PINBALL: Theme From ABC's Monday Night Football (1988) | Original Theme

Network: ABC
Used: 1988
Show: Monday Night Football

After ABC Sports decided to move on from the outdated Robert Israel theme, they revamped their entire music catalog, including their fanfare which became the basis for both baseball and football themes.

While ABC's baseball intro featured the sites and sounds of a day at the ballpark, MNF used a unique intro featuring a pinball machine. A company named Data East actually made a decent number of the Monday Night Football pinball machines in 1989, inspired by the innovative (for the time) graphics employed in the intro.

The theme appeared during ABC Sports baseball and football coverage. But while the baseball theme (heard mostly during playoff games - including the opening of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series aka The Loma Prieta Earthquake Game) sounded regal and majestic, the MNF version was fun and frantic, capturing the fast-paced action of the gridiron.

This theme was used only for one season (1988) before ABC began the long tradition of combining Edd Kaleoff's version of Heavy Action with Hank Williams's All My Rowdy Friends in 1989 for its MNF coverage.