Name That Tune was a game show that put two contestants against each other to test their knowledge of songs. Originally premiering in the United States in the early 1950s, the show was originally produced by Harry Salter. Name That Tune ran from 1953 to 1959 on NBC and CBS in prime time. The first hosts were Red Benson and Bill Cullen, but George DeWitt became most identified with the show. George could sing well, (Bill Cullen didn't) which was vital to the show's success. The best-remembered version aired once a week in syndication from 1974 to 1981 with host Tom Kennedy. Another version aired weeknights during 1984 and '85, hosted by Jim Lange; this version was heavily rerun on cable TV for almost a decade. Both versions included an orchestra conducted by veteran bandleader Tommy Oliver (musician). These versions were both titled The $100,000 Name That Tune.


The Games
Regularly-played sub-games on the show included:

Melody Roulette, in which a two-level wheel was spun onstage to determine a cash prize for identifying the tune (the second, outer wheel held spaces marked "Double" and, in the '70s version, also offered the possibility of a new car as a bonus prize). 
Sing-a-Tune, in which contestants wrote down the names of tunes sung by the show's vocalist, a then-unknown Kathie Lee Gifford (known by her married name at the time, Johnson). Gifford would famously and humorously replace the titles in the lyrics with 'la-la-las'. (Kathie lee left the show around 1978, and was replaced by Steve March Tormé, the son of legendary crooner Mel Tormé.) 
Tune Topics, in which all of the song titles fit into a given category, was the Lange version's replacement for Sing-a-Tune. 
Tune Countdown, in which players try to name as many tunes as they can in a 20 second time limit. This was the Lange's version's early replacement for Sing-a-Tune until it was replaced by Tune Topics. 
Bid-a-Note was the show's signature game. Here, the host would read a clue to a song, and the players would alternate bidding as to how few notes they would need to identify the song (as in "I can name that tune in three notes"). When the bidding was over, the pianist's hand would famously show up on split screen to play the notes. 
Golden Medley in which the day's winner attempts to identify seven tunes in 30 seconds. Prizes were awarded for each correctly identified song; should the player name all seven, they had a shot at the truly big prize. In the Kennedy version, they would return at the end of next week's show and try to identify one more "Mystery Tune" for a $100,000 cash prize (paid in ten annual installments of $10,000); on the lower-budget Lange version, they qualified to return for a monthly tournament wherein the winner received over $100,000 in cash and prizes (including $10,000 in cash, a new Pontiac Fiero, a Caribbean vacation and one week a year in perpetuity at a timeshare resort in Palm Springs. 

Foreign Versions
A British version of the show started on ITV in 1983 with Tom O'Connor as the host. Lionel Blair took over for O'Connor later on until the series was dropped from the ITV schedules. Maggie Moon sang the songs that contestants had to guess. In 1998 the series was revived on Five with Jools Holland as the host.

There were even versions in Australia, Canada, Italy and Russia. There are now computer applications -- such as Musipedia -- called music information retrieval systems that can name a tune that is sung, hummed, whistled, or played on an instrument.