show.
The show is “Perfect Strangers,” the wacky 1980s sitcom that paired two cousins who — like the stars of “Only Murders” and its new cast of characters this season — couldn’t have been more different. The uplifting, bombastic “Perfect Strangers” theme song appears in the “Only Murders” fourth season, which concludes Tuesday.
“We needed something that landed as a clue, something that opened up something curious for our trio to discover, something that kept hitting over and over again,” John Hoffman, the “Only Murders” showrunner, said.
And so the “Perfect Strangers” theme song appears as a call sign over the ham radios of misfit residents introduced in this season of “Only Murders” and referred to as “the Westies.” Those are the tenants who live on the West tower of the Arconia, across from where Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) live and where much of the investigation focuses.
In one scene, in an apartment in the West tower of the Arconia, the New York City residential building at the center of the show, Mabel softly begins singing.
“No matter what the odds are this time / nothing’s gonna stand in my way,” she chimes.
Oliver mumbles along: “This flame in my heart / long-lost friend / Gives every dark street / a light at the end.
“Standing tall!” they belt out together.
“What is that bizarrely catchy song?” Oliver asks.
“You don’t know the theme to ‘Perfect Strangers’?” Mabel responds, after explaining she heard it earlier on the ham radio in a neighbor’s apartment.
The “Perfect Strangers” theme song, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now” by Jesse Frederick and Bennett Salvay, may best typify the sitcom earworms of the 1980s. Full of bravado and optimism, the song is on full display when Oliver and Zach Galifianakis — who plays himself as the actor cast to play Oliver in the Hollywood movie being made about the podcast in Season 4 — perform a dance montage.
“Perfect Strangers” told the story of Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) who moves to Chicago, only to have his long-lost cousin Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot) arrive from Mypos and become his roommate.
The show ran for eight seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1993, eventually landing a spot in the original T.G.I.F. lineup. Decades later, “Perfect Strangers” has now landed a guest role in a popular TV series for the second time in recent years.
Musically, the “Perfect Strangers” song was catchy enough to keep people hooked, Hoffman said. Thematically, it underpinned the series and the season. Together, with the card game and the ham radios, the “Perfect Strangers” song told the story of what united the Westies as a family, inspired in many ways by the show.
“Our show itself is built on something that could be described as perfect strangers when you look at that central trio,” Hoffman said, referring to the unlikely camaraderie among Mabel, around 30, and Oliver and Charles, both seventysomething.
“Perfect Strangers” was also a story line on “The Leftovers,” the HBO show about the inexplicable disappearance of 2 percent of the world’s population in what’s known as the Departure. The “Leftovers” writers were imagining which celebrities would have disappeared in the Rapture when Jackie Hoyt, a writer-producer, asked, “Did you know the entire cast of ‘Perfect Strangers’ disappeared?” recalled Damon Lindelof, a co-creator and showrunner.
That’s how all the “Perfect Strangers” stars “departed,” except for Linn-Baker, who faked his own disappearance and hid in Mexico. Linn-Baker, playing himself, has a pivotal role in the final season, appearing in the episode “Don’t Be Ridiculous” (a reference to Balki’s catchphrase), which also used the “Perfect Strangers” theme song for its opening credits.
Though the inclusion of “Perfect Strangers” began as a running gag, the classic show was the perfect fit. There are few sitcoms that checked the absurdity box as “Perfect Strangers” does, and its aggressively confident theme song represents the kind of musical invitation from a largely bygone era, Lindelof said. Plus, people loved it.
“It became a lightning rod for all these ‘Perfect Strangers’ fans to reach out and say, ‘I love that show too, and I feel seen,’” Lindelof said. “That was when it was like, We have to go further.”
“Perfect Strangers” represents a time that no longer exists in television culture, Jennifer Armstrong, a pop culture historian, said.
“What I love about this show is just that this is like a moment in TV history that’s totally different from now,” she said. Unlike the watercooler genre that emerged in the 1990s, and the binge-watching culture ushered in by streaming services, “Perfect Strangers” represents an era when families sat around the television watching silly shows and laughing together.
“If you had ChatGPT write an ’80s sitcom, it would probably come out like this,” Armstrong said of “Perfect Strangers. “The same is true of the theme song.”
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