This is the theme song for the Red Foxx starring 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son. Quincy Jones penned the tune and the multi-Grammy winning producer recalled in a 2010 interview with Billboard magazine how he became involved with writing this show's music and his concerns about the casting of Foxx, who had a reputation as an extremely explicit comedian at that point in time. Said Jones: "Bud Yorkin came over my house around 1970 and he said we just bought the rights of a show from England called Steptoe and Son. Sanford and Son was taken from the English TV show. He said, 'I'd like you to write the theme for it.' I said, 'who's in it?' And he said Redd Foxx. I said, 'man, you can't put Redd Foxx on national TV [laughs]. I had worked with Redd Foxx 30 years before that at the Apollo. We used to do the Chitlin Circuit. I used to write this music for him to come out with. Yorkin said, 'No, it's gonna be a great great show. And it was. Foxx took his sense of humor and took it all the way to the top. I wrote that song in about 20 minutes too. We had four musicians, Recorded it in about 20 minutes. It's amazing. Looking back, it's a trip."
Although the song itself failed to chart, it has maintained mainstream popularity and is featured on Jones' greatest hits album. The tune has also regularly been referred to in popular culture. For instance, in the Simpsons episode, Trash of the Titans, the song appears in the scene where Ray Patterson is reinstated. This is a reference to a moment that occurred during a poorly attended Redd Foxx Vegas stand up show when he refused to perform to such a small audience. The tune is also JD and Turks favorite song in the sitcom Scrubs, and is most famously seen when Turk is first going out with Carla.
Jones did an updated version of this tune for his 2010 album Q Soul Bossa Nova with the assistance of rappers T.I., B.o.B, Prince Charlez and Swedish-Congolese dance-pop/reggaeton singer-songwriter Mohombi. Lady Gaga collaborator RedOne produced this new interpretation.
Quincy Jones shares a connection with Charles Fox, who wrote the music for some of the most successful TV themes of all time, including
Love Boat and
Happy Days: they both studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. As Fox told us, Jones would bring Boulanger beautiful flowers whenever he returned for a lesson, so Fox made sure to bring flowers to the renown instructor as well any time he was in Paris. (Check out our
full interview with Charles Fox.)
On Friends, Chandler mimics the tune when he discovers Monica's hidden messy closet in the 2002 episode "The One With The Secret Closet."
It's also featured in these TV series:
30 Rock ("Aunt Phatso vs. Jack Donaghy" – 2012)
Scrubs ("My Deja Vu, My Deja Vu" – 2006, "My Life in Four Cameras" – 2005, "My Fifteen Minutes" - 2001)
Futurama ("A Fishful Of Dollars" – 1999)
The Simpsons ("Trash Of The Titans" – 1998)
King Of The Hill ("Pregnant Paws" - 1998)
And in these movies:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)
August: Osage County (2013)
Hancock (2008)
