Thursday, January 15, 2009

An Appreciation: Patrick McGoohan

Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times had a great piece on Patrick McGoohan today, that begins:

In the summer of 1968, the most important television series of my life premiered on CBS as a summer replacement for "The Jackie Gleason Show." A British import about a spy who, having resigned his position, is drugged and kidnapped and wakes up captive in a fanciful holiday resort, where he is hectored week after week to explain himself, “The Prisoner” starred and was co-created by Patrick McGoohan, who died in Los Angeles on Tuesday at the age of 80.
But before The Prisoner there was Secret Agent Man (Danger Man in the UK). Like most people what I remember about McGoohan's Secret Agent Man TV series was it had a great theme song written by P.F. Sloan and sung by Johnny Rivers. I don't think I ever saw the show, but I sure remember the song. I think that makes it unusual. I can't think of another TV show where the theme song was more popular than the show itself, discounting of course, shows like the CSI franchise where the theme song existed before the show.

Can anyone else think of another?

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