1970s TV opening titles

The 1970s account for 151 of the 2,618 shows here, and 160 opening title sequences.

Comedy leads the decade with 59, then drama with 27.

ABC carries more of them than anyone else, with 34.

Eight rebuilt their titles mid-run, The Facts of Life 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 151

1 sequence

Saturday Night Live

1975–NBCComedy

A new cast montage every single season for fifty years — New York at night, the current company photographed in it, and a band playing over the top. The longest-running rotating title sequence on television.

Season 1

1 sequence

All in the Family

1971–1979CBSComedy

Two people at an upright piano singing about how things used to be — an opening performed live by the cast rather than scored.

Season 1

1 sequence

Columbo

1971–2003NBC / ABCCrime

Twenty-four seconds, and for much of the run no sequence at all — a series confident enough to open on the murder and let the detective arrive late.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Waltons

1972–1981CBSDrama

A Virginia mountain homestead in the Depression, introduced with a warmth the decade's other dramas had no interest in.

Season 1

1 sequence

Fawlty Towers

1975–1979BBC TwoComedy

A hotel sign whose letters are rearranged into a different rude anagram every episode — the earliest running title gag in this catalogue by two decades.

Season 1

1 sequence

Happy Days

1974–1984ABCComedy

A fifties jukebox theme that started as a closing song and was promoted to the opening once it became a hit record.

Season 1

2 sequences

The Young and the Restless

1973–CBSDrama

Genoa City, and the daytime ratings leader in America for more than thirty-five consecutive years.

Season 16
Season 45

1 sequence

Dallas

1978–1991CBSDrama

A three-panel split screen over the Dallas skyline, and the theme that defined what a primetime soap was allowed to sound like.

Season 10

1 sequence

Three's Company

1976–1984ABCComedy

A theme that explains the premise, the address and the invitation in about forty seconds, then hands you a farce.

Season 1

2 sequences

Family Feud

1976–ABC / SyndicationDocumentary

Survey says — two families, a buzzer, and a theme rearranged for every host since Richard Dawson.

Season 1
Season 35

2 sequences

Emmerdale

1972–ITVDrama

A Yorkshire Dales farming serial that dropped Farm from its name in 1989 and kept the landscape.

Season 27
Season 49

1 sequence

The Love Boat

1977–1987ABCComedy

A cruise ship with a new guest cast every week, introduced by name in the titles.

Season 3

2 sequences

The Price Is Right

1972–CBSDocumentary

"Come on down" — the longest-running game show in American television, opening the same way for fifty years.

Season 1
Season 36

1 sequence

Taxi

1978–1983ABC / NBCComedy

A single cab crossing the Queensboro Bridge to Bob James's electric piano — no cast, no jokes, and an unusually melancholy opening for a comedy.

Season 1

1 sequence

Emergency!

1972–1977NBCDrama

Los Angeles County paramedics, made with the fire department's cooperation and credited with popularising the profession.

Season 1

1 sequence

Roots

1977ABCDrama

The miniseries that changed what American television believed it was allowed to broadcast, opened with Quincy Jones and a slave ship.

Season 1

1 sequence

Sanford and Son

1972–1977NBCComedy

Quincy Jones writing a harmonica blues for a junkyard — one of the few sitcom themes composed by someone of that stature.

Season 1

1 sequence

WKRP in Cincinnati

1978–1982CBSComedy

A radio-station sitcom whose theme was written to sound like a record the station would actually play.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Rockford Files

1974–1980NBCCrime

A telephone rings, an answering machine picks up, and a stranger leaves a message that is usually bad news and occasionally a joke at Rockford's expense. Then the theme starts. The private detective is introduced by the people avoiding him.

Seasons 1–6

1 sequence

The Six Million Dollar Man

1973–1978ABCSci-Fi

A crash, a countdown and the promise that they can rebuild him — narration that entered the language more thoroughly than the show did.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Muppet Show

1976–1981ITV / SyndicationComedy

An opening that changes every week by design: Statler and Waldorf get a new heckle, Gonzo gets a new way to fail the closing note, and the arch fills with whoever is in that episode.