FX’s Louie was one of the best new shows of 2010 (okay, not a crowded field). The theme song is “Brother Louie” a song about a white guy who starts dating a black woman - written by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson and performed originally by Hot Chocolate. Louie uses the cover of the song by the band Stories, whose cover made the song chart in the US (blah blah blah, I know). The show’s original music is by the current Winner of the Most Genius Musician Award, Reggie Watts. (Do yourself a favor and watch that video and every other one related to him. In fact, here:):

Sorry, minor tangent. ANYWAY, the opening sequence has Louis CK (who stars in, writes, produces, directs and edits every single episode) walking around New York City, looking sort of sad, getting a pizza, then headed to a comedy club. First of all, I may never forgive him for throwing away a half-eaten pizza. Second, a guy totally gives the camera the finger. The entire budget for the pilot was $200,000, including Louis CK’s pay, and the show has a generally extremely small budget. To wit: they could not reshoot the title sequence. That bird was going in the show. Here’s Louis CK on the subject:

“During the opening credits of the show, some guy flips off the camera. There was a young, NYU-looking kid — spiky hair and just real contrary. He was walking with some real “yeah fuck everything” type guy. I was eating the pizza and I saw them, and I was already thought ‘Jeeesus.’ I think they saw a camera and they saw people making a sincere effort in something… So one of them went ‘YEAHHHH’ and he flipped off the camera. And I remember that moment very well because I was eating pizza and I watched him flip off the camera and I could tell by the angle that we caught it. And I thought — when that happened, I knew we were gonna be on TV. Because that was when we were shooting the pilot, and it was a test. For some reason I remember seeing that and thinking, ‘That’s just meant to be. That’s gonna be in the opening credits. It’ll be fuzzy because I fucking know how the camera works. It’s gonna be a little fuzzy because it’s out of the depth of field and people are going to see it.’ I just knew. That was just a sign to me. That we were going to get to be on TV.”

(Quoted via FunnyorDie)

Touches like this make the show seem very homemade, in a good way. Incidentally, the song ends with “Louie, Louie, you’re gonna cry.” For the show’s theme, this was changed to “Louie, Louie, you’re gonna die.”