For comedies you can’t top Get Smart.
It didn’t have much action, but The Name of the Game had good theme music and interesting graphics.
There were a lot of good themes for western shows. The Virginian and Rawhide were two of the best.
Peter Gunn is probably better remembered for its theme than for the show itself (the theme starts at about 1:33 in this clip).
The theme to Secret Agent became a top 40 hit for Johnny Rivers.
One of my all time favourites.
Nobody remembers Mannix. Another Lalo Schifrin original plus panties and a cool, hip black secretary.
I had an argument with a friend once that this show really existed or was it just a false childhood memory.
Cool McCool
I’ve got the DVD boxed set.
And the theme (longer, with more elements than the version in the TV show) is in my Spy Tunes playlist in iTunes and my iPod.
Going back to the OP:
The first face you ever see you see in the first scene of “Hawaii Five-O” belongs to Soon-Tek Oh, who played several different Yellow Peril characters during the run of the series. He played one of Wo Fat’s lab technicians.
In the pilot intro, the fraction of a second ominous music that you hear when the music starts is the end of a musical rendition of a scream. If you’ve seen the ep, you’ll understand, but basically it’s coming from a guy who is been subjected to many hours of sensory deprivation and has gone nuts.
A spy tunes playlist? fun idea. Then I’d have to start on my classic western playlist.
My Dad never missed it. Rockford filesfor me.
The Venture Bros. intro is a great homage and spoof of this. I can’t find it online.
Kam Fong as Chin Ho. Why?
Secret Agent Man, Johnny Rivers
Peter Gunn, Henry Mancini
Get Smart, Billy Strange
The James Bond Theme from 'Dr. No’, John Barry
I Spy, Earle Hagen
The Pink Panther Theme, Henry Mancini
A Shot In The Dark, Henry Mancini
The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Paul Brooks
Mission: Impossible, Lalo Schifrin
Baby Elephant Walk (from Hatari), Henry Mancini (Not a ‘spy tune’, but it wouldn’t fit in another playlist.)
Casino Royale, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
James Bond Lives Down Our Street, Toy Dolls
EDIT: I’ve just moved Hawaii Five-O by The Ventures into the Spy Tunes playlist. (It’s also in my Beach Music playlist.)
.
The Rat Patrol
(note the compression covers on the end of the M-2s to make them function with blanks)
(the full version from later in the series)
or Super Chicken
Something really weird happens in the middle of the sequence, when the letters “M-A-N-N-I-X” start appearing on the screen – the music completely fails to match up thematically with what’s going on on screen.
That’s because the music slows down just about then. That’s when they should have been showing the panties and the cute secretary. They should have hired me to do the title sequence. The only reason why they didn’t is probably because I was two at the time it was made.
Sung very approximately to the tune of the song at the beginning of Ghost World:
Kam Fong as Chin Ho
Zulu as Kono
Book 'em, book 'em, Dano
On Hawaii Five-O!
LOL forgot about that one. Loved it. Sang it fr years.
George of the Jungle and Tom Slicj wasn’t bad either
or theme from UnderDog.
Have you heard the Butthole Surfers version?
“Miami Vice” is my all time favourite, while I admit it is obviously influenced by Hawaii Five-0.