So this is another one of those songs that just plainly states the premise of the show, because if there’s anything that would baffle the hell out of me, it’s “How come these two parents have six children?” Oh, wait. What I do like about it, though, is that it’s the kids singing the song (it took them about a season to realize that this would be a good idea). They knew they couldn’t keep this raw power under wraps:

(Two notes on the above video. One: thanks to Noel Murray for reminding me that it existed. Two: rather than use a kid whose voice was actually cracking, I appreciate that they clearly dubbed in a 35-year old doing an imitation of a boy whose voice was cracking.)

Now, this sequence also uses something that I thought was pretty cool when I first saw it, and I suspect is a direct homage. The opening sequence of The Thomas Crown Affair uses these little boxes around the screen, occasionally showing the same scene, to a pretty cool effect - made by Pablo Ferro, kind of a genius:

The split screen effects in this movie were themselves inspired by 1967’s In The Labyrinth, a multiscreen movie shown in Canada.

(Also, how great a song is Windmills of Your Mind? So great.) I suspect that Sherwood Schwartz, hot off his Gilligan’s Island success, saw Thomas Crown, and thought, “I want to do something like that, but less complicated, for TV.” Which is how we got what we got, a year after the film’s release. But look how the characters all see each other. Where are they? Their spacial relationships make no sense, which is exciting. Maybe they’re all heads in jars, a la Futurama.