Succession's theme song also suits another tale of familial corporate intrigue: Billy Madison

By Randall Colburn | September 25, 2019 | 2:01pm

Aux Features TV

Succession's theme song also suits another tale of familial corporate intrigue: Billy Madison

Screenshot: Succession (Graeme Hunter); Billy Madison

Tales of fathers, sons, and the legacies the former passes onto the latter are as old as time—who, for example, would the humble cavemen choose to preserve and elaborate upon their primitive etchings? HBO’s Succession, the story of a media conglomerate and the family vying for control of it, is but the latest, and it draws upon no shortage of old stories to tell its tale, from King Lear to, we’d wager, 1995's Billy Madison.

Of course, Billy Madison, being an Adam Sandler vehicle, buried its story of a ne’er-do-well stepping up to the plate of power—it’s not unlike Shakespeare in that sense—in the poop-flaming pranks and pieces of ace expected of the star, but a simple score adjustment brings it back to the forefront. Comedian and video whiz Jesse McLaren proved as much by weaving Nicholas Britell’s Emmy-winning Succession theme over the action of Billy Madison, finally rendering Bradley Whitford’s sniveling Eric the appropriate shades of Machiavellian.