Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Coming up...The story of the greatest TV THEMES of the 60s. Last year we covered some of the greatest TV themes of the 70s, 80s and 90s. But today we're counting down the best TV themes from what many consider the golden age of television… the 60s and 50s. And there’s some wild stories here. First, one of the most recognizable pieces of music in TV history was stitched together from two obscure stock tracks, and the composer had no idea his work was being heard by millions of people in the TV show The Twilight Zone. It would be years before he ever found out, and he only ever took home $700 for one of the most iconic intros of all time. Then… one of the most beloved TV Western themes in history: Bonanza was so perfectly constructed that when a music legend added lyrics and released his own version, it completely bombed. And finally… an Academy Award-winning composer recorded a terrible, throwaway vocal demo about a talking horse… just to show producers what he had in mind for the theme. He was horrified when they loved it and used it as the finished product. Let’s get started. Plus the TV theme that a talented songwriter tried dozens of times. It was sung, it was done with guitar… Nothing was working, so he got so frustrated he just whistled it in 1 take, and it became a classic. Let’s do it.
POR 70s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=6D43QEryp2c&t=4s
POR 80s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=RgwjDOqPtm0&t=128s
POR 90s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=Usc4_9I2LN8&t=120s
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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal
Honorary Producers
Jaimee Hammack, Dan Tierney, Sarge, Byrdman, Duff Gordon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to the Professor of Rock Podcast
Apple: apple.co/445fVov
Spotify: spoti.fi/42JpfvU
Amazon: amzn.to/44b5D6m
iHeartRadio: bit.ly/444h8MO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patreon: bit.ly/ProfessorofRockVIPFan
Merch Store: professor-of-rock-lsn-shop.fourthwall.com
Instagram: bit.ly/Instagram_Professor_of_Rock
#classicrock #60smusic #vinylstory #60srock
Hey Music junkies, Professor of Rock, always here to celebrate the greatest songs and the greatest artists of all time. If you remember playing the game Sorry growing up, you’ll dig this channel of deep musical nostalgia. Make sure to like, share, and comment to keep this channel alive. Alright, let’s shift into a nostalgia overload and count down the greatest TV theme of the 50s and 60s. including the Andy Griffith show, the Twilight Zone, Batman, Get Smart, Green Acres and more.
Coming in at the #10 position, I’ve got a TV theme created by comedy legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The name of the show is Get Smart. In 1965, the James Bond craze was everywhere… sleek spies, impossible gadgets, and Cold War tension. Get Smart took all of that and turned it on its head. The show debuted on NBC as a parody of the spy genre.
The story followed Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, who was a well-meaning but incompetent operative working for an American counterintelligence agency called CONTROL. Alongside his vastly more capable partner Agent 99, Smart spent 5 seasons bumbling his way through battles against the villainous syndicate KAOS… using gadgets like the shoe phone and the cone of silence that never really worked as advertised. Actor Don Adams' deadpan delivery made Maxwell Smart one of the most perfectly constructed comic characters in television history. The show earned multiple Emmy Awards and converted nuclear-era anxiety into something genuinely hilarious without ever losing the satirical edge. The theme and opening credits sequence were built together as a single, precisely engineered comedic machine.
Producer Leonard Stern designed the corridor walk… where Maxwell Smart strides through a subterranean hallway as automated blast doors slam shut behind him, one after another. Composer Irving Szathmary synchronized every brass fanfare and drum hit frame-by-frame with the mechanical door slams, so the music and the visual impacts landed at exactly the same time. Said Stern about it, "I wanted something that foretold — from the first beat — what you were about to see. It required humor, mystery, suspense, and action... but from a different perspective." Oh, and the moment where Smart drops into the secret elevator, that was a complete illusion. There was no elevator. Don Adams simply dropped down to his knees behind a piece of plywood set up in the booth. Szathmary's orchestral cue hit precisely as Adams went down, and audiences were convinced they were watching a man disappear into the floor.
Coming up...The story of the greatest TV THEMES of the 60s. Last year we covered some of the greatest TV themes of the 70s, 80s and 90s. But today we're counting down the best TV themes from what many consider the golden age of television… the 60s and 50s. And there’s some wild stories here. First, one of the most recognizable pieces of music in TV history was stitched together from two obscure stock tracks, and the composer had no idea his work was being heard by millions of people in the TV show The Twilight Zone. It would be years before he ever found out, and he only ever took home $700 for one of the most iconic intros of all time. Then… one of the most beloved TV Western themes in history: Bonanza was so perfectly constructed that when a music legend added lyrics and released his own version, it completely bombed. And finally… an Academy Award-winning composer recorded a terrible, throwaway vocal demo about a talking horse… just to show producers what he had in mind for the theme. He was horrified when they loved it and used it as the finished product. Let’s get started. Plus the TV theme that a talented songwriter tried dozens of times. It was sung, it was done with guitar… Nothing was working, so he got so frustrated he just whistled it in 1 take, and it became a classic. Let’s do it.
POR 70s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=6D43QEryp2c&t=4s
POR 80s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=RgwjDOqPtm0&t=128s
POR 90s TV Themes: youtube.com/watch?v=Usc4_9I2LN8&t=120s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal
Honorary Producers
Jaimee Hammack, Dan Tierney, Sarge, Byrdman, Duff Gordon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to the Professor of Rock Podcast
Apple: apple.co/445fVov
Spotify: spoti.fi/42JpfvU
Amazon: amzn.to/44b5D6m
iHeartRadio: bit.ly/444h8MO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patreon: bit.ly/ProfessorofRockVIPFan
Merch Store: professor-of-rock-lsn-shop.fourthwall.com
Instagram: bit.ly/Instagram_Professor_of_Rock
#classicrock #60smusic #vinylstory #60srock
Hey Music junkies, Professor of Rock, always here to celebrate the greatest songs and the greatest artists of all time. If you remember playing the game Sorry growing up, you’ll dig this channel of deep musical nostalgia. Make sure to like, share, and comment to keep this channel alive. Alright, let’s shift into a nostalgia overload and count down the greatest TV theme of the 50s and 60s. including the Andy Griffith show, the Twilight Zone, Batman, Get Smart, Green Acres and more.
Coming in at the #10 position, I’ve got a TV theme created by comedy legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The name of the show is Get Smart. In 1965, the James Bond craze was everywhere… sleek spies, impossible gadgets, and Cold War tension. Get Smart took all of that and turned it on its head. The show debuted on NBC as a parody of the spy genre.
The story followed Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, who was a well-meaning but incompetent operative working for an American counterintelligence agency called CONTROL. Alongside his vastly more capable partner Agent 99, Smart spent 5 seasons bumbling his way through battles against the villainous syndicate KAOS… using gadgets like the shoe phone and the cone of silence that never really worked as advertised. Actor Don Adams' deadpan delivery made Maxwell Smart one of the most perfectly constructed comic characters in television history. The show earned multiple Emmy Awards and converted nuclear-era anxiety into something genuinely hilarious without ever losing the satirical edge. The theme and opening credits sequence were built together as a single, precisely engineered comedic machine.
Producer Leonard Stern designed the corridor walk… where Maxwell Smart strides through a subterranean hallway as automated blast doors slam shut behind him, one after another. Composer Irving Szathmary synchronized every brass fanfare and drum hit frame-by-frame with the mechanical door slams, so the music and the visual impacts landed at exactly the same time. Said Stern about it, "I wanted something that foretold — from the first beat — what you were about to see. It required humor, mystery, suspense, and action... but from a different perspective." Oh, and the moment where Smart drops into the secret elevator, that was a complete illusion. There was no elevator. Don Adams simply dropped down to his knees behind a piece of plywood set up in the booth. Szathmary's orchestral cue hit precisely as Adams went down, and audiences were convinced they were watching a man disappear into the floor.
