Mission: Impossible Medley

Lalo Schifrin wrote the Mission: Impossible theme in 1966 for the CBS series that began that September, using a five-beat bar — an unusual choice for television, and one the producers accepted without argument. Schifrin, born in Buenos Aires and trained in Paris, had come to Hollywood after playing piano in Dizzy Gillespie's quintet, and the theme is written for a jazz section as much as for an orchestra. It won two Grammy awards in 1968. A medley draws the theme together with other cues from the series and the later films.