Television had its share of silliness in the 1960s with its talking horses, blinking genies, and suburban witches (not to mention a car possessed by the spirit of an attorney’s dead mother). But these were all sitcoms. They were built to have a crazy premise. In the late 70s and early 80s, however, this silliness began to creep into long-form TV shows, as well.

Stephen J. Cannell, a writer who created two very successful detective shows in the mid-70s with The Rockford Files and Baretta, experienced a string of failed shows before he took the following premise to ABC executives around 1980: imagine a high school teacher and an FBI agent inadvertently find themselves on an empty stretch of highway out in the desert and experience a Close Encounters Of The Third Kind moment. Aliens present the teacher with a suit that gives him super powers and then task him and the agent with teaming up to fight for good. The suit comes with instructions which the teacher immediately loses. Hijinks, heroism, and hilarity ensue.

It would be titled The Greatest American Hero.

Amazingly, Cannell received the go ahead. Close Encounters and Superman had both made millions recently and this show would combine the two with a healthy dose of comedy. Every show at the time required a theme song, so Cannell dialed up his frequent collaborator, Mike Post (who we met here and here).

This particular theme called for lyrics, so Post dialed up his frequent collaborator, Stephen Geyer (90s kids will be familiar with their future collab on the theme from Blossom). Together, the pair wrote a song called “Believe It Or Not” which attempted to put into words some of the themes of the show — mostly about flying. (As a side note, the piano opening sounds quite similar to another Post composition from that year, the Grammy-winning Top 10 hit, “Theme From Hill Street Blues”).

When it came to choosing a singer, Post selected Joey Scarbury, a singer he had produced in the early 70s and still worked with on occasional projects. Scarbury scored a very minor hit back in 1971 but now made a living mostly as a session vocalist.

Released as a full-length single in May of 1981, “Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” peaked at #2 that summer, blocked from reaching the top spot by the juggernaut that was Diana Ross and Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love,” which spent over two months at #1. Scarbury would later find success as a country songwriter and Post would create a dozen more classic TV themes, including the inescapable “dun, dun” sound from Law & Order.

The Greatest American Hero ran for only two years but established itself as a cult classic of television shows. Bonkers television shows.

So fly away on a wing and a prayer… with Joey Scarbury.