Do you remember that scream I was talking about?

Well, here it is again, part of it anyway, in Kids. (Just as a warning, this clip contains graphic violence.)

I'm trying to identify a scream. I'm sure you've heard it before. If you've ever gone trick-or-treating or to a cheesy haunted house, it has probably been playing on the tape of scary noises that someone picked up at the dollar store. You know, this one:

I pulled that sound clip from the Buffy episode "The Harvest," an episode from the first season when the effects budget seemed to consist of the change Joss Whedon could dig out of the seats in his car. But I know that I've heard the scream used in other TV shows and even a movie or two, and I'm curious about where it came from.

In trying to find information about those three distinctive shrieks, I discovered that there is an even more famous scream in Hollywood. The Wilhelm Scream, named for Pvt. Wilhelm who emits the scream in the 1953 film The Charge of Feather River, has supposedly been used over 140 times, most notably in films by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

That's not a very brave scream, is it? That's a scream of fallen enemies and cowardly minor characters.

I read further and discovered a scream that I was much more familiar with: The Goofy Holler, perhaps more recognizably transcribed as "Aaaaaaah-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooey!"

The Goofy Holler has made the rounds in Disney productions, but it has also been used in such quality live-action fare as Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde and Street Fighter: The Movie.

But I have yet to find the origin of Darla's scream of holy-water-inflicted pain. It seems to be used for work made in the horror genre, but it's not included in horror scream collections such as this one. I wonder if it has a name. If it doesn't, I wonder if I could suggest "Incredibly Phony and Easily Identified."

I didn't indulge in TV much this past season, but I noticed a common aspect to all of the new shows that I did start watching: none of them had credit sequences longer than a couple of seconds.

Short opening credits have become a staple of sitcoms whose running length minus commercials is clocking in around 20 minutes these days; however, hour-long shows have been adopting them as well. Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, Life... All of their title sequences basically consist of a title card and a few beats of score.

I fear that this trend is indicative of the death of opening credits. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I like credits. They're informative. They establish the tone of the series. And really good credits get me excited to watch the episode.

Some of my favorite credit sequences:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Natch. The rockin' original theme song by Nerf Herder starts off all typical horror/gothic film with gloominess but then Buffy comes along to rock this joint. I always loved seeing which shot they would choose for the group shot and the final power shot of Buffy looking all bad-ass.

Charmed

Again, a rockin', haunting theme song appropriate for a show about the supernatural. Some people moaned about it being a Smiths' cover, but even though I think the Smiths' version is better, Love Spit Love's version is a better fit for this purpose. Both Charmed and Buffy used their credits to establish relationships between characters and the characters' supernatural abilities. They allow the viewer to have a better context of the show's 'verse if they are just tuning in.

Freaks and Geeks

Um, do I even need to say anything? What don't you know about the show and those characters after watching that?

Medium

I always thought that Medium had some of the most distinctive, unique credit sequences on TV. The music is lovely and haunting and the artwork is beautiful. It always reminds me of older opening credits from films made in the 1950s and '60s.

Six Feet Under

The images used for these are less functional and more just pretty but add a score by Thomas Newman and you can't go wrong.

Weeds

Weeds started out with a good opening sequence with Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" playing over the repeated images of suburbia, but the show upped the interesting factor when they started using covers of "Little Boxes" by various artists in season two. Here's one of my favorites by Elvis Costello.

Granted, opening credits aren't always fabulous. In fact, most credit sequences are pretty average. They get the song right but not the visuals or the visuals right and not the song.

Angel

I always liked Angel's theme song. I thought it fit Angel as a character — it has kind of an Old World feel to the beginning that then blends into some more modern rock. However, I never felt like the music fit with the clips of the stunt work. The fighting needs to be included in the credits because that's a huge part of the show, but the lovely, mellow cello stylings of Darling Violetta aren't the appropriate soundtrack for it.

Veronica Mars

I like the choice of The Dandy Warhols' "We Used to Be Friends" but the notebook paper and the sketches? Yuck. Not very appropriate for a noir-ish detective show. The credits got a revamping for season three, which were an improvement but still not topping the awesome scale.

Dead Like Me

I like the visuals of these a lot — especially the reapers doing a chest bump on the basketball court — but I can't stand the music. It's a little too goofy for the show, which was an admittedly pretty light take on death, but that song is a little too carnival-esque. I'm thinking maybe some nice post-modern big band music, e.g. Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell", might have been a good alternative.

House

I like Massive Attack's "Teardrop", but I don't like the combination of the live action clips and the anatomical drawings. Stick with the drawings. That first shot of House's face superimposed over the skull creeps me the fuck out.

Firefly

Oh good god. I'd forgotten how godawful Firefly's theme song was. I mean, ew. Ew. Ew. Which reminds me of another craptastic theme...

The L Word

And now I feel like I need to shower.

Athens Boys Choir is actually "one little fairy" named Katz, a trans, genderqueer spoken word/hip-hop artist. I saw him perform in Madison recently and he was hilarious, entertaining and thought-provoking. His little video for "Fagette," a track off of his new album called Bar Mitzvah Superhits of the 80s, 90s, and Today, has been blowing up on YouTube. I love me some gender-deviant goodness.

So South of Nowhere recently aired its midseason finale to make way for Degrassi on The N's schedule. Perhaps I'm in the minority -- and granted I've never seen an episode of Degrassi -- but do people really care about Degrassi? Go do a search for 'Palex' and then a search for 'Spashley' on YouTube and get back to me.

"Gay Pride" ended with the raciest scene we've had from cable's hottest teen lesbian couple since the season three premiere. And maybe even ever.

I really like Mandy Musgrave's line reading of "There she is." I also love that the director chose to use a wide angle on Mandy when she says the line, "I know. I'm amazing," because, yowza, Mandy does look amazing. And Gabrielle Christian looks fantastic in the shot of her right before she drops her trench coat.

The network and producers are keeping up the season's trend of delivering on more intense lesbian affection with kisses that last longer than .25 seconds. Maybe we might even see a post-coital scene with the two of them actually in bed together when the show returns? I'm trying not to get my hopes up, lest The N bans us to the asexual land of hair brushing and hugs of season two. They had some really cute moments at the end of season two, and I don't want to forsake that. But can't they be cute and hot?

And kiss on screen?

My hopes for the latter part of season three, besides many girl-on-girl kisses:

• Ashley needs to pull her head out of her butt and realize that there are other people in this world besides herself. I think Mandy is doing the best that she can with the material to make Ashley likable, but she is still coming off as completely self-absorbed and undeserving of a sweetie like Spencer. Oh, and can Ashley be a little less angsty and more funny? Because Mandy cracks me up when she acts all goofy.
  
• Can Kyla be awesome again? Please?
• Chelsea needs to find herself a non-"my illegitimate child fathered by my dead boyfriend is gestating in my womb" storyline stat, because Aasha Davis is super cute and talented.
• No one cares about Aiden's PTSD from 'Nam. Seriously. Even though Matt Cohen is doing a good job.
• Madison isn't gone for good, right? SoN needs her spiciness. Maybe she can bring back Sean with her from her tour with JT. I miss him. Ooh! Then he and Chelsea could get together. Sweet!

Really, the whole season has felt a little aimless and flaccid, so if the writers could just not do that anymore that'd be great.

But more importantly, cute close-ups.

The sequence at -1:32 in this video exemplifies why I have a big ol' crush on Leisha Hailey.

Also, I prefer this simplified version of "White Rabbit," because it isn't trying too hard to be the Jefferson Airplane original, which it can never be.

I think this cover of "White Rabbit" is pretty banal — Heather Grody's twee voice cannot compete with Grace Slick's aggressive, throaty wail and the instrumentation isn't new and interesting enough to compensate. But I love how intense and fierce Leisha is trying to look in this video. I also love all the electric guitar feedback at the end of the song and the complete absence of an electric guitar in the video.

I'm slightly charmed more by "Hott4Hill" but I'm a little turned off by both videos.