UKH

Don't want to bias this crucial poll in any way but the greatest tune must be either Street-Hawk or AIRWOLF (having spent my lunch break researching this on youtube), I can't decide which maybe you can help.

I can’t bring myself to take part in such a flippant survey.

Effectively, you’re asking Generation X to choose their favourite child.

Meh.  I'd have struggled to admit it at the time, but the bang up to date '80s theme tunes were hopelessly outclassed by the theme tunes from cheesy 20 year-old repeats anyway.

Barry Gray in particular was a genius.  eg: youtube.com/watch?v=MqP1mRRZVm8&

Finally cast my vote

youtube.com/watch?v=-9dbAQJIu1o&

Can you get more 80s than this.  youtube.com/watch?v=dEjXPY9jOx8&

I had to add the Equaliser. I was mesmerised by it the first time I heard it, so I made sure I was there with a tape in the deck ready to record it the week after

Im going to YouTube it now and expect to have a full on 35 year nostalgia blast... 

Yesssss... Equaliser sound track sounds just as awesome now as it did then.

youtube.com/watch?v=ljvdTh1jq-Y&

Didn't realise it was created by Stewart Copeland either

youtube.com/watch?v=KfCM4MfsKEg&

In reply to ThunderCat:

And not ThunderCats??

Streethawk was probably the better tune, but Airwolf was the best for how it fit to the programme.

Also Knight rider was great, and The Fall Guy for comedy value.

More recently, but set in the 80s, the theme for Halt and Catch Fire is good.

The main theme was nothing special but Crockett's theme was good.

making a guy choose between trapdoor and danger mouse is just cruel!

The 80s really did have the theme tunes nailed!

Heresy. The main theme was excellent. You've no idea how ofter I lean back from my canoe to dip my hair in the Trent&Mersey because of that opening

It's hard to separate out how you feel about the theme tune from memories of the show. I was going to vote for Miami Vice but Philip was right - the title theme was nothing special though there was a lot of other good stuff there and I remember it essentially as an extended music video and Ferrari advert. I really liked Hill Street Blues and the haunting, rather melancholic theme so voted for that. Then I remembered Cheers and added it as an option.

In the interests of full disclosure, it turns out there is a bug in the voting so if you vote for something then add a new option you get two votes. So if it comes down to a single vote... however I should also admit that secretly I think my opinion is at least twice as important as anybody else's.

The correct answer is actually Ulysses 31.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1aBt-_Zs4&

Oh yeah......... 

I was going to add in Knightmare.... But I might be biased because I actually appeared on it. 

Added Hawaii Five-O... barely counts as it ran from 1968 to 1980!

Just gonna leave this here...

youtube.com/watch?v=EcF2LOaLgA0&

Can't add to the poll because I already added one.

No Way! That was every kids dream! We applied and even trained in the playground with jumpers pulled over our heads but we never heard back How far did you get?

Abysmal.  Absolutely terrible.  Only lasted about three quarters of an episode.

Nice memory to think back on though, and being on the near poverty side of life as a kid it was like a bloody fairytale getting an all paid trip to the studio and then put up in a hotel with your mates for a couple of nights.

Missing Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and The Raccoons.

Yes the Poll is really only for the second best theme tune of the 80s.

Went for Cities of Gold (still gives me shivers), but very hard between that, Airwolf and Hawaii Five-0.

Danger Mouse as the runner-up.

Airwolf.... I devoured that show as a kid. Jan Michael Vincent was a devastingly handsome bloke and must have been fighting them off with a bloody stick. I was really shocked a couple of years ago to see how much he had been destroyed by alcohol towards the end of his life. Sad end

Indeed - I've got several of the DVDs. Shame the continuity was so bad - shots change from guns out to guns away and so on.

Would have loved to have been a helicopter pilot, based on that show alone.

Yes, very sad end for JMV.

If it's not Dangermouse, you're wrong.

But even Dangermouse wasn't as good as the theme to a Robinson Crusoe series from the 1960s.

T.

But the 60's never had this esoteric genius... G-FORCE  youtube.com/watch?v=-3y-7NeJTFM&

Were you the adventurer or a guide then? As a kid with no idea how green screen technology worked that show was magical. Must have been interesting to see behind the curtain.

Just You Tubed "Streethawk", considerably more crap than I remember. Ulysses and The Equalizer still awesome, though.

The helicopter itself also came to a rather unfortunate end.

I was one of the three doing the directions. It was really interesting. Seeing Treguard in the canteen in full costume eating fish an chips, flicking peas at us. He was a nice bloke from memory. 

Odd to send the adventurer through a door and then hear "and cut!" and then you go back to the green room while the crew pike in and set up the next room... Then after a while, your called back for the next rom. What took half an hour on screen took about three days to film. 

The second best theme of the 80s goes to BraveStar, the rest can fight it out for third place

youtube.com/watch?v=wUfJuOp7Dck&

I think Henry's Cat should be considered for it's pure simplicity

My vote goes to the Harry’s Game theme.

youtube.com/watch?v=p8KmzzYCyJk&

Looking at the results it's a toss up between Airwolf and Berk from Trapdoor - a plasticine metaphor for middle management, as far as I can interpret. Looks like there's no clear winner which is fitting because there's been some real classics above!

Blake's 7 is 1970s!

or The Flashing Blade

That is on Freeview at the moment and it is turn of the 60s/70s stuff!  Worthy anyway.  Still think the opening titles of Fireball XL5 are amazing.  Thrilled me as a child of the early 60s as much as Dr Who.  youtube.com/watch?v=Mvm5NEUwd8k&

The moment they reach the edge of the atmosphere and the sky goes dark with the stars ahead is one of the best bits of children's TV EVER!  Repeated in Thunderbirds Are Go with the Zero X leaving orbit.

Was Ski Sunday from the ‘80s?

It certainly was and what an epic suggestion ~ It could be the one!

Three more to consider, all pretty magical

youtube.com/watch?v=8zkZPzeqyt8& Tripods theme from the BBC drama

youtube.com/watch?v=c0UgMPzf6xs& Whicker’s World 1984

youtube.com/watch?v=yc9v1vfBlHs& Tomorrows World 1987

in the same vein as Tomorrow's World

youtube.com/watch?v=nVcqYYD8hfU& by Kraftwerk

or the TV version of HHGTG

In the contest ‘Best Intro Theme Music of All Time’, The Flashing Blade would be second, behind the ‘The White Horses’: 

youtube.com/watch?v=jtCNbERKvMs&

I do remember running outside with my cousin, grabbing a couple of bamboo canes and thrashing the crap out of each other while  singing the theme tune to the flashing blade...

my sisters were glued to the TV when that was on.  And Captain Zeppos (quite catchy in a nostalgic way youtube.com/watch?v=qzw4WA4F5Eg&)

Was the Water Margin in the 80s?  "These Men are Outlaws ..."