Anyhow I do agree they're often boring. The most annoying one is for House of Cards - it goes on forever. Thankfully you can usually fast forward the intros. Which I what I reckon most people do - at least for the longer ones anyway.
They tend to be a lot shorter in newer shows though. Older shows' credit sequence would typically last over a minute, whereas IME they tend to be 30 seconds or less on newer shows, some even less, and some only have a title card sting.
If there is any correlation I've observed, it's more to do with the genre of show and it's running time.
Take Boardwalk Empire, another really long intro. Yet Lost, which is an older show, only had a title graphic that lasted a couple of seconds.
Not just that, but the images in each region are subtly altered to reflect the events in the storyline in that region.
Moreover, some older shows didn't have opening credits and a great many that did, often only did so after an acted prelude
I still get wistful and sad when I hear someone dimly recall "those TVs with the big things on the back".
It's weird that it took so long. Early films, the Jazz Singer if you go way back, had a fifteen minute overture, reminiscent of the orchestral opening to stage plays while people found their seats.
Movies eventually realized that, artistic merit notwithstanding, that was boring. They first shortened those intros to a card of the main players. Sometime later the guilds required credits include all craftsman, but just stars. A fair and egalitarian move with the unintended consequences of reexpanding credits, making them... Less fun. Studios just moved the credits to the end and began with some establishing scene instead, as a compromise between the contributors and audience.
I guess anyone who mostly watched things after Lost wouldn't expect long tv intros. But then, most streaming services let you skip them, so it shouldn't be a big deal
Great catch. I think Sorkin followed that model in Sports Night, probably trying to emulate MB's feeling of crashing into a busy production room. Can't think of an earlier one though.
I, Claudius also just had a title card, a snake crawling across a mosiac, but it somehow dragged that out for a full thirty seconds according to YouTube, so I'm not sure that really counts.
In film apparently Lucas got in trouble for not crediting the director in his title-only opening for Star Wars, leading him to resign from the guild. The practice became more common though, Clint Eastwood has done title-only openings for everything he's made.
Brief history of the length of opening credits sequences here, with Family Matters as one of the most excessive examples: https://theweek.com/articles/632836/brief-history-tv-shows-o...
Even that misses Murphy Brown though, so now I'm not sure anyone's thoroughly done the research. Where's Abed when you need him?
Don't forget studio executives, marketers, accountants, IT support staff, and babies born to all of the above.
And today with the rise of the post-credits sequence, it's getting hard for the audience to skip the credits and still see all of the meaty bits of the movie.
If opening credits are done right, they can serve a function, e.g. The Wire.
An example from the cinema world would be Michael Mann's films.