Despite changes, ‘Hawaii Five-O’ keeps theme

McClatchy Newspapers

CBS is “rebooting” the old “Hawaii Five-O” this fall with a new look, a new cast, a new viewpoint and new scenery (still Hawaii).

But one thing that won’t be changed is that wonderful theme song. Alex Kurtzman, one of executive producers of the show said they considered orchestrating it with a rock guitarist. They did a temporary version of that, which didn’t work.

“What it underscored for us, especially in kind of looking at it, was that you cannot change the original theme,” he said.

“There are few themes that are as good as the ‘Five-0’ theme,” Kurtzman said. “I mean, it is the greatest theme. And what that really led us back to was this is one of those things that we have to be utterly respectful to the point that we found the original musicians who did the first, the original theme, and brought them back in to re-record it. And I think that at the end of the day, why mess with something that’s perfect?”