YMMV / Peter Gunn

• Awesome Music: The great Henry Mancini did the music. You just know there's something special about the music when not one, but two albums of the music were released. Worth noting is that the music is usually labelled as Jazz (Mancini being primarily known as a jazz composer), but Mancini himself claimed that the famous theme song was his take on Rock & Roll, and some covers (particularly the Duane Eddy cover) emphasize this.
• Covered Up: The show's theme tune became something of a Breakaway Pop Hit, in that it would be used in so many works to the point many people don't know it was made for this show.
  • The theme was used in Spy Hunter.
  • The theme was also used in 1980's The Blues Brothers as their own Leitmotif.
  • There's also a little bit of Beam Me Up, Scotty! in the fact that the tune is commonly thought of as generic "spy music," but Peter Gunn was a detective show.
• Retroactive Recognition: The iconic piano riff in the theme tune is performed by a young studio pianist named Johnny Williams... yes, that John Williams.

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