Hit Ditty No Artwork to Rembrandts : Pop Beat: Their catchy, hit theme for TV’s ‘Friends’--’I’ll Be There for You’--isn’t the group’s usual fare, but they won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

It’s not that the Rembrandts couldn’t sell a new record on their own, but they’re sure getting a lot of help from their “Friends.”

“Friends,” in this case, is the hit NBC sitcom for which Rembrandts singers Danny Wilde and Phil Solem recorded what may well be the catchiest TV theme song of recent times. The giddy theme, “I’ll Be There for You,” is already shaping up as the Los Angeles-based group’s biggest hit, having reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s radio airplay chart and sparking sales for the band’s third album, “LP.”

But the success of this candy hit is not all sweet.

“Let’s just say it was the record company’s idea,” Wilde, 39, says. “We were asked very politely to put it on the album.”

Adds Solem, 38, “It was an open door and we were kind of sucked in like a vacuum.”

As one might guess, “I’ll Be There for You” really isn’t the song of choice Wilde and Solem want the Rembrandts to be known for. The song is . . . well, a TV theme, reeking of that feel-good sitcom air and sentimental mumbo jumbo. Think “Family Ties” meets the Monkees. But as “Friends” climbs to the top of the Nielsens, “I’ll Be There for You” and “LP” make parallel movements up the Billboard charts.

The song was originally just a 40-second jingle. But the Rembrandts--who didn’t write the original theme--turned the jingle into a three-minute single and slapped it onto the album at the very last minute (Solem and Wilde are credited along with the show’s three producers and songwriter Allee Willis). The song’s title doesn’t even appear on the CD.

Solem and Wilde were asked to record the theme for “Friends” by the show’s producers late last summer. They took just one day to record it, turned it in to the producers and that was it.

Or so they thought. When the ratings for the show skyrocketed this spring, NBC was swamped with requests for recorded copies or sheet music of the theme song. Then, Nashville’s WYHY-FM recorded the song from television, spliced together its own “extended” version and put it on heavy rotation, where it quickly became the station’s No. 1 single.

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This was plenty to get the attention of the Rembrandts’ record company, EastWest. Wilde and Solem had already finished recording “LP,” and the disc was set for a March 28 release when, a week before that date, it became evident that “I’ll Be There for You” had to be added.

But Wilde and Solem are not all-regrets over adding the song to the disc.

“Basically, we’re really not looking the gift horse in the mouth,” Solem says.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed of or apologize about when that many people get into a song,” Wilde says. “And as it turns out, the song hasn’t really hurt us because reviews of the album have been wrapping up the rest of the album and not just ‘I’ll Be There,’ which was something we were really concerned about.”

The irony of this whole “Friends” affair is that “LP” really is the Rembrandts’ strongest record to date, full of bittersweet melodies that go miles beyond the band’s self-titled 1990 debut album, which featured the Top 10 hit “That’s Just the Way It Is Baby.” Even without the added single, “LP” probably could have been a hit.

But we’ll never know. “I’ll Be There for You” has recently taken over MTV’s airwaves too, with a video in which the Rembrandts play their guitars while the stars of “Friends” goof around.

“We were the Dean Martins, and they were the Jerry Lewises,” says Wilde.

But while the video and song seem likely to be airwave staples through the summer, that’s nothing compared to the likely life expectancy of the original 40-second version, as the hit sitcom heads into season No. 2--and a good shot at syndication in the future.

“It’s kind of painful,” Solem says. “We’ve been in this business way too long to have all that we’ve done reduced to that one little nugget.”

Cheekily, he starts to whistle the theme to “The Andy Griffith Show.”