Another long running British music show The Old Grey Whistle Test used Stone Fox Chase by Area Code 615.
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All these posts and no mention of Louie (usually) starting with “Brother Louie”.
“Heartbeat” for the British TV series of the same name.
Cupid used “Human” by the Pretenders which was a cover / remake of “Human on the Inside” by the Divinyls.
Similarly my experience of watching televised golf is inextricably linked with “Love’s Theme” by the Love Unlimited Orchestra. ABC Sports used that as their golf theme for years.
One local station where I used to live used a recording of another TV series theme: the original Battlestar Galactica theme.
The short-lived Jay Mohr comedy ‘Action’ had as its theme song ‘Even a Dog Can Shake Hands’ by Warren Zevon.
***SCTV ***used a couple of preexisting tunes:
Didn’t Danny Thomas use “Danny Boy” as the theme song to “Make Room for Daddy”?
And " Que Sera, Sera" was used o. “The Doris Day Show.”
Valerie Bertinelli had a short-lived show called “Sydney.” The theme song was “Finish What You Started” by her then -husband Eddie Van Halen.
I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts is probably better known as the theme song to Friends.
A surprising number of people that go to Who concerts are there to hear the “CSI theme songs”.
Recorded for the show, but a cover of an existing song…
The Young Ones (80s British TV series, featuring, among others, the late Rik Mayall) used a cover (by the cast) of the Cliff Richard song of the same title.
Masterpiece Theater (as I still call it) uses “Fanfare-Rondeau” by Jean-Joseph Mouret
First two seasons of “Happy Days” used a 1973 version by Bill Haley and the Comets of"Rock around the Clock"
It “is” the theme tune to Friends. As in it was written as the theme tune for the show and only later recorded in a longer version as a single.
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In the UK the coverage of snooker is linked to Drag Racer by the Doug Wood Band.
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British sitcom Butterflies (starring Wendy Craig) used a version of the Dolly Parton hit Love Is Like A Butterfly.
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British made (but set in Holland) detective series Van Der Valk had a distinctive instrumental theme music ‘Eye Level’ which proved so popular it became a hit single.
According to Wikipedia (who am I to question this) it was originally written as a piece of generic library music before being selected for the show.
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Henry Fonda starred in a one-season comedy-drama series called The Smith Family, for which the theme song was Primrose Lane.
Fair enough. I was living in New Zealand at the time and am positive I heard the song on the radio well before the show started airing.