Champion The Wonder Horse Theme Tune (The Adventures of Champion) - BBC1

Champion The Wonder Horse - the powerful yet haunting theme song from The Adventures of Champion. First shown on CBS between 1955 and 1956 The Adventures of Champion was a 26 part TV series produced by Flying A Productions, starring 12 year old Barry Curtis as Ricky North and Jim Bannon as Ricky's uncle, Sandy North. The TV series followed on from the successful radio serial The Adventures of Champion.
Perhaps because British audiences were unfamiliar with the American radio series, the BBC renamed the TV show Champion The Wonder Horse for broadcast in the UK, which was a more catchy and arguably a more self-explanatory title.
So popular was the series that it continued as a mainstay of BBC television's children's Saturday morning and summer holidays schedule well into the colour era, even though it was produced in black and white. In fact the programme was shown as late as 1993 in Britain.
The rock formation in the opening scene is in the 900 acre Vasquez Rocks near Agua Dulce, CA north of LA.
I remember visiting a Champion supermarket in France in the 1970s. There was a refrigerator full of horse meat - the sign on it said 'Champion'. I wished I'd had a camera with me.
The song Champion The Wonder Horse was written by Norman Luboff and Marilyn Bergman and was sung by Mike Stewart - apparently because Frankie Laine was not available for the recording session. A cover by Frankie Laine was however released on record.

Lyrics:

Champion the wonder horse, Champion the wonder horse
Like a streak of lightning flashing cross the sky
Like the swiftest arrow whizzin' from a bow
Like a mighty cannonball he seems to fly
You'll hear about him everywhere you go
The time will come when everyone will know the name of Champion the wonder horse
Champion the wonder horse