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The Jimmy Hart Version
Want to use a popular song for your soundtrack, with or without the original lyrics, but don't have the money to get the rights? You can always get some studio musician to record The Jimmy Hart Version — an instrumental version of the tune with a note tweaked here and there, designed to sound as much like the original as possible while being different enough not to break copyright.

Strangely enough, this sometimes happens with tunes which are clearly in the public domain.

A staple of shows that frequently feature parody songs or skits.

Named for "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart, who did this constantly during his time as WCW's music director.

Note that, in the United States at least, it is perfectly legal under copyright law to use the same exact tune as the original song without paying royalties if the derivative work is clearly a parody of the original (using an original tune to parody something completely unrelated is fuzzier). However, this would obviously not apply to instrumental versions or songs that were instrumental to begin with.

Contrast with In The Style Of where the song is covered, in a style as far from the original as possible. When one song recycles the tune of another it's God Save The King.

Examples

Anime

Commercials
  • A commercial for gold coins has a recognizable parody of Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold" (Tuco in the graveyard), while yelling the word "GOLD!" repeatedly.
  • One commercial (I think it was for Levi's Jeans) wanted the rights to Tom Waits' "Step Right Up", apparently unaware that the song was an indictment of advertising in general. When they failed, they resorted to use of The Jimmy Hart Version, but it was close enough that they got sued.
  • For some reason, the theme from the Old Spice commercials opens with two bars of "Scotland the Brave" and then goes off in a completely different direction.
  • This troper just saw an American Express ad with a backing track that sounded suspiciously like ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky", except for the fact that it wasn't. The ad's even on YouTube, and several others have commented on the similarity as well.
  • Commercials for proactiv.com, which sells facial cleansers, have a song in the b/g that sounds suspiciously like Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is"
  • The Danup ad in Mexico features the Jimmy Hart version of "Good Vibrations" from the Beach boys.
    • As do those horrible horrible Aussie commercials for the Good Guys... urgh....
  • A chicken noodle soup commercial this troper remembers included a song which has a chorus very similar to the part of Green Day's "American Idiot".
  • This troper once wrote a Jimmy Hart version of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" (of Top Gun fame) for a commercial for a local flight school. Thankfully, I've never seen it shown anywhere.
  • This troper saw a Public Service Announcement about The Power Of Friendship. The song used for it was a three-note-off version of "You've Got A Friend In Me" from Toy Story.
  • The music used in a local Public Service Announcement where this troper lives (about water conservation) sounds exactly like The Monkees "Daydream Believer". They get around it by having voices sing a wordless riff every once in a while that presumably counts as an original melody, but if you know the lyrics you can sing along with the music without missing a beat at all. The structure and chords are identical.
  • Here's an interesting one: Listen to E. S. Posthumus' song "Pompeii", used in quite a few movie trailers. Then listen to Pfeifer Broz' "DNA Reaction", a song made especially for movie trailers— particularly the latter half.
    • And then listen to Immediate Music's "Avenger".
  • Have you seen the trailer for Electric Entertainment's made-for-TV movie The Librarian 3: Curse of the Judas Chalice!? By Jove, that's gotta be the most shameless use of The Jimmy Hart Version this troper has ever seen! Go on, look at it. The theme song must be one, maybe two (but not so many as three) notes away from the main orchestral theme from Pirates Of The Caribbean.
  • There is a Kraft Dinner ad with a teen listening to an MP 3 player. The player is playing the first few notes from "American Woman" by the Guess Who over and over again.

Film
  • The Jimmy Hart Version of Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever?" shows up in the movie Highlander II: The Quickening. Queen wrote a hit album of songs for the first one, but they couldn't be bothered to record anything for the sequel. Good for them, too.
  • The short film George Lucas in Love (a pastiche of Shakespeare in Love) has The Jimmy Hart Version of the Star Wars theme for the end credits music.
  • "Make 'Em Laugh" from Singin' In The Rain is one of the movie's few original songs not from a previous MGM musical. Well, maybe original In Name Only, since it bears more than a small resemblance to Cole Porter's "Be A Clown," which had appeared a few years earlier in MGM's The Pirate.
  • The "Parlay" music from the third Pirates Of The Caribbean sounded very much like Ennio Morricone's harmonica music.
  • Angels' Revenge, a Charlie's Angels knockoff featured on MST3K, features a triumphant melody that's "Vaguely Strauss, but noooooooot!"
    • And later on, the background music sounds suspiciously like the Charlie's Angels theme...
  • Hero of the Federation was apparently low-budget enough to Jimmy Hart Backdraft's Fighting Seventeenth...
  • Woody Allen's 1969 comedy Take the Money and Run has an escape scene accompanied by a knockoff of Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova". (Of course, those who only know Jones' piece from its use in the Austin Powers films and are unaware of its dating to the early '60s may, on seeing Allen's movie for the first time, come to the erroneous conclusion that the Jimmy Hart Version is the original.)

Live Action TV
  • Used frequently in Professional Wrestling, especially in TNA (though it occasionally shows up in WWE; listen to the Full Blooded Italians' entrance music, and you'll be reminded of "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn" by the Beastie Boys). WCW was an even worse offender before it got bought out, which is rather odd; they were a Time Warner subsidiary, and Time Warner owned most of the labels that were getting ripped off. As noted above, this is mostly due to Jimmy Hart himself writing the music for these companies.
    • Recent example: ECW wrestler Jack Swagger's entrance theme bears an extremely strong resemblance to the Rage Against The Machine song "Testify"; in fact, the band that performs the song is a RATM tribute band called Age Against The Machine.
    • Also, Bill Goldberg's entrance theme in WWE was a Jimmy Hart version of his original WCW entrance theme (An awesome piece of stock music), due to the rights to the song not being available. The WWE version was not as awesome.
    • Ring of Honor's even started this: the music for their HDNet television show bears a remarkable resemblance to Velvet Revolver's "Slither".
      • As it turns out, WCW using this trope has probably saved WWE a ton of headaches, as they (usually) haven't had to bother with editing music on their archived WCW broadcasts, and certainly not to the same extent as they've had to self-edit. Most of the replacement songs for WWE versions aren't even this trope in action, as they're usually not even close to the original pieces.
  • Sesame Street's parodies almost always have original melodies, as PBS shows do not have the budget for ASCAP fees.
    • Example: Cereal Girl was a pastiche of Madonna's Material Girl, and in this case the melody was quite close to the original (just different enough to get away with it).
  • Bill Nye The Science Guy featured parodies of pop songs with scientific lyrics for its music videos, in addition to Jimmy Hart versions of several tunes, eg La Bamba, the 007 theme, Wipe Out(the surfing song)...
  • Myth Busters has a number of songs that fit this trope, most blatantly an off-key version of Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive".
    • And some of the previews featured a parody of Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science", with the lyrics "We're Bustin' It With Science".
  • The Rutles (a fictional band with its own telemovie back in the late 1970s and several "reunion tours" since) have plenty of Beatles sound-alike tunes in their repertoire (not surprising, since they're a Beatles parody), all composed by Neil Innes. However, BMI Records thought they didn't sound different enough, and, one lawsuit later, many of the songs on the original soundtrack were (and still are) legally credited to Innes, Lennon, and McCartney.
  • Sometimes this happens when a TV show is released on DVD and the production company didn't manage to secure the license to the original music. For instance, the DVD release of Married With Children uses an instrumental opening song that's very reminiscent of, but not identical to, Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage"... unlike the original broadcasts, which actually did use Sinatra's song.
  • Likewise the soundtrack of House M.D. in most non-US-countries is a Jimmy Hart Version of the original.
  • One episode of Zoey 101 had the "Macalana", which was nearly identical to the Macarena...Or So I Heard.
  • Lewis Black's segments on The Daily Show were prefaced with a Jimmy Hart version of AC/DC's "Back In Black".
    • A possible lampshading occurred on The Colbert Report - Stephen requested to use "Back in Black" for a segment intro, but was told that Jon had said no, as that was the Daily Show's thing.
  • The Banana Splits theme shares a notable refrain with Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldier (as pointed out on Ed.)
    • Marley and his family were in the United States (Wilmington, Delaware, to be exact) for an extended visit with his mother in the summer of 1969, when The Banana Splits were in the middle of their original run. Given that he had some young children who might have been Saturday morning TV viewers, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he might have been familiar with their theme song.
  • Comedian Frank Sidebottom once performed a sketch in which he claimed that 'after the first six notes you have to pay royalties'. He proceeded to perform a cover-version of the Star Wars theme tune, with a handful of notes played a semitone off at the times in the tune where they would sound the most agonisingly painful.
  • Similarly, a Saturday Night Live sketch featured Jon Lovitz as the host of a program presenting an unauthorized adaptation of Disney's "Snow White", who explains that it's legally not plagiarism as long as every third note is different.
  • Parodied by Harry Hill in Harry Hill's TV Burp in a segment where he mocks a wildlife show for using a cheap rendition of the James Bond theme, as shown here.
  • This video contains what can be described as the Jimmy Hart Version of the Doctor Who theme tune.
    • Dr. Who also has a Jimmy Hart Version within the series itself. In series 3, The Master's theme sounds rather like a horribly twisted version of the show's title theme, which is only right considering he's basically a horribly twisted version of The Doctor.
  • This troper has heard at least two songs in TV commercials, including the trailers for The History Channel's Band Of Brothers(the show itself has a completely different main theme), that are based on the main theme from Legends Of The Fall("The Ludlows").
    • Which itself sounds similar to the folk song "How Lovely Is The Evening".
  • The Knight Rider theme song sounds like a Jimmy Hart version of Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express(not to mention how many other times they've been Jimmy Harted)
  • Used for laughs in Father Ted, when Ted and Dougal write Ireland's Eurovision Song Contest entry using new lyrics and an old Eurovision song track's tune, which they assume to be too obscure to be widely known...incorrectly.
  • A particularly uninspired workover of Sir Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1 is used in two graduation-themed episodes of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, which was completely unnecessary, as the march is in the Public Domain.
    • Predictably, WCW did this with Randy Savage when he jumped to WCW.
      • This is one of TNA's few justified uses of the trope, as it's a remix for Jay Lethal's "Black Machismo" character.
  • The FLN showings of Iron Chef have had all the music of the Food Network version (originally used in the movie Backdraft of all things), replaced with royalty-free-to-Warner-Brothers Jimmy Hart versions. The effect is disconcerting as the opening really seems less epic
  • The theme song to Spanish comedy series Los Serrano, which became a hit single itself, was a rather brazen knockoff of "Pure" by The Lightning Seeds.
  • The pilot episode of the 1980s U.S. game show Bullseye used "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Santa Esmeralda as the theme. When the show made it to air, a new theme with similar instrumentation was used.
  • Alan Thicke has written Jimmy Hart versions of themes for three different game shows:
    • The 1970s game show Blank Check used Quincy Jones' "Chump Change" as the theme in the pilot episode. After Mark Goodson-Bill Todman productions decided to use this theme for their game show Now You See It, Thicke wrote a theme with a similar melody.
      • Similarly, "Now You See It" itself briefly stopped using "Chump Change" for anything else than the opening, instead going for a doppelganger theme written by Edd Kalehoff. The original was still used in the intro.
    • After The Jokers Wild stopped using Jean-Jacques Perry and Gershon Kingsley's "The Savers" as its theme, they briefly switched to a Jimmy Hart version of the theme, written by Thicke.
    • The pilot episode of Wheel Of Fortune used "Give It One", compose by Maynard Ferguson. When the show made it to air in 1975, the first theme that it used was "Big Wheels", a Thicke composition with similar melody.
  • The short-lived 1998 revival of Match Game used a Jimmy Hart version of the 1970s theme.
  • When the Pyramid game show franchise was brought back in 1982 as The New $25,000 Pyramid, it used a theme song that was a Jimmy Hart version of "Tuning Up", the theme that had been used on all 1970s incarnations of the Pyramids.
  • Brazilian TV station Globo reworks songs into opening themes of some programs. The most obvious case is for Video Show, which is the instrumental bridge for Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough". Their major news show, Jornal Nacional started with an already-existing intrumental, "The Fuzz" but eventually changed to a Jimmy Hart Version.
  • The Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch "The Pantomime Horse is a Secret Agent Film," being a spoof of James Bond movies, uses music that, though probably from a stock music vault, has a fairly obvious resemblance to the James Bond theme.
  • For the Power Rangers 15th anniversary teamup There was a Jimmy Hart version of the MMPR theme tune for Adam's scenes, as copyright issues prevented Disney from accessing the Saban song library. As the other four retro rangers in the teamup were from the Disney seasons, the actual themes were used for them.

Music
  • In a hilarious-but-serious example, rapper Vanilla Ice tried to play off his obvious plagiarism of a Queen and David Bowie song by adding one note to the bass line of one of his songs, which you can see at the top of the page. Not everybody bought it.
    • Vanilla Ice's "explanation" in the quote at the top of this page was repeated word for word, in a mock-defensive manner, by Huey Morgan of the Fun Lovin' Criminals in an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks for comedic effect.
  • David Hasselhoff's "Crazy For You" all but shares its tune with, of all songs, "YMCA".
  • David Bowie tried to do a lyrically less-than-faithful glam rock version of "Comme d'Habitude," but Paul Anka took the rights from under him for "My Way." He changed the tune slightly (but not the chord progression), and the result was "Life on Mars."
  • When you've got some time, sit down with Rage Against The Machine's "Wake Up" and Led Zepplin's "Kashmir".
    • The opening riff to Audioslave's Cochise is pretty similar to Zeppelin's The Ocean too. And I'm Broken by Pantera!
  • Australian musical comedy group Tripod have, on occasion, included a version of the MASH theme in their concerts. When the concert was being recorded to be put on DVD, the song had to be changed - the last note of every phrase goes in a different direction (the final note in the first line, for example, goes up rather than down.)
    • This was incredibly amusing on the DVD- they sang it properly (crowd joining in) then stopped and said that if it was going to make it on the dvd they'd have to change it, so Scod gets the audience to sing said 'revised' version, which he's improvising, leading to a very confused chorus.
    • Apparently they did get the rights for the song anyway- a later performance has them telling the audience that the final stage was sending their version off to the guy who wrote it for his approval, so they wrote a song about him. Hunt it down, it's good fun.
  • Linkin Park's "Shadows Of A Day" was rather heavily criticized for it's uncanny resemblence to U2's "With or Without You".
  • Metallica's "The Four Horsemen" and Megadeth's "Mechanix" bare a massive resemblence. The reason? Dave Mustaine while a member of Metallica wrote the song "The Mechanix" which is included in some of their early demos. However when he was kicked from the band's roster they kept the song and rewrote the lyrics and some parts and made "The Four Horsemen". Later when Mustaine formed Megadeth he dropped the "The" in the same and sped up the main riff and included the track on his debut album.
  • There's a You Tube series called "Metal that sounds like other metal" based all around this trope, pointing out the similarities between songs intentional or not.
  • Heck, just watch these videos.
  • The Cat Empire's song "Voodoo Cowboy" briefly pastiches the theme from The Good The Bad And The Ugly.
  • This troper maintains, although he may be wrong, that "Holiday" by Green Day is a Jimmy Hart version of "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop. Of course, he could just be indignant and ranty.
  • There was also that techno song, I think it was called just "E", which included the melody from a popular Eminem song. However, when that techno song got popular and got released in a larger scale, they changed the melody to the Jimmy Hart Version. (Perhaps could some other troper with a better memory complete this with song names? I like neither Hip Hop nor Techno, but this must have been around 2001/2002...)
    • It was Eminem's "Without Me"; the funny thing was that Eminem mocked techno in this song.
  • Two of Japanese singer Gackt's songs are Jimmy Hart versions of American songs; "Another World" is very similar to the Josy and the Pussycats song "Three Small Words", and "Emu~for my dear~" sounds very much like U2's "With or Without You".
  • The signature guitar riff for "I Feel Fine" by The Beatles is a very slightly altered version of the riff for Bobby Parker's minor 1960 hit "Watch Your Step". The drums on the two songs are also very similar. However, John Lennon himself freely admitted that he borrowed the riff.
  • "Still Take You Home" by the Arctic Monkeys uses a riff that this troper is almost certain was borrowed from "Out On Patrol" by the Offspring. Unfortunately, "Out On Patrol" appeared only on their first album, which was so terrible that nobody else remembers it.
  • One of the The Residents' songs share the bass line of Micheal Jackson's Billie Jean. Which one? Their cover of Kaw-Liga. Funnily enough, The Residents usually avert this so hard that their covers usually only share the lyrics and the basic rhythm of the original song.
  • And then there was the time that John Fogerty got sued for "The Old Man Down The Road" ripping off Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through The Jungle", a song written by...John Fogerty. (There's a lesson here about reading the fine print in your record contract.)
  • The speed metal band Dragonforce's music drew much inspiration from computer and video games, including the synths, complete with occasional SID-style arpeggios, ala Machinae Supremacy. The verse of Through The Fire And The Flames, with it's 8-bit synth chords and its bassline, is reminiscent of the Dr Wily's Castle theme from Mega Man 2. The opening riff of Heroes Of Our Time resembles a tune from a certain RPG, can't think of the name. Maybe one of the Ys games? Wonder if one of the members was a fan of the series.
  • Horse The Band, pioneeers of "nintendocore", have used Jimmy Hart versions of Nintendo melodies in a few of their songs.
  • Similar to the later Vanilla Ice incident, Afrika Bambaataa used a slightly altered version of the main riff from Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express in his popular song Planet Rock(you may know the Paul Oakenfold remix from the Swordfish soundtrack), and needless to say, got sued over it.
  • The opening of Procul Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale is clearly...ahem, inspired by Bach's Air On A G-String, aka "The Hamlet cigar music" in the UK. Ironically, the authorship of the song (and thus the royalties) is now disputed between the band members...
  • Reel Big Fish's song "Suckers" features a little riff that sounds suspiciously like the Super Mario theme played on horns.
  • Compare the opening riffs of KISS' "War Machine", Danzig's "Snakes of Christ", and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing".
  • Silverchair's "Suicidal Dream" is only a solo away from being a guitar cover of Alice in Chains' "Bleed The Freak".
  • The Village People's Go West has a...somewhat similar tune to the charismatic hymn Give Thanks, released a year earlier, as many have noted.
  • The main guitar riff of Weezer's "Take Control" is almost the same as that of "Children Of The Revolution" by T Rex.
  • Nine Inch Nails' "A Warm Place" has a very similar keyboard melody to "Crystal Japan" by David Bowie, as well as the same overall ambient feel.
  • The opening riff from Nirvana's "Come As You Are" bears a striking resemblance to the riff played throughout Killing Joke's "Eighties".
    • And Killing Joke seems to have taken it from The Damned song "Life Goes On".
    • Also from Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was considered similar to Boston's "More Than a Feeling". Kurt Cobain himself agreed: "It was such a clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff or [The Kingsmen's] 'Louie Louie.'"
  • Journey's song Faithfully sounds awfully similar to Working Class Man - with good reason. They were both written by Johnathon Cain, keyboardist for Journey.
  • Asher Roth's "I Love College" was originally based around a sample of "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer. Once it got an official release, it was changed to more of a Jimmy Hart Version, since he couldn't get the sample cleared.
  • Weird Al Yankovic used to do this early in his career, especially with non-vocal orchestrations. But as he got famous enough to ask direct permission from artists, these got closer and closer to the originals.
  • Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" has rythms from "Werewolf of London" and a chorus from "Sweet Home Alabama.
  • Zilch's "What's Up Mr. Jones?" pretty much an English version of X-Japan's "Drain".
    • Explained by the fact that Zilch was founded by hide, who wrote the original version and owned the rights to it.

Radio
  • Dead Ringers managed to avoid this trope a surprising amount of the time despite being completely based on impressions and parodies, as most of its regular targets were also BBC productions. They did use Jimmy Harted theme musics for some of their one-off sketches, though, such as when they put one of the BBC's most well-known political interviewers into a superhero story to form The Continuing Adventures of Paxman.

Theatre
  • In the musical Dames At Sea, "That Mister Man Of Mine" has a melody mostly copied from "The Man I Love".
  • The "Nightingale Lullaby" from the musical Once Upon a Mattress includes an obvious pastiche of the Lullaby from Stravinsky's ballet music for The Firebird.
  • "Sunday" from tick...tick...BOOM! is a parody of the song of the same name from the Sondheim musical Sunday In The Park With George, with the melody turned upside down.
  • Since it's part of what's probably the show's Crowning Moment Of Funny it demands spoiler tags: in Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere, an instrumental sound-alike of "Stayin' Alive" turns up.
  • The Victorian-melodrama villain's theme in the Show Within A Show in Show Boat sounds like the Russell Bennett version of Mysterioso Pizzicato.

Video Games
  • For some reason, the first-level theme from God Hand sounds a great deal like the theme song from Hawaii Five-O (odd, considering this is a Western-themed level).
    • Godhand also has a Jimmy Hart version of the Mazinger Z theme song with new lyrics as its ending credits song.
  • In Diddy Kong Racing, TT's theme bears more than a passing resemblance to Kool and the Gang's hit song "Celebration".
  • Guitar Superstar is a plug-'n'-play unit that's a complete and utter knockoff of Guitar Hero, complete with songs that are not only bad MIDI renditions, but Jimmy Hart Versions at that. Just to give an idea, one of the songs is called "Granite Man", which is somewhat reminiscent of "Iron Man". Watch this video just to see how awful it is.
  • The Little Busters! soundtrack features a track entitled "Mission Possible," which is pretty much as close as they could get to the Mission Impossible theme song without actually being said theme song.
  • Parts of the Doom and Doom II soundtracks were Jimmy Hart Versions of metal songs, but executed in such a fashion that few people really noticed. See this page for some comparisons.$
    • It should be noted that the games' composer used to be a lawyer, so he knew how much plagarism they could get away with. The story goes that the lead designer essentially gave him a set of his favourite metal albums and asked the composer to make the Doom soundtrack sound like those.
    • In the case of the E 3 M 8 track, I've always thought it sounded more like ''Sargent D and the S.O.D.''
    • Coincidentially, the open-source project Freedoom contains Jimmy Hart versions of Doom music, making it somewhat Meta.
    • The music track for the Doom II level "Barrels o' Fun", entitled "Bye Bye American Pie" (no relation to that song, incidentally), is by far the most egregious example of this trope in the game. It is literally just a few minor variations away from being a note-for-note MIDI transcription of Alice In Chains' "Them Bones", minus the vocal melody, and about half as long. It's essentially a karaoke version. Here, listen for yourself.
  • In a Power Rangers SNES game, the Player Select music is very similar to X Japan's Sadistic Desire.
  • The second riff of the grassworld/skyworld level music in Super Mario Bros 3 is a Jimmy Hart version of the opening of "Video Killed The Radio Star". This hook also appears as a Recurring Riff in the "Snowman's Land" music in Super Mario 64.
    • This Troper has always seen the Airship music in Super Mario Bros 3 as the Jimmy Hart Version of Mars: The Bringer Of War from Holtz's "The Planets" suite. The similarities are even more obvious in the orchestrated version from Super Mario Galaxy. But then again, "Bringer of War" is a pretty appropriate theme for those levels.
  • Weirdly, the Nintendo DS game based on Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart used Jimmy Hart Versions of several themes from the anime (most noticeable is the Marble Screw music). What's weird about this is that they used the real version of the show's opening theme song. That, and the whole "same franchise as the original music" thing.
  • Even weirder, some stages in Super Mario Land used a theme that was The Jimmy Hart Version of the original Super Mario Bros. theme.
    • Not to mention Petal Meadows from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Arguably, the Petal Meadows music is closer to the original. But wouldn't this all be considered more of an homage?
  • Spy Hunter of course used the Peter Gunn theme for its main music, supposedly this was licensed. Ironically, Super Spy Hunter, which was not originally titled as a sequel, instead being named Battle Formula in Japan, used a Jimmy Hart version of the Peter Gunn music in its second stage.
    • In another ironic twist, the Spy Hunter game also provides an aversion of this trope. The makers of the game originally wanted to use the James Bond theme song, but couldn't obtain the rights to it. Instead of using a Jimmy Hart version, they went with the Peter Gunn theme.
  • The original arcade version of Taito's Rainbow Islands uses "Over The Rainbow" (yes, the song from The Wizard Of Oz!) as its background music. Needless to say, there were some issues with licensing the music when the game was released on home systems. Many home computer ports of the game got away with using the original tune, but the American NES release uses a very noticeable Jimmy Hart Version; the European NES release uses an entirely different tune altogether; and re-releases on more recent systems, including the recent PC re-release, are back to Jimmy Hart Versions again.
  • In a possibly unintentional case, the music in Tourian in the original Metroid resembles the music from Bowser's Castle in the original Super Mario Bros, especially the opening notes of the bassline. The resemblance is further notable in that Tourian is roughly the Metroid equivalent of Bowser's Castle, since the final boss confrontation takes place there.
  • The theme music to some versions of Pengo is a Jimmy Hart version of "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley/Hot Butter.
  • Seeing as Legend of Mana and Super Mario RPG share a music composer (Yoko Shimomura), it only figures that the former would include some versions of songs from the latter. For example:
    • "Mystic City Geo" is a noticeable Jimmy Hart version of the Mushroom Kingdom theme.
    • "Pastoral" uses the same measurement and beat as the Marrymore theme.
      • And speaking of Super Mario RPG, the music for Bandit's Way and Bean Valley is obviously modeled after the "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" from The Nutcracker.
    • This troper downloaded an MP 3 of the "main overworld" theme from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga and was immediately reminded of the Mushroom/Rose Way music from Super Mario RPG - again, both games had Yoko Shimomura as their composer.
      • Not the same melody, but to This Troper, Gritzy Desert from Partners in Time sounds a lot like Agrabah's theme(s) in Kingdom Hearts (especially the Brawl version). Again, Shimomura was the composer for both songs, so it's not surprising.
  • The second-level bosses in the Ninja Gaiden arcade game are a Lawyer Friendly Cameo of legendary Professional Wrestling tag team The Road Warriors, and their background music is even The Jimmy Hart Version of the Warriors' entrance theme, Black Sabbath's "Iron Man".
  • Amidst the current Rickroll craze, some astute retrogamers have realized that Robo's theme from Chrono Trigger is actually a Jimmy Hart Version of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". That's right, Square Rickrolled us before Rickrolling was cool.
    • It is now confirmed that the similarity was just a coincidence, and the composer never heard of Rick Astley way back when he originally made the song.
    • Speaking of Chrono Trigger, "Jolly Ol' Spekkio", the theme of the shapeshifter of the same name found at the End of Time, sounds a heck of a lot like I Just Can't Wait to be King from The Lion King, at least to this troper.
    • Also, there's Ayla's Theme (here) and It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones (here). This troper hasn't heard of as many people hearing this one compared to RickRobo, but it's too similar not to mention.
    • This Troper (who never got to confirm this himself) has seen people who thought the song "The Trial" (used when Crono is, well, on trial) is similar to the Pink Floyd song of the same name.
  • The once-available-on-Genesis-and-SNES Spider-Man game "Maximum Carnage" was advertised as featuring a soundtrack composed by Green Jelly - who came up with an original title tune and Jimmy Hart Versions of metal classics for the rest of the game. Most notable as well as fitting was Black Sabbath's "The Mob Rules" for boss fights.
    • Green Jelly is a real (and hilarious) band, whose current name is actually the Jimmy Hart Version of their original, Green Jello. They had to change it when Kraft sued, but the band insists that it's still pronounced "Jello."
  • The soundtrack to Forza Motorsport 1 features an instrumental Jimmy Hart version of Black Sabbath's Iron Man.
  • The bar in Space Quest 1 features lookalikes of The Blues Brothers and ZZ Top, performing 8-bit versions of "Can't Turn You Loose" and "Sharp Dressed Man", respectively, albeit in internal speaker bleep form. ZZ Top later sued Sierra(they got sued a lot, remember the Droids R Us scandal?), thus the bands and their music were removed from the VGA remake. That didn't stop a Madonna look-a-like from making an appearance.
    • Also, in the remake, a rendition of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" from 2001: A Space Odyssey is played during the alien hologram sequence.
    • In Daryl Gates' Police Quest: Open Season, another Jimmy Hart version of "Can't Turn You Lose" can sometimes be heard in Ragin' Records at Hollywood & Vine.
      • The protagonist's headquarters being Parker Center, it also featured a Jimmy Hart version of the Dragnet theme, another variation of which was used as the theme for Police Quest I.
  • Leisure Suit Larry 5: One of the musics in the K-Rap building is a pastiche of Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science.(same beat, the characteristic pulsing bassline, similar synth hits)
  • The most recent trailer for the next Prince Of Persia game features the Jimmy Hart Version of "Reqiuem for a Dream". With how often the original song is used in fan-made trailers, hearing it made this troper chuckle a bit.
  • Tails' theme in Sonic Adventure is a Jimmy Hart version of the Bridge Zone theme from Sonic SMS/GG, which itself is a Jimmy Hart version of the theme from Full House.
  • Sonic 3, according to popular belief, used to have Michael Jackson composing its musics. Most of the zone themes can still be traced into being the Jimmy Hart Versions of MJ songs. Short documentary on the subject.
    • In Carnival Night Zone, the beat from Michael Jackson's "Jam" is used, along with the trumpet riff and glass-breaking sound, and the melody is based on "Entry of the Gladiators", a famous orchestral circus piece that everyone has heard at least once.
    • The Hydrocity zone music is reminiscent of the Mike Mareen song Heavy Water .
    • The Ice Cap Zone theme has a bassline similar to Smooth Criminal, and a melody derived from "Who Is It".
    • The ending theme is based on "Stranger in Moscow".
    • The Launch Base Zone music uses elements of "Bad".
    • Notice the similarity between Van Halen's Jump and the Metropolis Zone theme?
      • Metropolis Zone then got Jimmy Harted by The Hives with ''Walk Idiot Walk.
    • Sonic 1's Star Light Zone music is based on the J-pop song Kusuriyubi no Kesshin by Dreams Come True. In fact, the soundtrack was composed by Masato Nakamura, a member of that band.
      • For the same reason, the music from the ending cutscene of Sonic 2 is essentially a 16-bit version of their song "Sweet Sweet Sweet" (though that may not count as a Jimmy Hart version, since it's pretty much the actual song).
    • Scrap Brain Zone: Jimmy Hart version of the Blade Runner ending theme, complete with kettledrum hits. The latter half also sounds like Kraftwerk's Spacelab, and the bassline resembles that of another KW song, Metropolis(not Metropolis Zone).
    • Oingo Boingo's Weird Science sounds like a precursor to Sonic music, particularly Flying Battery Zone.
  • The ending theme for the Revenge of Meta Knight subgame in Kirby Super Star (and Ultra) sounds suspiciously similar to The Animals' rendition of "House of the Rising Sun".
  • Manic Miner used a Jimmy Hart Version of "In The Halls Of The Mountain King" for its main music, and Jet Set Willy(the original) used "Moonlight Sonata" and "If I Were A Rich Man"(from Fiddler On The Roof).
  • Katamari On The Funk, the title song from the PSP-exclusive Katamari Damacy sequel Me and My Katamari and one of the few original songs in the game, bears a striking resemblance to a tune from the PSP version of Ridge Racer. Somewhat justified considering the same person composed for both games, but still noteworthy.
  • Guilty Gear has several examples of this: Potemkin's theme, Burly Heart is basically Led Zepplin's ''Kashmir'' shifted down an octave or two, and Venom's theme A Solitude That Asks Nothing in Return is Napalm Death's ''Breed To Breathe'' slowed down slightly with added keyboard.
    • That's kind of the point. Guilty Gear is built on rock and roll references, Bridget alone has "Shoot The Moon", "Kickstart My Heart" and a teddy bear named for Roger Waters. This troper can remember four characters offhand who were directly named after bands (Cloudberry Jam, Millia Rage, ABA, and Slayer).
      • You forgot Testament. Almost every single character in that game can be related to a band of sorts. Best example would be Ky Kiske. It seems pretty normal (and not band related) until you learn that he was named after Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske, two former members of Helloween.
  • In Mega Man, the music in Elec Man's stage is pretty similar to "All the Right Friends" by REM.
    • It also somewhat resembles "Faithfully" by Journey, which was written not long before the REM song.
      • I've heard a few other 80's or 80's style songs with the same or similar main riff.
    • The Stage Select music in Mega Man 2 sounds like AC/DC's "Big Gun", which was also the basis for the song "I Sawed The Demons" in Doom.
      • Very likely a coincidence, since "Big Gun" was released on the Last Action Hero soundtrack four years after Mega Man 2 came out.
      • Maybe it was Jimmy Harted from the MM 2 song.
    • The music in the first part of Dr. Cossack's castle in Megaman 4 resembles a certain Russian folk song(can't think of the name).
  • The Stage 5 theme from Blaster Master is a Jimmy Hart version of Bomb Man's theme from Mega Man 1, and one of the guys at Overclocked Remix did a mash-up remix of the two.
  • The obscure isometric 3d NES shmup Tetrastar: The Fighter features several classical pieces, including Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" in the first level.
  • One scene in Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak involves finding a spoon (which later gets used in a catapult). The scene wherein you remove the spoon from its pedestal is a direct send-up of the "removing the Master Sword from its pedestal" scene from The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the music that plays during the removal is a Jimmy Hart version of the "opening a large chest" music from the 3D incarnations of Zelda - where the original arpeggios go up, the Jimmy Hard arpeggios go down.
  • The BGM of Gyruss is based on Bach's "Toccata & Fugue in D Minor".
  • In Mega Man X 3, the music in Neon Tiger's stage bears a remarkable similarity to "My Michelle" by Guns N' Roses. (but the MMX designers are probably GNR fans, considering the bosses of X5 are named after the band members, and the latter installments have a character named Axl)
  • In The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the music in the Fire Temple bears a remarkable resembance to the Torla Mountan dungeon in Alundra, right down to the Muslim-esque chanting.
    • Apparently those were real sampled Muslim chants("La illah ha il Allah", "Allah Akbar", etc), inciting many complaints from Muslim gamers and forcing Nintendo to change the music in later versions.
    • Even weirder, "Saria's Song", the iconic theme music for The Lost Woods from the same game and Twilight Princess appears to be a Jimmy Hart version of... The Jupiter suite from Gustav Holst's The Planets. When this troper was a wee one, it practically blew her 11-year-old brain to realize how similar the two songs were.
      • And as you may know, several pieces in Star Wars: A New Hope, including the opening Blockade Runner sequence, and the music right before the Death Star explodes, borrow from "Mars: The Bringer of War". The music when the rebels are approaching the Death Star also sounds similar to the Jupiter suite in parts.
    • Additionally, Twilight Princess features a hidden area in the form of a town that's been abandoned for years, composed of one main street lined with buildings... with dust and tumbleweeds everywhere... and the buildings full of enemies launching arrows at you, necessitating a big bow-and-arrow shootout through the town. The music for this set-piece did a wonderful job of capturing the feel of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti Western scores.
    • The Kakariko Village theme in TP is a pastiche/Jimmy Hart version of the Dark World theme from A Ltt P, which also uses part of the original Kakariko theme.
      • Or more of a mix between the original Kakariko theme and the Goron village music.
  • EarthBound had a bunch of musical references.
    • The riff used by the Runaway Five in the tune before you get on their bus (and reused in the ending credits) is more or less "In the Midnight Hour."
    • The "hippie battle" theme is based off Chuck Berry's musical style.
    • The drugstore music has at least has the same meter and chord progression of "When I'm 64."
    • The music for the coffee-trip scrolling text sequences is slightly similar to "Learning To Fly."
    • There's more...
      • Apparently, the copyright concerns over numerous similarties to various Beatles songs is preventing Earthbound from getting a rerelease on the Virtual Console.
  • Dragonball Z Budokai had a few pieces of background music which were rather obvious Jimmy Hart versions of Stratovarius music, as seen here.
  • Many of the dancers you encounter in Final Fantasy IV do their routine to a short song that directly resembles the first section of Aram Khachaturian's Sabre Dance.
  • The terrible NES RPG Hydlide has an overworld tune that sounds suspiciously close to John Williams' "Raiders' March", the theme song to the Indiana Jones films.
  • Bizarrely, the famous "Fever" theme from the various incarnations of Dr. Mario appears to be a more upbeat Jimmy Hart Version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna."
  • "Marginal Beast", one of the boss themes from Legend of Mana, sounds an awful lot like a Jimmy Hart Version of "Plosive Attack", the boss theme of Parasite Eve. Both are Squaresoft games with music by Yoko Shimomura.
  • The stage music for Dracula's stage in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse sounds an awful lot like the Billy Joel song "Pressure" inverted (bass line on top, melody on bottom). Go into music demo mode, and what's that stage's music called? "Pressure."
  • Most if not all of the music in the CAVE shmup Dangun Feveron are Jimmy Hart versions of Saturday Night Fever music; for instance, 2 stage themes are more than a little similar to "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever".
  • In Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, the music during the battle with Ernst is a Jimmy Hart Version of "Moon Over The Castle", the theme song from the Japanese versions of the Gran Turismo games. There's even a fan-made mashup of the two songs. Rumor has it that the composer of the latter had a hand in producing the former.
  • Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys: "The Heat In The Blaze" eerily resembles the music from the first level of Doom (which came out the same year, dunno which was first), which itself was based on Metallica's "Master of Puppets".
    • The guitar riff of "Walking The Path of Legend" sounds familiar, is it a completely original tune or a Jimmy Hart version of some real song?
  • In Star Fox, in the secret "Out Of This Dimension" level, the background music is a Jimmy Hart version of Johann Strauss's "Voices Of Spring" waltz, and the boss music is a medley of When The Saints Go Marching In, Lightly Row, and some other tune.
  • The music during the battle with Ganondorf in Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is kind of a Jimmy Hart version of one of the boss themes from Star Fox 64.
  • In Halo 2, the "Ancient Machine" music, heard in the hangar during the Arbiter mission, sounds like a mashup of the "evil source music"(Devil's Wind) from Ys Book I and II and the Woodfall Temple theme from Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask(may use some of the same Stock Sound Effects). Pure High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
    • In turn, Devil's Wind is a Jimmy Hart version of the Twilight Zone riff.
    • The High Charity theme, with its new-agey synth choir and clattering sound effects, is reminiscent of the Forest temple music in ''Ocarina of Time''
  • In Mother 3, the "Mr. Batty" enemies have theme music that sounds strikingly similar—especially in its intro—to the 1960's Batman theme. You know—"Nahnahnahnahnahna nana nahnahnahnahnahna nana BATMAAAAAN!"
    • In addition, the Jealous Bass music sounds rather similar to the Grease Lightning song.
    • There's also more...
  • In the Animaniacs game "The Great Edgar Hunt", the main Studio Lot theme is basically a Jimmy Hart version of the Cartoon Show's theme tune.
  • Depending on who you talk to, the Metal Gear Solid melody could be a shameless rip-off of the Speed theme tune or an up-beat Jimmy Hart Version of "The Winter Road" by Sviridov. In each case the stylistic similarity is more obvious when looking at Gregson-Williams' orchestral version of the theme from the 2001 MGS 2 trailer, but the melody's present in TAPPY's original 1998 version. The group of Russian games journalists who first spotted the Sviridov similarity confronted Kojima on-camera during the development of Portable Ops and Guns of the Patriots, in popular You Tube clip. Although the Norihiko Hibino is quite adamant that Sviridov has nothing to do with the tune, Konami was sufficiently disturbed by what they took as a threat of a lawsuit to put a moratorium the melody, and so it was removed from both those games and will not be used in the future. Speculation abounds as to what was changed and where (Sunny's various maths tunes sound "MGS-ish") but given that they didn't comment on the events until about 6 months after MGS 4 came out, it's unlikely the changes will be publicly revealed. Suffice to say, fans got angry and the absence of a version of the Metal Gear Solid theme in MPO and MGS4 is commonly cited as a negative point in reviews of the games. Gregson Williams' countermelody from the MGS 3 version of the theme seems to be groomed for use of a replacement, appearing in the MGS 4 end credits as "Metal Gear Saga".
    • Big Boss's Leitmotif is a Jimmy Hart version of the Metal Gear Solid theme, which sounds a little more tender than the actual melody due to the changing of two chords in the progression.
    • And the Metal Gear KODOQUE theme in Metal Gear Acid and its sequel was a Jimmy Hart version of the Metal Gear Solid main theme with the same chord progression but a different melody. Its use was a bit of a Hallelujah Moment.
    • The main Recurring Riff in the original Metal Gear Solid 1(ambience, alert music, boss music, etc.) resembles Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity, especially with that synthesized choir.
    • The theme tune of the festive fan parody game, Merry Gear Solid, finished with a Jimmy Hart Version of "Snake Eater" from Metal Gear Solid 3, called "Secret Santa".
  • In Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil, the Mother boss music resembles the Knight Rider theme.
  • Is this troper the only one who thinks that the song that plays in the early routes of the first generation of Pokemon games sounds suspiciously similar to Polly Wolly Doodle?
    • Certainly not! As a child, this troper even pointed out the similarity to his mother, and she said the same thing.
  • In Stuntman, most of the films you work on are Jimmy Hart versions of existing ones, complete with suspiciously familiar music that's surprisingly good in matching the mood of the original while never being identical. For example, see this video of a scene from the latest Dakota Scott movie. Honestly.
  • Both averted and played straight with the SNES/Genesis game Cool Spot. The title theme was "Wipeout", pure and simple— it was even credited to the original composers in the game's credits. But two of the stages, on the other hand, used Jimmy Hart Versions: the pool level's music resembled, but was not quite, Fats Domino's "Walkin' to New Orleans," while the train level used a song that was just a few notes away from The Magnificent Seven theme.
  • One guess as to what the theme of James Pond II: Robocod is The Jimmy Hart Version of. (Amazingly, the prior game did not use a knockoff of the James Bond theme.)
  • The music playing in the Team Fortress 2 trailer "Meet the Sniper" begins sounding like the Jimmy Hart version of the theme to Magnum Force, but as the song continues, it stops being a Jimmy Hart version and just becomes the theme to Magnum Force played with more Australian instruments.
  • The theme music to online freeware game Legend Of Princess is a Jimmy Hart Version of the Legend Of Zelda theme because the game is the Jimmy Hart Version of the Legend Of Zelda.
  • No More Heroes's Thunder Ryu Building is a gym in which Travis can upgrade his abilities. The background music is almost, but not quite, Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger."
    • Also, the credits music sounds very similar to the Star Wars theme. The version that appears on the official soundtrack makes it even more obvious: not only is it played by an orchestra, as opposed to the 8-bit style version in the game; but the track itself is called "Staff Wars: Episode I"
  • Done in Elite Beat Agents, when most of the songs are covers. Most of them are exactly the same, but with different vocals, although some become faster (such as Let's Dance, which is incredibly jarring listening to the game and original versions back-to-back). The exceptions are Sk8er Boi and September, which might as well be the original versions, and Jumping Jack Flash; if it weren't for the lyrics, you'd think it was an entirely different song. This was for the better to the extreme.
  • "Jungle Bouncer", the Ikari Warriors theme in both 94 and 2002 King Of Fighters installments for the most part sounded quite like Faith No More's "Surprise, you're dead!"
  • Earlier versions of Eversion used music from the obscure Famicom game Cocoron for their title screen and first world. Version 1.7, however, uses tunes that are clearly The Jimmy Hart Version of the original Cocoron music.
  • The doujin game Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekitou features Konata and Akira from Lucky Star as unlockable secret characters. In the stage where you fight them, The Jimmy Hart Version of "Motteke Seifuku", the latter's Theme Song, can be heard.
  • The shmup Armed Police Batrider's boss theme, "Let's Ass Kick Together"'s opening riff is like the main riff from Iron Maiden's Powerslave, just in a different key and with a couple of notes different, although the rest of the theme is different.
  • The Red Faction: Guerilla commercial features a Jimmy Hart version of Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil". This troper has also heard this same pastiche on a few TV shows.

Web Animation
  • When a Web Animation series reaches a certain level of success (typically when it starts selling DVDs), the creator often goes back and removes any copyright infringement that was safe when the series was unknown. Bonus Stage is a good example: Matt eventually removed a multitude of unauthorized cameos from his earlier episodes (such as one by the Homestar Runner cast) and replaced the ska song in the credits with an instrumental facsimile called "Total Soundalike."

Western Animation
  • The Simpsons hangs a lampshade on the trope when, at the opening ceremonies of a nationwide Spelling Bee, celebrity moderator George Plimpton announces "And now, our unlicensed knockoff of the Olympic anthem."
    • It also played this one straight, in quite a lot of episodes. Who can forget 'Springfield, Springfield', or the whole of the episode 'Supercalifragalisticexpiali(annoyed grunt)tious'? The latter was a parody of Mary Poppins, and had some of the best of these you're likely to see anywhere - particularly Barney's version of 'Feed the Birds' ('Buy Me A Beer') and the family's version of 'Spoonful of Sugar' ('Cut Every Corner').
      • And "The President Wore Pearls," an episode-long knock-off of Evita. Also lampshaded in the closing subtitles, which insist the producers (as advised by their lawyers) "have never heard of a musical based on the life of Eva Peron."
    • The one that sticks in this editor's mind is the end of "Life on the Fast Lane", which parodies the end of An Officer and a Gentleman; you have to listen very carefully to the BGM to notice it isn't really "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong".
    • This editor had to be told that the rambling song Homer sang in hopes of becoming a food critic was based around West Side Story's "I Feel Pretty".
    • Then there's "See My Vest," Mr. Burns' PETA-unfriendly ripoff of Beauty and the Beast's "Be Our Guest."
    • Lampshaded again during a Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs parody with a song called "Ho Hi" ("this song's not like any song you know...if Disney sues we'll claim Fair Use").
    • Some earlier episodes repeatedly underscored action sequences with a pastiche of the "Axel F" theme from Beverly Hills Cop.
  • Histeria, an educational cartoon about history, parodied a lot of songs with similar, but original, melodies. In the episode on Teddy Roosevelt, adapted versions of "Wooly Bully" (as "Bully Bully") and "Ghostbusters" (as "Trustbuster") were both used, altered enough to be free of royalties.
  • Family Guy used to do this in its early seasons — e.g. "Give it Up" from the toad-licking one, which was a pastiche of "You're the One That I Want" from Grease. Lately, however, they've been going with straight lyrical parodies.
    • The apotheosis: Peter singing about his Diplomatic Immunity with Can't Touch Me!, which includes the line "so Hammer you can't sue!" while talking to an animated MC Hammer.
      • Can't Touch Me used a Jimmy Hart Version of the music. However, the show has more recently been able to get the rights to almost any music they want; one aversion occurred when they couldn't get the rights to the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon theme, so they had Peter sing the Batman TV show theme (owned by Fox), replacing "Batman" with "Spider-Man." It was much funnier.
  • Jimmy Neutron does this all the time with their montage sequences. One notable one is a couple notes off from "Hey Ya" by Out Kast.
  • Chowder has done this twice so far. In the episode "Grubble Gum", where Chowder's gigantic, all-consuming wad of gum starts picking up everything in its path: the background music, appropriately enough, is a lawyer-friendly version of the Katamari Damacy theme. The episode "Sniffle Ball" also has one scene blatantly parodying the classic Super Mario Bros fight with Bowser, to the tune of a variant on the classic underground theme.
    • The sleepeating episode uses the first few notes of "Thriller".
  • An early sketch in Robot Chicken features Voltron in a dance-off against a Robeast to "Work It Out On The Floor", an obvious parody of DMX's "Get It On The Floor". On the DVD version and all future airing, the song is replaced with a horribly generic, lawyer-friendly take on the song.
  • The Teletoon-animated seasons of Johnny Test use their own theme song, which is The Jimmy Hart Version of... the original Johnny Test theme song (from when the series was animated by Warner Bros.). The "same franchise as the original music" deal strikes again!
    • Also occurs on the Cartoon Network broadcast version.
    • And the Netflix Watch Instantly releases.
    • Incidentally, while the original Johnny Test theme sounds highly styled after your average top 40 rock band, the second series theme song is actually a Jimmy Hart Version of "American Idiot".
  • The eighth episode of Samurai Jack opens with a jukebox playing the Jimmy Hart Version of Quincy Jones's "Soul Bossa Nova" (which you may recognize from Austin Powers).
  • In the Angry Beavers episode "You Promised", Norbert and Daggett race around their dam on bikes to The (instrumental) Jimmy Hart Version of "I'm A Believer" by The Monkees.
  • Futurama does some almost indistinguishable please-don't-sue-us versions of songs like "Happy Birthday To You" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" - the latter has to be listened to very, very closely. The excuse in the director's commentary was 'we thought it'd be alright because the songs would have changed over the years'.
  • Listen to the theme song of Teen Titans, then listen to Johnny Rivers' Secret Agent Man. Tell me they don't sound similar.
    • "When there's trouble you know who to call! Secret... Agent Man! Secret... Agent Man!"
  • In Drawn Together the ukulele riff that sometimes accompanies Wooldoor is an obvious pastiche of a similar one from Spongebob Squarepants.
  • Whenever another DCAU hero shows up on Static Shock they are accompanied by The Jimmy Hart Version of their theme... it's even more jarring than the Off Model moments that tend to accompany them.
  • The Totally Spies theme is totally a ripoff of Moonbaby's "Here We Go", with different lyrics. May be the reason why they removed the vocals in later seasons.
  • Super Jail—as explicitly pointed out by the bumps on Adult Swim—could not get the rights to "Love Shack", so the Warden sings the royalty-free, lawyer-friendly, not-gonna-get-sued-for-it "Love House" during the episode where they build a bar in the jail.
  • One episode of the Angry Beavers featured a Jimmy Hart version of "Say You'll Be There" by the Spice Girls (it was an episode where they assigned their younger sisters to take care of the house while they went out).
  • For The Little Rascals' Christmas Special, a 1979 animated holiday special featuring Our Gang, the producers didn't get the rights to use Leroy Shield's classic theme music, so the special's music composer wrote a Jimmy Hart Version of it.

Real Life
  • This troper's church produced a short documentary on conspiracy theories. The main theme sounded almost exactly like the music from Metroid Prime.

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