Opening Theme: MR. AND MRS. NORTH (1952-54)

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Coming to DVD: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: The Complete Series (1958)

Coming to DVD on Sept. 20 -- the 1958 series Mickey Spillanes Mike Hammer: The Complete Series, starring Darren McGavin.

New York City. 1958. In these concrete canyons, everybody s got an angle: The beauty with the sob story who killed her old man. The harmless geezer who s in bed with the mob. The kidnapped broad who s really a fraud. When a case gets too twisted for the cops, only one man can straighten it out: two-fisted gumshoe Mike Hammer.

Created by legendary crime novelist Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer was brought to television for the first time in 1958, with Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker, A Christmas Story) as the hard-boiled private eye. The show was, instantly successful in part, to McGavin s tongue-in-cheek charm.

Here for the first time on DVD is the complete 78-episode run of the groundbreaking series MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE HAMMER, featuring the original jazz theme, Riff Blues and an unforgettable cast of con-men, crooks, killers and femmes fatale played by such notables as Angie Dickinson, Ted Knight, Barbara Bain, Marion Ross, Dick Van Patten and Robert Vaughn.

Buy Online: Mickey Spillanes Mike Hammer: The Complete Series

M SQUAD (1957) vs. POLICE SQUAD (1982)

A pair of main titles from classic cop shows -- the original and its parody: M Squad (NBC, 1957-60) starred Lee Marvin as Detective Lieutenant Frank Ballinger, a member of a special unit of the Chicago Police assisting other units battling violent crime city-wide. The 1982 parody series Police Squad starred Leslie Nielsen as Detective Frank Drebin; it only lasted six episodes on ABC, but led to the successful Naked Gun movies.

1957 M Squad TV Lee Marvin -- theme by Count Basie


Police Squad! Intro (In Color) -- theme by by composer Ira Newborn (parody of the M Squad theme)


M Squad Theme - Count Basie - 1959


More Cop TV Themes:
Hawaii Five-O 2010, 1996, 1975
Opening Theme: THE ROOKIES
Opening Theme: KOJAK
Opening Theme: STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Mystery TV Themes: DRAGNET (1950s, 2003)

Mystery TV Themes: DRAGNET

Spotlighting the great themes from mystery/crime TV shows ...

DRAGNET
The "Dragnet March" ("Danger Ahead") by composer Walter Schumann (1913-1958) is one of the most recognizable themes in history. During World War 2, Schumann was musical director of the Armed Forces Radio Service; after the war, he returned to L.A., where he was a conductor and arranger for the motion picture and television studios. (He wrote stock music for several Abbott & Costello films.) Schumann also recorded several albums of choral music. His 1954 theme for Dragnet won him a 1955 Emmy Award.

Dragnet started as a radio drama (1949-1957), which Jack Webb created after he had a small role in the semi-documentary film noir He Walked by Night (1948). Like the film, the radio series kept the low-key, documentary style, made use of actual police cases, and even had the same L.A.P.D. technical advisor. The success of the radio show led to the first Dragnet TV series (1952-1959, 263 episodes), starring Webb and several partners. A top 10 hit during its first run, the show was also a feature film in 1954. The show was brought back for another 100 episodes (and a TV movie) in 1967-1970, again starring Webb, with partner Harry Morgan. Webb died in 1982, but the show was revived twice more -- as a syndicated TV series (1989-90) and as the short-lived 2003-2004 ABC series starring Ed O'Neill (also called L.A. Dragnet). This most recent version had a spiffy new theme by Mike Post that riffed off Schumann's original march.

Three versions of the theme at Mark Little's MyThemes.TV

More about composer Walter Schumann:
Space Age Pop Music
IMDB

More about Dragnet:
Badge 714
TV.com
TVShowsOnDVD

Dragnet 1951


2003 opening


More themes:
THE LONE RANGER
PERRY MASON
HART TO HART
BATMAN 1966 (w/ THE ODD COUPLE)
BARNEY MILLER