Ok...so while hosting my own little Season 1 Marathon today, I noticed that several episodes on my DVD (Sticky Wicket and Major Fred C. Dobbs in particular) started with a super-jazzy version of S.P. -- kinda like a closing credits version.

I've noticed throughout the seasons, there have been a variety of S.P. versions played...

What do you guys think about this?

I've wondered about that too. Almost every season has a slightly different version of the song. My favourite is the military drum version in GFA when they're bugging out. I guess it keeps it different and interesting.

I noticed that too! I prefer the earlier version of the song, near the end it got really fast-paced..But if you notice on the special episodes like when someone leaves, or something else important happens they'll slow it down and jazzy-like

I knew they did that on a couple episodes in the first season, and sometimes in THE ALAN ALDA SHOW (a.k.a. the later episodes) but I didn't know they did it in all the seasons, just about. Guess I'll have to stop skipping the opening of the show whenever I watch my DVDs-which are just the first 3 seasons, and that's all I intend to ever buy, for the reason stated above.

There are different recordings of the theme that were used over the years. I'm not really sure how many.

The down-tempo music that M*A*R*G*A*R*E*T is referring to was used during the end freeze-frame for more somber episodes ("Goodbye Radar," "Dreams"), not during the actual opening credits.