It’s Thursday and I’m back with a new Thursday Movie Picks feature post. This series is hosted by Wandering through the Shelves and offers you a weekly prompt to post some movie recommendations/talking points according to the theme. Usually, you are supposed to post about 3-5 examples, which I find a very manageable amount.
As it so happens once per month though, today offers us another look at television shows by making it a TV Edition focusing on Opening Title Sequences! Now, what makes a compelling opening title sequence? For me, it often is more about the song than the visuals, but sometimes those are just so brilliant too that I don’t even want to skip them. I’m going to have such a hard time picking just a few!
Dark
Dark is one of my all time favorite shows and the title sequence was done so well. It basically oozes that ominous aura it thrives upon and if you look closely, the intros give different hints for every season.
The Politician
It’s a recent addition, but ever since I heard and saw it, I fell in love with the intro for the Politician. Not only is it a smart way to show the main character’s inner workings, but it’s also Sufjan Stevens – you cannot go wrong with Sufjan Stevens!
Black Sails
The amount of incredible detail that went into this intro is incredible. It’s definitely on the longer side, but I rarely skipped it when I watched the show, I just enjoyed it that much.
Veronica Mars
Could not resist adding this one here. When “We Used to Be Friends” starts playing, I’m immediately back to my 12-year-old self wanting to be a badass private detective. This show shaped me and the song belongs to that experience.
Rectify
Rectify is such an underrated show in general and the intro was always just beautiful. It is so calming, reflecting that slow storytelling perfectly.
Honorable Mentions
There’s a lot of shows from my childhood and early teens that will just always be dear to me, even if possibly wasn’t the most original intros ever. And there’s just also shows from my adult days that didn’t all fit in above. As I said at the beginning of the post, the song choice is really essential for a good intro and these shows had a great song:
- Friday Night Lights
- One Piece
- Gilmore Girls
- Dawson’s Creek
- The O.C.
- Everwood
- Game of Thrones
- True Blood
- Smallville
- Misfits
- Sherlock (BBC)
- Westworld
- Doom Patrol
- Vikings
- Downton Abbey
- Daredevil
- Outlander
- Doug
- Pepper Ann
My FAVORITE Outro!
Just because I always like to mess with the themes of the week a little bit, here is my favorite outro song ever – Bojack Horseman! I’m terrible because I usually don’t watch credits, but with that show I always wanted to listen to the song some more.
Life and Other Disasters 
I’ve been wanting to watch Dark for a while now! I haven’t seen the others but for Veronica Mars and yes, that song is so good! I never really watched a lot of The O.C. but I always loved the opening song there too.
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Dark, as I said in the post, is one of my faves! I’m totally not objective when it comes to the show though, because I know a lot of people who were involved. It’s a complex show, definitely to be watched with subtitles and having to pay a lot of attention, but it’s so satisfying in the end.
This post really brought back all my teeny memories with those theme songs haha
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I’ve never care much for most western intros/outros. GOT and Supernatural (Carry On Wayward Son) being the exception, and maybe a handful of others. I loved the classical Marvel movie intros with the comic book pages as well. (Wandavision’s very short and continuously changing intro was pretty good too.)
But I just think anime has the best intro/outro songs and opening sequences in general. They are always consistently good. Def agree with One Piece being among them, as well as Haikyu in all the seasons. (I can tell I like an opening then I don’t want to skip it to watch the episode after one or two episodes.)
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I’ve always been kinda obsessed with Western media, but never really found my footing in anime, which is probably why my list looks the way it does. I watched One Piece and Digimon and that was about it haha
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I love your honorable mentions list (given that I haven’t seen the others before lol) especially Daredevil and Smallville! They really set the mood for the show ahead
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Thanks! I always try to go for less obvious choices in the top list (to maybe introduce new stuff to people) and then use the more popular choices in my honorable mentions. But I totally forgot gems like Brooklyn 99 or Fresh Prince of Bel Air etc. There’s just so many good intros.
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I’m glad ‘Westworld’ & ‘Daredevil’ made your honorable mention list. They were the first things I thought of when I saw the article.
Forgive me if my entries are goofy and old. Perhaps that says something about me…
The sixties Spiderman cartoon was horribly done, but the opening theme song was classic.
The sixties t.v. show ‘Rawhide’, that featured and debuted a young Clint Eastwood had an awesome theme song.
My favorite opening theme and title sequence of any show though is the sixties ‘Jonny Quest cartoon that features a score by Herb Albert, a famous jazz guy.’. Stay away from any reboot of JQ. They’re all horrible, but the original rocks.
I like this articles theme. I hope you continue.
Happy Trails!
~Ichabod.
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Not goofy at all! Those are perfectly fine picks for the topic, even though I never really watched those shows. If I had gone further back into my childhood, I’d likely add Doug and Pepper Ann? (actually, let me edit the post and add those haha)
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I’m two for five on these being familiar with only Black Sails and Veronica Mars.
I’ve seen an episode or two of Black Sails but not enough to really know the complete story.
With Veronica Mars, the show was on the wrong night when it originally broadcast so I never had much of a chance to see it but I caught the odd episode.
The Politician opening is nicely done.
I don’t watch much TV anymore so I reached back to three that are iconic to me.
Bewitched (1964-1972)-Clever animation of the lead couple-witch Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and human Darrin (first Dick York, later Dick Sargent) plus troublesome mother-in-law Endora (Agnes Moorehead) represented by a cloud of black smoke set to zippy music that hints at the magical theme of the show all in under 40 seconds!
Gilligan’s Island (1964-1967)-Imagine a small boat, a storm-tossed sea, a spinning captain’s wheel and a lonely isle then sing along!
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailin‘ man,
the Skipper brave and sure,
five passengers set sail that day,
for a three-hour tour,
a three-hour tour. The weather started getting rough,
the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
the Minnow would be lost.
The Minnow would be lost.
The ship’s aground on the shore of this
uncharted desert isle
with Gilligan,
the Skipper too.
The millionaire and his wife,
the movie star,
the professor and Mary Ann,
here on Gilligan’s Isle!”
The Brady Bunch (1969-1974)-Over the background of a tic-tac-toe board filled with the faces of the cast all mobile and smiling at each other we hear:
“Here’s the story
Of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up three very lovely girls
All of them had hair of gold
Like their mother
The youngest one in curls
It’s the story
Of a man named Brady
Who was busy with three boys of his own
They were four men
Living all together
Yet they were all alone
‚Til the one day when the lady met this fellow
And they knew that it was much more than a hunch
That this group must somehow form a family
That’s the way we all became the Brady bunch
The Brady bunch, the Brady bunch
That’s the way we became the Brady bunch.”
And then Alice pops into the middle square!
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Oooh I LOVE Black Sails! The song by Bear McCreary and the incredible details of those porcelain statues are amazing, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Two of my picks are in your Honorable Mention, there are so many great TV opening titles!
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I had such a hard time choosing favourites, but in the end I went with some for the major list that I suspected people might not know AS MUCH. Glad you found some of your own picks in the post as well though 😀
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DARK truly has one of the best intros I have ever seen, it’s so iconic!! The layers and meanings of each season’s intro are so great 😊 I’m really sad it’s over 🥺
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I miss Dark too, but at least it was a very satisfying show with a great ending.
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