As a scene-setter it is hard to beat - an otherworldly, futuristic trip into another dimension. And 50 years on, Doctor Who still uses the same theme tune, albeit an exciting orchestral rollercoaster ride rather than the slightly sinister primitive electronica of old.
Creators of the show were determined to make the music as innovative as the show itself. Launch producer Verity Lambert wanted to engage a French avant garde group, Les Structures Sonores, to create the theme but efforts to contact them stalled. Instead they turned to the BBC's own experimental whizz-kids in the Radiophonic Workshop for a no-less groundbreaking composition.
They set about breathing life into a theme written by Australian composer Ron Grainer, whose signature tunes for Maigret and Steptoe And Son were already familiar to viewers - and won Ivor Novello Awards - and who later created memorable title music for The Prisoner, Tales Of The Unexpected and Man In A Suitcase (later revived for Channel 4's TFI Friday).
Grainer, born in Atherton, Queensland, sent his simple one-page score over from his home in Portugal for the Workshop's Delia Derbyshire to work her magic. The Cambridge graduate - who had studied music and maths - used sound generators, oscillators and tape loops to painstakingly assemble the tune, using changes of speed to alter the notes and create the melody, in the days before there was easy access to synthesisers. Hisses of white noise were dropped in to complete the sounds.
Grainer himself barely recognised the resulting recording, famously asking when he heard it played back if he had written it.
