By Bill Melonides

February 18^th, 2026

There are few memory triggers more powerful than a catchy theme song.  Those of my generation (Gen X) grew up in front of our televisions and were bombarded daily with some of the greatest television theme songs in history. If you were a daytime TV rerun watcher in the late 70’s and 80’s you had I love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, My Three Sons, Dick Van Dyke, Andy Griffith, the Brady Bunch, Leave It To Beaver just to name a few.  Primetime TV was loaded with great themes, Happy Days, Hill Street Blues, the Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Laverne & Shirley, M*A*S*H, the Jeffersons and All In The Family and that only scratches the surface.

Those theme songs were so ubiquitous that even today hearing one note is enough to not only recognize the tune immediately, but even the lyrics come right back.

There is one theme however that I have always loved and gives me instant goosebumps from the very first drumbeat.  It only came around once every four years.  ABC would begin every broadcast of the Olympic games with that incredible Olympic theme. It’s an instantly recognizable theme but I knew very little about its origins until last week.

I’m a huge fan of the Olympics. I have been since at a very young age I witnessed the intense emotional reaction of my parents to Nadia Comăneci’s perfect ten in 1976 and experienced the Miracle on Ice with them four years later sitting at the kitchen table watching on our nine-inch black and white portable. In the run up to any Olympic winter games, I try to prepare my kids by watching (and now rewatching) several Olympic centered movies like “Cool Runnings”, “Cutting Edge” and “Eddie The Eagle”.  They love these films. I love these films.  This year I had a couple friends come over with their sons to watch “Miracle” two weeks before the games started.  I’ll change the ringtone on my phone to the Olympic theme simply because I can.

Unlike how most people stream their music today I still use my iPhone as an mp3 player. I have all my music loaded onto it because I refuse to pay for a streaming service after I spent all that time in the early 2000s converting my CDs to mp3’s and putting them on my iPod. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay somebody for the work that I spent hours doing.

So, the other day I was trying to put together a playlist of the Olympic themes for our opening ceremonies dinner. We have a tradition in my family that I started over 20 years ago that for each Olympiad, on the night of the opening ceremonies our dinner menu is determined by the cuisine of the host country.  Some years we go out, some years I’ll cook.  This year I cooked and made chicken parmigiana.

You may be unaware, but there are at least five different themes that have been used over the years by ABC, NBC and CBS for the Olympic Games. As I was trying to put the playlist together, I was getting confused by which version was which. After a while I started getting frustrated so a few days ago, I took a moment to listen to each one and make a note on which was which.

That only served to confuse me even more.  It’s always amazing to me what you can find on Google if you just ask a simple question. In this case I went down the rabbit hole on Olympic themes.

The original Olympic theme, “Bugler’s Dream” composed by Leo Arnaud in 1958 and used by ABC through the Calgary Winter Games in 1988.  the one that most everyone knows, the one that ABC made famous in their early Olympic broadcasts in the 1960s and 1970s surprisingly was not written for the Olympics, it wasn’t even written for ABC.  It’s called “Bugler’s Dream” and it’s based on a cavalry call by Joseph-David Buhl called “Salut aux étendards” and was written during Napoleon’s French Consulate (1799-1804).

In 1958 a composer named Leo Arnaud was commissioned by conductor Felix Slotkin to create a piece for Slotkin’s album “Charge!” Arnaud wrote the” Charge Suite” which begins with the “Bugler’s Dream”.  Someone familiar with that album was either working at ABC or had the ear of Rune Arledge and suggested that it would be a perfect opening theme for the Olympic television broadcasts.

ABC ran with it, and for more than 20 years this theme combined with the legendary voice of Jim McKay became America’s soundtrack for the Olympic Games.

In 1987 ABC commissioned Canadian pop-music composer David Foster “Winter Games” composed by David Foster  in 1987 and used by ABC as the winter games theme music in conjunction with “Bugler’s Dream” for the 1988 Calgary Winter Games to pen a theme “Winter Games” for the upcoming Calgary winter Olympiad.  Though short lived (only used for one Olympiad) it’s a beautiful theme.

ABC’s monopoly on the Olympic television coverage eventually ran out after the 1988 Calgary games when they were outbid for the Olympic broadcasting rights by their two rival networks. CBS gained the rights to the winter games thru 1998 and NBC began broadcasting the summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea in 1988.

Initially, neither CBS nor NBC used the now synonymous “Bugler’s Dream” as the theme music for their coverage.  One can imagine that neither network wanted to use what most assumed was their competitor’s trademark.

There was some incorrect speculation that ABC owned the rights to the music, but they did not.  Regardless, both networks   sought new themes that they would use to kick off their daily coverage. NBC commissioned the great John Williams to compose “The Olympic Spirit” “The Olympic Spirit” composed by John Williams in 1987 and used by NBC as the exclusive main theme for the 1988 summer games in Seoul.  for the ‘88 summer games.

Tamera Lee Kline composed “CBS Olympic Theme” composed by Tamara Lee Kline in 1991 and used as the main Olympic theme by CBS for the 1992, 1994 & 1998 winter games.   an original piece for CBS to use at the ‘92 winter games that was chosen from over 200 submissions.  Both network themes were excellent but didn’t evoke the same emotion like “Bugler’s Dream” did for ABC so for the following summer games in Barcelona, NBC reverted back to “Bugler’s Dream” but this time commissioned Willams again to compose some additional music.

The result was a combination of a reworked and extended symphonic version of Arnaud’s “Bugler’s Dream” followed immediately by William’s newly composed  “Olympic Fanfare” “Bugler’s Dream” composed by Leo Arnaud in 1958 and then arranged  in 1991 by John Williams and combined with “Olympic Fanfare” composed by John Williams in 1991.  This is the current theme used by NBC since the 1992 Barcelona Games. which is what NBC still uses today.

CBS also decided not to use “Bugler’s Dream” for the ‘92 winter games and continued to use the Kline theme for their broadcasts in ‘94 and ‘98.  CBS hasn’t covered either winter or summer games since the Nagano winter games.

So let me know in the comments which is your favorite Olympic theme.

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Bill is a professional photographer and self trained chef. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Chicago’s western suburbs where he is active in his church and a leader in his daughter’s Scout troop.