NOAH ADAMS, host: You know, it's a challenge to boil down an entire television show concept in one short theme song.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Oh, that bump is where Rob Petrie trips over the ottoman in his living room during the opening credits of "The Dick van Dyke Show." Do you remember that?</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: Did it every time. Earle Hagen caught the quirky grace of that character, just as he captured the essence of so many other characters, with scores of unforgettable television tunes. Hagen died Monday in California. And although he never topped the charts, you know his stuff.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Here's how he imagined the Marine Corps, with a goofy but affable private marching in formation.</s>Unidentified Man: "Gomer Pyle, USMC…"</s>Unidentified Man: …starring Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: And then the themes for "I Spy," "Eight is Enough," "The Mod Squad," "That Girl," and, of course, this…</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: That's Hagen himself doing the whistling.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Years before his success as a TV tunesmith, Earle Hagen played trombone with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Ray Noble. On the road with Noble, Hagen composed "Harlem Nocturne," and that became a jazz standard.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: And then decades later, it became the theme to the 1984 television detective series, "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer."</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Music by Earle Hagen. The composer died Monday at his home near Palm Springs, California. He was 88.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News.
The man who wrote TV theme songs for The Andy Griffith Show, I Spy and The Mod Squad has died. Earle Hagen, a former big-band trombonist, also wrote the jazz standard "Harlem Nocturne." He was 88.