Creative TV title sequences are integral parts of any TV show. They connect us, the viewers, to what we are about …
The post The Art of the Opening: What Makes TV Title Sequences Captivating? appeared first on TV Fanatic.
Creative TV title sequences are integral parts of any TV show.
They connect us, the viewers, to what we are about to watch somehow.
Many of them are as memorable as the shows themselves, if not more so, because they incorporate elements designed to draw viewers in, like those below.
Many early TV shows had simple title sequences designed to introduce the characters and actors, and that was all.
Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show are all classic TV shows that provide excellent examples of how title sequences of the day tended to be short and to the point.
Often, they flashed character and actor names across the screen over images of each person walking into view.
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Sometimes, an announcer would say the names out loud during the opening credits.
One such person was Robert West LeMond Jr., an announcer for both Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver.
Another was Colin Male, the announcer for The Andy Griffith Show.
Those shows, with or without announcers, never failed to connect viewers to the characters they were about to watch.
From “The Beave” to Lassie, we knew exactly who the characters were and what we could expect from them each week.
It was great, but it was also a much simpler time.
Today, the mild, mellow intro rarely flies.
We usually need more from a title sequence to invest in what will happen next.
One element that has stayed consistent over the years in creative TV title sequences is a catchy theme song.
We use our five senses almost all the time, but three of those senses are useless when watching television.
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We can’t taste, touch, or smell what we watch on TV, although it could happen if we give technology a few years.
But for now, we watch TV with our eyes and listen to it with our ears, which is why a catchy theme song can make or break a TV show’s memorability.
TV show creators quickly learned that a show needed a good opening earworm when TV became popular in the 1950s.
The practice of using theme songs to draw in audiences worked a couple of ways.
Catchy tunes like the whistling on The Andy Griffith Show got us hooked and quickly became memorable, almost like signatures. It became even harder to forget them when their theme songs had lyrics, though.
Three’s Company’s “Come and knock on our door” and The Brady Bunch’s “Here’s the story…” are ingrained in our brains.
Every decade has added to those memorable theme songs, too. As you read the titles of shows like The Golden Girls, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or Friends, you can probably hear the themes playing in your head.
Many shows from the mid to late 2010s onward have opted for instrumental-only theme songs, but they still have memorable music in their title sequences, with Game of Thrones being a prime example.
Of course, there have been some wonderfully lyrical exceptions, like “The History of Everything,” which was created and performed by Barenaked Ladies for the title sequence of The Big Bang Theory.
Many of the best TV title sequences are visually captivating and include unforgettable features.
For instance, I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Enterprise D fly into view during the Star Trek: The Next Generation intro.
Another great example is The Crown, a recent Netflix series about the British monarchy, which concluded in 2023.
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Anyone who watched it will remember the imagery of molten gold turning into a crown in the intro for years to come.
Images like those easily burn themselves into our brains, attracting our attention immediately and creating certain associations in our minds.
It often becomes impossible to mentally separate intro visuals from the shows themselves, creating brain associations that make us want to rewatch certain shows when we see images from the intros.
As for interesting features and twists, that category is almost limitless in its creativity.
The classic show Bewitched, for example, used animation in its intro despite the show itself being live-action, and so did I Dream of Jeannie.
A similar trend can be seen on some more recent or current shows, such as Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which also uses an animated title sequence, or HBO’s Game of Thrones, which had a changing map in each title sequence based on where the characters were during the episode.
Fans of Only Murders in the Building know it takes things a step further by changing the opening animation sequence to give us all clues about each episode.
That technique is genius because it reels us in and ensures we pay great attention to every detail.
The iconic animated series The Simpsons also captivates us at the start of each episode by almost always changing the “couch gag” at the end of the intro.
The show Evil (2019-2024) also provides some interesting and sometimes hilarious opening visuals.
Images displayed in the title credits are always unique to each episode.
Items like bloody pickaxes are displayed on a flowing white background that looks like milk, but that’s not the most memorable part.
The show also pokes fun at viewers in its opening credits.
As TV Fanatic editor Carissa Pavlica points out in her review of Evil Season 4 Episode 4, comments like “JENNY PARK OF SUN VALLEY, UTAH SKIPPED THIS INTRO AND LOST ALL HER HAIR.” are hilarious.
Many show fans have commented that reading those silly title sequence messages is one of their favorite parts of each episode.
It’s not essential for an intro to tell an entire story by itself lyrically or visually, but several creative TV title sequences have done that over the years.
Many favorite classic TV shows had particularly good opening story sequences.
Gilligan, Skipper, a millionaire, his wife, a movie star, the professor, and Mary Ann are all characters from Gilligan’s Island.
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We know that because the visuals and theme song lyrics combine to tell us as much right in the title sequence.
We also find out immediately that they all got caught in a storm and were stranded on an island together.
Just like that, we know the whole point of the show before ever watching it.
Such intros are sometimes necessary because there’s a lot of backstory to convey, and it seems like the best place to use some exposition.
For instance, on The Brady Bunch, Carol has three children, all of them girls. Mike also has three children, but they are all boys. They came together, and one of the greatest television families ever was formed.
Ignoring housekeeper Alice, who is pictured in the opening sequence but not mentioned in the theme song, all major players are described in slightly over a minute.
Sure, all of that could be explained in the premiere episode of a series, but what if someone missed the premiere episode?
That was a real fear before the days of streaming apps and other options like DVDs, which is one reason why many early shows, particularly, were prone to that method of intro storytelling during the title sequence of every episode.
If there’s one thing we can learn from watching too much TV, as many of us here at TV Fanatic tend to do, it’s that sometimes less is more when it comes to conveying certain emotions or ideas.
A short sound clip or visual can provide plenty of information, so several TV show intros have taken that approach over the years.
As an ’80s kid, I was thrilled when The Goldbergs (2013-2023) premiered because it was like looking through a mirror into my childhood. The intro alone hits all the right nostalgia buttons for me and other ’80s kids.
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The theme song is played briefly, and an image of the cast on a VHS tape is shown. The tape is then slipped into a VCR, and we see a wonderfully static-filled TV image suddenly come into clear, colorized focus as the episode begins. The memories that little scene conjures up are magical.
Another good example of this method is the Stranger Things (2016-Present) opening title sequence.
It is only about thirty seconds long and simply features the words “Stranger Things” coming into focus in a red neon sign-like font that screams the 1980s, which is the decade in which the show is set.
There are many other examples of short and sweet intro sequences that are just as memorable as longer ones.
Frasier featured an intro sequence that included the quick sketching of the Seattle skyline. The Frasier reboot (2023-Present) is instead set in Boston, so the sketch is the Boston skyline, but the style is the same.
The long-running CW hit Supernatural (2005-2020) was another great show with a short opening title sequence.
The show’s opening typically included a title card, a few action scenes, and close-ups of actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles with their names and lasted roughly 30 seconds.
That combined many of the elements discussed above because showing images of them fighting monsters told us what we were in for, so it was sort of a story.
Also, the title cards changed seasonally and sometimes for special episodes, keeping us interested.
As you can see, there have been and continue to be many great ways to rope people into watching shows using creative TV title sequences.
If this writer had to pick a favorite, it would be the Gilligan-esque storytelling method, which was really in its prime in the ’60s and ’70s.
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Do you have a favorite title sequence element?
What about an all-time favorite show title sequence?
Comment below and let us know.
We’d love to chat about it!
The post The Art of the Opening: What Makes TV Title Sequences Captivating? appeared first on TV Fanatic.
