Lemmings was originally going to use a soundtrack of plagarised copyrighted music, something that was common in microcomputer games the decade prior, including pop songs and television theme songs. In the final game, these were swapped for public domain songs, though a sample of Don Messick as Scooby-Doo used for a cover of the
Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo theme song would be retained in the
How Much is that Doggie in the Window? music track. The
Mission: Impossible theme seems to have been chosen in reference to a fad on British television at the time of showing squirrels performing stunts to the song.