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Theremin & Beyond Trailer

Best Theremin Cameos in TV

From Severance to The Simpsons, the theremin has popped up unexpectedly in TV shows and films ever since its invention. Here are some of the most memorable appearances of the unusual electronic instrument on screen.

The theremin, the world’s first electronic instrument and one of the most mind-bending: essentially just a horizontal plain with a vertical poll, which is played without touching and which evokes sci-fi sounds.

As unusual as it is, it’s always seemed to hover on the edge of pop culture.

It has featured several songs by well-known songwriters and bands.

And it is the choice of composers in several pioneering TV and film scores, including Bernard Herrmann’s The Day the Earth Stood Still and Miklós Rózsa’s Spellbound, and has made iconic cameos in TV shows, including The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, American Horror Story and Severance.

Read on for some of our favourite on-screen scenes with the theremin.

Read more: 7 great pop songs that feature the theremin

Experience the theremin in popular classics and iconic film and TV scores, during our next tour, Theremin & Beyond.

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1. Severance: Miss Huang plays the theremin

In Season 2, Episode 4 of hit TV show, Severance, Miss Huang performs on an electronic theremin in the middle of a forest fireside scene, perhaps a metaphor for that's going on with the 'Innies' in the TV show.

2. The Simpsons: Milhouse sings Lisa a Song

King of Simpsons awkward moments, Milhouse Van Houten came on STRONG with a theremin and a 'love song' for Lisa in this cringeworthy scene. The melody he's borroed for his, um, masterpiece, is the old Renaissance-era English song, Greensleeves. "I'm sorry. I don't love you, Milhouse, and I never will," a rather-too-honest Lisa says.

3. The Simpsons: 'Therapy not theremin'

"Honest mistake... or was it," Homer says mysteriously, when in this Simpsons scene Marge asks him why he is bringing his (quite considerable) theremin skills before her. The theremin playing might actually be good, but is the wordplay? Not really, Homer.

4. The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon plays the theremin

Sheldon randomly whips out a theremin in typical geeky fashion in Season 4, Episode 12 of The Big Bang Theory. "I've loved the theremin from the first moment I heard the original Star Trek theme [sic - the original theme didn't feature the theremin], and it's been killing me that it just sits in my closet gathering dust," he says to canned roars from the pretend audience. The household soon unplugs his electronic efforts.

5. American Horror Story: 'Don't be a hater'

The head of a witches' coven in Season 3 of American Horror Story, Coven, is a huge theremin fan and evangelist.

"What is that thing? It's hideous and weird," Cordelia, a fellow coven leader played by Sarah Paulson, says. "Don't be a hater, dear", the matriarch Myrtle Snow claps back serenely. "I cannot tell you how playing this instrument sooths my soul in disastrous times." A witchy amen to that.

Experience the theremin in Theremin & Beyond, starring theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck and directed by Richard Tognetti, touring to Wollongong, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra, 8-20 May. Click here to buy tickets.