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Comment by ambrosite | Hacker News Reader

You mean, the opening credits/music? Well yeah, those are the same in every episode, but I assume almost everyone skips those after they've seen it the first few times. Even the Battlestar Galactica reboot had an opening credits sequence which I usually skipped.

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You know you're old when you have to explain opening credit sequences to people because everyone younger than you is just used to TV shows jumping right in (often in medias res)

The thing is, I get why opening credit sequences have fallen out of fashion. They were a holdover from the broadcast television era where they served a legitimate purpose, but they are completely unnecessary in an online, on-demand viewing environment. It actually annoys me now to have to sit through a title sequence of any kind, whether it be in a television show or a video game (I am one of those people who will edit a game's config files to get rid of them).

Yeah, just like I totally get why today's computer and video displays are all LCDs.

I still get wistful and sad when I hear someone dimly recall "those TVs with the big things on the back".

Opening sequences weren't required for the old broadcaster either as the had a special pre-show clock that would count down on the tape before the start. I'm fact You sometimes saw this on TV.

Moreover, some older shows didn't have opening credits and a great many that did, often only did so after an acted prelude

Lost was the first big show I can remember that just had a one to two beat opening theme.

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

Murphy Brown was the first show I can recall that dispensed with a theme song entirely and just displayed the credits over the opening scene. I remember thinking it was a revolutionary change (especially for a sitcom) when I first saw it back in the early 1990s.

> Murphy Brown

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?

> Sometime later the guilds required credits include all craftsman, [not] just stars.

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.

I could never skip the ending credits of The Wire. And for some seasons the opening ones too.

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.

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