- He is the whistler heard in the theme music on The Andy Griffith Show (1960)..
- He composed music for more than 3,000 TV-show episodes and TV movies.
- He played with top bands of the swing era, and wrote one of the first textbooks on composing for movies.
- After recovering from a near-fatal illness, he worked as a staff trombonist for CBS, until his enlistment in the Army Air Corps in 1942 (stationed in Santa Ana with the Radio Production Unit). During the 1940s and early 1950s he worked as arranger and conductor for 20th Century-Fox under the auspices of Alfred Newman. He left in 1953, encouraged by producer Sheldon Leonard to pursue a career as a writer for television.
- Made up his middle name, Harry, as a tribute to his favorite uncle.
- Left home at the age of 16 to play trombone with the big bands of Isham Jones, Ray Noble, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. During his stint as musician/arranger with the Noble orchestra, he wrote the jazz standard "Harlem Nocturne" as a tribute to Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. This was later used as theme song for the TV crime show The New Mike Hammer (1984), starring Stacy Keach.
- An avid golfer.
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