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TVTitles

1950s TV opening titles

The 1950s account for 46 of the 2,618 shows here, and 52 opening title sequences.

Comedy leads the decade with 13, then drama with 12.

CBS carries more of them than anyone else, with 18.

Five rebuilt their titles mid-run, The Twilight Zone most of all with three sequences.

Filed by first broadcast. A show that ran for thirty years appears once, under the decade it started in.

Most looked up

Pick a genre above for all 46

Still from the opening titles of The Adventures of Superman1 sequence

The Adventures of Superman

1952–1958SyndicationSci-Fi

"Faster than a speeding bullet" — the narration that defined the character for a generation before any film did.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Bonanza1 sequence

Bonanza

1959–1973NBCDrama

A burning map and four men riding out of it — one of the first title sequences designed to show off colour television, which is precisely why it looks like that.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of I Love Lucy1 sequence

I Love Lucy

1951–1957CBSComedy

A satin heart on a cigarette-brand backdrop — a title card that exists because the sponsor paid for it, and which outlived the sponsor by seventy years.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Honeymooners1 sequence

The Honeymooners

1955–1956CBSComedy

A moon over Brooklyn and an orchestra — the sitcom that most American sitcoms since are a variation on, in thirty-nine episodes.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Blue Peter2 sequences

Blue Peter

1958–BBC OneDocumentary

The world's longest-running children's programme, opening on a ship in full sail and a hornpipe.

  • Season 45
  • Season 64
Still from the opening titles of Perry Mason (1957)1 sequence

Perry Mason (1957)

1957–1966CBSCrime

'Park Avenue Beat' — a jazz chart with a walking bass, over a courtroom drama that ran for nine years on almost nothing else.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of As the World Turns2 sequences

As the World Turns

1956–2010CBSDrama

The turning globe that gave American daytime its most-copied image, over fifty-four years.

  • Season 41
  • Season 52
Still from the opening titles of The Bullwinkle Show1 sequence

The Bullwinkle Show

1959–1964ABC / NBCAnimation

Jay Ward's squirrel and moose, which began as Rocky and His Friends and was renamed for the character who talked more.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Guiding Light2 sequences

Guiding Light

1952–2009CBSDrama

Seventy-two years on radio and television between them — the longest-running story ever told in any medium.

  • Season 44
  • Season 51
Still from the opening titles of Rawhide1 sequence

Rawhide

1959–1965CBSDrama

A cattle drive that never arrives, with Frankie Laine's theme and a young Clint Eastwood.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Rifleman1 sequence

The Rifleman

1958–1963ABCDrama

A widowed rancher and his son, opened by twelve rounds fired down a street in under ten seconds.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Wagon Train1 sequence

Wagon Train

1957–1965NBC / ABCDrama

A wagon company crossing to California, and the series Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek against.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet1 sequence

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

1952–1966ABCComedy

A real family playing themselves for fourteen years, which is the longest-running live-action sitcom in American television.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Have Gun – Will Travel1 sequence

Have Gun – Will Travel

1957–1963CBSDrama

A gunfighter who advertises in the newspaper, and one of the first westerns to open on a business card.

  • Seasons 1–6
Still from the opening titles of Father Knows Best1 sequence

Father Knows Best

1954–1960CBS / NBCComedy

The Anderson family of Springfield, and the series the phrase came from.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Twilight Zone3 sequences

The Twilight Zone

1959–1964CBSSci-Fi

Three different openings in five seasons, and the one everybody can hum arrived third. Rod Serling narrates the audience into another dimension over abstractions that were, for 1959, genuinely strange television.

  • Season 1
  • Season 2
  • Seasons 3–5
Still from the opening titles of The Lawrence Welk Show1 sequence

The Lawrence Welk Show

1951–1982ABC / SyndicationDocumentary

Champagne music, bubbles in the titles, and thirty-one years of the same band leader counting in.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of To Tell the Truth1 sequence

To Tell the Truth

1956–CBSDocumentary

Three people claiming to be the same person, and the line that ends it — will the real one please stand up.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Danny Thomas Show1 sequence

The Danny Thomas Show

1953–1964ABC / CBSComedy

Eleven years of a nightclub comedian's home life, and the series The Andy Griffith Show was spun out of.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Romper Room1 sequence

Romper Room

1953–1994SyndicationComedy

A franchised preschool programme licensed to local stations, each with its own hostess and the same magic mirror.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Donna Reed Show1 sequence

The Donna Reed Show

1958–1966ABCComedy

A sitcom its star produced herself, which is why the mother in it has a job the plot takes seriously.

  • Season 8
Still from the opening titles of Sky King1 sequence

Sky King

1951–1962NBC / ABCDrama

An Arizona rancher who catches criminals from a twin-engined aeroplane, out of the radio serial.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Untouchables1 sequence

The Untouchables

1959–1963ABCCrime

Walter Winchell narrating over Prohibition Chicago at a clip that makes the whole thing sound like a news bulletin — which was the intention.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Huckleberry Hound Show1 sequence

The Huckleberry Hound Show

1958–1961SyndicationAnimation

The first animated series to win an Emmy, and the show Yogi Bear was a supporting segment in.

  • Season 1