Buffy The Vampire Slayer

From Buffy to My Name Is Earl and Lost, we pick our favorite fictional rockers.

US, November 8, 2006 - Music and television. Two great tastes that can go great together, or, at the very least, cause some inadvertent hilarity. For various reasons, many shows throughout the years have had the occasion to either introduce a character who’s part of a band, or have some of the regular characters suddenly form a band, and the results have been mixed to be sure. And yet, whether good or bad, clever or ill-advised, knowingly bad or completely clueless, it’s hard not to be entertained when your favorite character, be it on a sitcom or drama, is suddenly on stage and rocking out... Or just looking and sounding ridiculous. Keeping that in mind, we’ve complied a list of 10 of our favorite bands from TV shows.

Please note that we purposely left out bands that were central to a show’s core concept, such as the Monkees or the Partridge Family, instead focusing on shows where the inclusion of a musical performance wasn’t so likely. If there’s a band or musical group from a TV show that we didn’t mention that’s a favorite of yours, let us know and we’ll include it in an edition of the IGN TV Mailbag.

Now, without further ado, here are IGN’s Top 10 TV Show Bands!

#10: Phish Tahko
Series: My Name Is Earl

Earl Hickey, before he discovered the concept of karma and reformed his wicked ways, didn’t always do the smartest things. So it wasn’t exactly inspired for him, along with his brother Randy and their friend Ralph, to form a band, seeing as how they weren’t all that talented. However, that didn’t really concern them, as all they really wanted to get out of it was sex from some random, local girls, and in that respect, the band was a success (though that doesn’t work out as well for Earl, who ends up sleeping with Ralph’s considerably older mother instead). Their first show was Phish Tahko’s one and only performance, until the day Earl decides to make amends to Tom, the old man they’d originally picked as their lead singer, only to kick him out. For one night only, the reunited Phish Tahko once again rocks the socks off the Crab Shack, as they do a less than memorable, but certainly energetic, version of The Edgar Winter Group’s "Frankenstein." And yes, we are aware — as we’re sure the Earl producers are — that, as an instrumental piece, "Frankenstein" requires no lead singer.

#9: The Lubbock Babes
Series: Just the Ten of Us

Not exactly a stellar show, Just the Ten of Us was a Growing Pains spinoff, in which Mike Seaver’s high school coach moved to a new town with his wife and eight kids. The show involved Coach Lubbock teaching at an uptight all-boys Catholic school, and the shenanigans involved when his four older daughters become the first girls to attend. In a rather blatant ratings ploy, nearly all the other characters and storylines (sorry, younger siblings!) were pushed aside in the show’s later episodes, as those aforementioned four daughters, most of whom were quite attractive, and despite their constant squabbling and vastly different personalities, inexplicably formed a singing group together. Suddenly, several episodes were focused around the group, called — you guessed it — The Lubbock Babes, as they performed at local venues, covering songs like "Born to be Wild" and "Rock Around the Clock." It made almost no sense for the characters involved, seemed utterly arbitrary, and thus was extremely amusing, in a bad ’80s sitcom way.

#8: Dingoes Ate My Baby
Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Daniel "Oz" Osbourne was the ultimate in laid back cool. Here was a guy who wasn’t fazed in the slightest when he learned he was living in a town plagued by vampires, nor even when he himself was bitten by a werewolf, and thus became one himself. Plus, you give that guy a bass guitar and he could rock like nobody else in Sunnydale. Thanks to The Bronze, a local club the characters frequented, many bands were featured on Buffy, but none more so than Oz’s band, Dingoes Ate My Baby. Many a night Dingoes played for appreciative fans, and they also managed to be present for various vampire and zombie attacks throughout the years. Unlike other shows that suddenly have a character decide to form a group, Oz was actually introduced via his band, and remained a member until he fled town due to werewolf/girlfriend-related problems. One wonders if lead singer Devin and the other members of Dingoes were able to easily find a replacement.

#7: DriveSHAFT
Series: Lost

"You All Everybody!" Come on everybody, sing along! When not exploring hatches, polar bears, and other assorted mysteries of the island, the hit series Lost has ensured that all of us watching can break out in the chorus of DriveSHAFT’s big hit, as we are humorously reminded of the song from time to time. Bass player Charlie is of course one of the castaways on the series, but as we’ve seen in flashbacks, his life beforehand was a VH1 Behind the Music episode in the making. Charlie and his brother formed DriveSHAFT, and then squandered their talent and brief success by falling hard into a heroin fueled life, as they dealt with everything from the embarrassment of dressing up like babies in a television commercial, to their failure to create another hit. But what a hit "You All Everybody" was, becoming so successful that it crossed over into Lost producer JJ Abrams’ other series, Alias, where superspy Sydney Bristow and her friends listened to it at a party.

#6: Frozen Embryos, AKA Between Names
Series: My So-Called Life

Tino was a mythical figure on the earnest teen drama My So-Called Life, who was often mentioned, but never seen, in the tradition of Vera on Cheers. However, we knew that he was in a band with Angela Chase’s would-be love, Jordan Catalano, that went by the memorable name of Frozen Embryos. We finally got to see the Embryos in the episode "On the Wagon," though only after Tino had quit of course. With the band in need of a new lead singer, Angela’s friend Rayanne joined up. At the same time, Jordan had pointed out that since Tino had named the band in the first place, he felt a new moniker was needed. Unfortunately, the woman who introduced them on stage misunderstood Jordan’s statement of fact as a band name, and so Between Names played their first show. Rayanne then suffered from some truly dreadful and embarrassing stage fright, which ended with her running off stage. Jordan stepping up and taking over the vocals on a cover of The Ramones’ "I Wanna Be Sedated" was a nice moment for the often flaky character, and a preview of Jared Leto’s modern day success with his real-life band, 30 Seconds to Mars.

#5: The Blowholes
Series: The Adventures of Pete & Pete

The Adventures of Pete and Pete was one bizarre show, and so appropriately, the band assembled by one of the main characters was also appropriately bizarre. This very eccentric family comedy focused on two young brothers, both named Pete. The series used music in a major way, from the songs provided throughout the series by alternative group Polaris, to guest appearances by everyone from Michael Stipe, to Iggy Pop and Luscious Jackson. On the episode "Hard Day’s Pete," Little Pete’s obsession with a song he hears one time (by Polaris, naturally) leads him to form his own band in order to recreate it. That band is The Blowholes, and Pete is joined in the oddball lineup by a friend from school who has prematurely been able to grow some serious muttonchops; a local meter man; and even the uber-nerdy math teacher, Ms. Fingerwood, who Pete says may have a head, "filled with numbers, but her veins throb with gasoline." The Blowholes perform songs with names like "Surfin’ Bum, Surfin’ Fun" and the Zeppelin-inspired "Marmalade Cream", before Pete is triumphantly able to recall all of his beloved favorite song, "Summerbaby."

#4: The Brady Six, AKA The Silver Platters
Series: The Brady Bunch

Not quite as much of an "official" band as others on this list (on the show that is; in real life they’d go on to release albums and tour), this singing sextet holds a special place to the many, many people who grew up on this blissfully upbeat, classic show. Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby and Cindy might have their squabbles, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t put aside those differences in order to take to the stage in ’70s attire, while belting out cheesy but catchy songs like "It’s a Sunshine Day (Everybody’s Smiling)" and "Keep On." Though they went through a couple of name changes, still the kids kept on finding the occasional reason to perform. Perhaps their most memorable performance was the song "Time to Change," from the episode "Dough Re Mi," in which Peter gets over the discomfort and embarrassment over his changing voice by having it incorporated into both a Brady song and another tried but true Brady Life Lesson.

#3: Creation
Series: Freaks and Geeks

This wonderful high school set series was a warts and all look at the lives of some average kids, and had one of the most realistic looks at what a bunch of high school kids forming a "garage band" (or in this case, basement band) is often really like - In short, they sucked. Of course most of the members of Creation could care less, not so much invested in actually performing songs well as much as they liked looking cool and pretending to be rock stars. The exception though was drummer Nick, who had actual aspirations to be a musician. This put him into conflict with his friends on the episode "I’m with the Band," when he dared point out that their songs didn’t actually sound good and they might need to actually practice playing a song more than once in order to improve. This led to the temporary breakup of the band, and Nick’s sad attempt to join a legitimate group, who were not so impressed by this high school kid’s talent level. By the end of the episode Creation was back together, and while it was clear that Freaks and Geeks did not exist in a universe where they were headed for success, at least it seemed they’d have a good time not getting there.

#2: Cold Slither
Series: G.I. Joe

Cobra tried a lot of different ways to take over the world: replacing prop rockets on the roofs of a restaurant chain with real rockets... Destroying money... Weather domination... But one of their most amusing plans involved using the power of rock! To that end, they took their most band worthy agents, The Dreadnoks (we hear Crock Master and Wild Weasel were jealous they weren’t asked), and molded them into the band Cold Slither, who had subliminal messages built into their music to control their audience. Who can forget the epic lyrics from Cold Slither’s self-titled song, which went, "We’re Cold Slither, you’ll be joining us soon! A band of vipers playin’ our tune! With iron fists and a reptile hiss, we shall roar!"

#1: Zack Attack
Series: Saved by the Bell

Let’s face it, how can you not make the number one choice the band that rocked America with the smash hit, "Friends Forever"? Saved by the Bell is a remarkable show, because we all know it’s bad, we all know it’s cheesier then a slice of cheddar, and yet we love it. In a storyline, which, like many on this show, only existed to further the plot of an episode or two, and then was never mentioned again, Zack and the gang suddenly had their own band, called, of course, Zack Attack. The first time we see Zack Attack, in the episode "The Last Dance," Jessie is the lead singer, and the next time we see them, in the episode, "Rockumentary," she’s not even present, and Kelly’s taken her place. But hey, who needs continuity? The important thing is that "Rockumentary" especially is a camp classic, as we see Zack’s dream that Zack Attack becomes a huge, smash success with their horrible, clearly lip-synched songs. Terrible costumes and terrible music make for some great entertainment, as they sing unbelievably goofy songs like "Did We Ever Have a Chance?", "Love Me Now" and of course, the sublimely ridiculous "Friends Forever." Any band that has Slater on drums and Screech on keyboards is destined for great things, that much is for sure.