music for television. They were still partners when they were chosen to work on The Andy Griffith Show in 1960, and had made several failed attempts to compose its theme music during the summer. By the time the show's executive producers, Leonard and Danny Thomas, had sold it to CBS, the partnership of Hagen and Spencer had ended. It was after that point that Hagen devised the theme:

One day I got up and I just thought, here's a guy who's a simple character. And I started whistling a theme. I called a bass guitar-and-drum session at a little studio on Fairfax Avenue, and I whistled the theme. My son, who was eleven years old at the time, did all the finger snapping. I played the demo for [Leonard] and he said, "That's perfect. I'm going to shoot the main title next week and I'll just have Andy and Opie walking by the lake with a couple of fishing rods". That was it. And I've never whistled since.