The 1980s File Feature
Theme From "Greatest American Hero" (Believe It or Not)
Joey Scarbury's “Believe It or Not”: The Theme That Outflew Its ShowPicture the summer of 1981, the television glowing in a darkened living room as an ordina…
01 The Story
Joey Scarbury's “Believe It or Not”: The Theme That Outflew Its Show
Picture the summer of 1981, the television glowing in a darkened living room as an ordinary schoolteacher discovers he can fly through the air. The screen fills with a soaring, optimistic melody, and suddenly millions of viewers want to know the name of that song. That melody belonged to Joey Scarbury, and within weeks it would lift off the small screen and become one of the most beloved theme songs in American pop history. It was the rare television theme that escaped its origins entirely and lived a life of its own on the radio.
A Journeyman Singer's Unlikely Moment
Scarbury had spent years as a working singer without a defining hit, the sort of talented voice that drifts around the industry waiting for its break. He had recorded demos and sung backup, building a quiet résumé without ever breaking through. That break finally came when he was chosen to perform the theme for the ABC superhero comedy The Greatest American Hero. The song, officially titled “Theme From Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not),” was written by the prolific television composer Mike Post along with lyricist Stephen Geyer. It was a perfect marriage of voice and material, a melody built to make you believe a man could fly, and it handed an overlooked singer the moment of his life.
The Sound of Pure Eighties Optimism
Everything about the recording radiates uplift. The arrangement swells with bright keyboards and a chorus engineered for the hopeful heart, the musical equivalent of a sunrise breaking over a city. Scarbury sings it with an earnest, everyman warmth, never overselling the emotion or reaching for vocal fireworks. In a year when much of pop was turning toward new-wave edge and synthetic cool, this was unabashedly sincere, a reminder that audiences still craved songs that simply made them feel good about the possibilities of an ordinary life. It is the kind of melody that lodges in your memory after a single hearing and refuses to leave.
A Long, Triumphant Chart Flight
The single's chart run was a marathon, not a sprint. It debuted at number 85 on May 9, 1981, then steadily ascended: 73, 62, 49, 44, gathering listeners as the show gained fans week by week. As spring turned to summer, the song kept rising on the strength of its own irresistible hook. By high summer it had reached the very top tier of the Hot 100, peaking at number 2 during the week of August 15, 1981, kept from the summit but firmly established as a genuine smash. Its endurance was just as striking, with the song logging an impressive 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, an exceptionally long stay that confirmed how deeply it had embedded itself in the season's soundtrack.
One Hit, Endlessly Remembered
Scarbury never repeated the success, and the song became his defining legacy, a textbook example of the perfect one-hit moment captured in amber. Its afterlife has been remarkable. The theme has been revived in commercials and television comedy, most famously parodied in a memorable karaoke scene on Seinfeld, keeping it lodged in the collective memory of generations who never watched the original show. Today it has amassed roughly 8 million YouTube views, proof that its uncomplicated optimism still finds new ears and still makes strangers smile.
Why It Still Soars
The genius of “Believe It or Not” is its pure, uncomplicated joy. It asks nothing of you except that you let yourself feel hopeful for three minutes, that you believe for a moment that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Put it on, and you understand instantly why a whole country once hummed along. Press play and let it carry you upward.
“Theme From "Greatest American Hero" (Believe It or Not)” — Joey Scarbury's singular moment on the 1980s charts.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning of “Believe It or Not”: An Anthem of Sudden Possibility
Some songs work because they articulate exactly what a viewer is feeling in a given moment. “Believe It or Not” is a hymn to astonishment, to the dizzying realization that life has somehow handed you something extraordinary. Built for a show about an ordinary man granted impossible powers, the lyric captures that disbelief and turns it into pure exhilaration, the giddy shock of a regular life suddenly cracking open into wonder.
The Wonder of the Unexpected
At its heart, the song is about being amazed by your own good fortune. The narrator marvels that this could possibly be happening to someone like him, an everyman suddenly soaring above the rooftops with the wind in his face. The central theme is the thrill of the unimaginable becoming real, the feeling that ordinary limits no longer apply to you. That sense of wide-eyed wonder, almost childlike in its sincerity, is what makes the chorus so irresistibly infectious.
Flight as a Symbol of Freedom
Flying is one of humanity's oldest dreams, and the song leans fully into that imagery. To rise above the ground is to escape ordinary constraints, to feel weightless and utterly free of gravity and routine. The lyric uses the idea of flight as a metaphor for personal transformation, the moment a life changes shape entirely and the old rules fall away. It speaks to anyone who has ever longed to break free of the everyday and become more than they were yesterday.
Earnest Optimism in a Cynical Age
The early 1980s were not short on irony or cool detachment, yet this song chose sincerity without apology or hesitation. Its emotional message is one of hope, the simple belief that good things can arrive when you least expect them. That earnestness was part of its charm and a large part of why it has endured: it offered a clean, uncomplicated dose of positivity at a moment when pop was increasingly self-aware and guarded.
The Cultural Moment It Captured
The song arrived alongside a wave of feel-good American television and a national appetite for stories about underdogs who triumph against the odds. It reflected the era's fondness for the regular person made extraordinary, the schoolteacher, the neighbor, the ordinary citizen suddenly capable of heroics. That populist fantasy resonated widely with audiences, which is precisely why the theme outlived the series itself and became a standalone classic.
Why It Resonated
People connected with the song because everyone, at some point, secretly wishes they could rise above their circumstances and amount to something more. It gave voice to that universal daydream and wrapped it in a melody impossible to forget. The combination of relatable wonder and soaring optimism is exactly why “Believe It or Not” became a lasting piece of American pop, remembered fondly long after the show that birthed it faded from the schedule.
→ More from the 1980s File
View all 1980s hits →
Keep digging