Original Theme Music

When the first series of Only Fools and Horses was broadcast in 1981, it had a theme tune composed by Ronnie Hazlehurst. The theme tune had no words. This was present on all opening and closing credits on series one episodes. At the time series one was broadcast, the future of Only Fools was uncertain, with viewing figures low compared to other series at the time. A new theme was created at this stage. This new theme tune was used for series two onward until the series end in 2003. All series one episodes were re-edited to include the new theme tune after 1981 original broadcasts.

In the early 1990’s the BBC released a VHS of series one in separate volumes and also as a double set. On some tapes only, the original theme was present. This was presumably by mistake as subsequent copies of the same VHS were “fixed” to include the new theme tune. Only copies from the original 1991 batch have the original tune. These tapes can be identified with yellow printed text on the bottom of the tape. The original theme used to be present on UK Gold Broadcasts, but this has since stopped at the time of writing this page. At time of writing, the original theme can be found on Youtube.