Main Titles

This isn’t the most pressing of TV-related issues, but: isn’t it a little surprising that there are so few network shows that have the opening titles at the beginning? I always assumed that the habit of putting the opening titles at the end of an act (or sometimes, today, in the middle: a cold open followed by the main titles followed by a few more scenes) developed because networks were afraid we’d switch the channel if they started with the titles. But most pay-cable shows, plus basic cable shows like Mad Men, begin with the main title and don’t seem to lose many viewers because of it. It just seems like no matter how short the titles are for a network show, they’ll put them after the first scene; How I Met Your Mother and The Office both started out with the theme song at the beginning, only to move it to after the first scene. In the case of HIMYM, the theme song worked much, much better at the beginning; that’s the only respect in which the first season is superior to the second. Family Guy and The Simpsons and other animated shows still (usually) have the titles first, and that’s almost it.

Last week I was advocating a return to the full-length TV intro, as opposed to just the title or a 20-second blink-and-you-miss-it sequence. I thought I would follow up by mentioning a few of the different types of intros that a show can do, and what they do for the show. Since doing them all at once would lead to a post about seventy kajillion words long, I’ll do four at a time. I’ll do part 2 later this week, but in the meantime, feel free to mention the ones I haven’t got to yet and which types of intros you like best. And also check out Lee Goldberg’s Main Title Heaven, collecting YouTube videos of main titles both famous and obscure.