Dad's Army (1968)

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler? sounds so much like a 1940s music-hall number that many people assume it is one. In fact Jimmy Perry wrote the words and composed the music with Derek Taverner for the 1968 sitcom, as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The masterstroke was the singer. Perry persuaded his childhood idol, the wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to record it for 100 guineas, and that genuine period voice makes the joke land. It is the rare theme people sing all the words to, and audiences are happy to join in.