Animation
Drawn, and rarely still for two seasons running.
Animation accounts for 463 of the 2,618 shows here, with 478 opening title sequences from 1958 to the present.
More of them began in the 2010s than in any other decade — 123, against 108 in the 2000s.
13 rebuilt their titles mid-run.
Cartoon Network carries more of them than anyone else, with 50.
463 shows · 478 sequences
The ones that kept changing
All 13 in Animation · every genre →
3 sequences
Beast Wars: Transformers
Transformers rebuilt in computer graphics on a fraction of the budget, which is why everybody is an animal.
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Season 3
3 sequences
Robotech
Three unrelated Japanese series cut together into one American saga, and the opening is where the seam shows: the same theme and the same establishing pan every week, then a different logo card and a different war.
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Season 3
2 sequences
Family Guy
A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.
- Season 1
- Season 10
2 sequences
Futurama
Like The Simpsons, an opening built to differ every week — a new caption under the logo and a different scrap of old cartoon on the screen the ship flies past — wrapped around Christopher Tyng's theme and a crash into a billboard.
- Seasons 1–4
- Seasons 6–7
2 sequences
King of the Hill
Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.
- Season 1
- Season 14
2 sequences
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
A schoolgirl who can rewrite reality and has not been told, in an adaptation that first broadcast its episodes deliberately out of order.
- Season 1
- Season 2
Most looked up in animation
Pick a decade above for all 463
1 sequence
Invincible
A title card that gets progressively more blood-spattered as the season goes on — the show's escalation, tracked in one graphic.
- Season 1
1 sequence
One Piece
The longest-running opening rotation in television — more than twenty distinct sequences over a quarter of a century, each announcing a new arc.
- Season 1
2 sequences
The Simpsons
The only main title in television built to be different every week: the chalkboard, the saxophone solo and the couch gag all change, so the sequence is a format rather than a film.
- Seasons 1–20
- Season 21
2 sequences
South Park
A banjo, a cut-paper Colorado town and four boys at a bus stop — re-recorded and re-animated repeatedly across nearly thirty years while staying recognisably the same twenty-nine seconds.
- Season 1
- Season 15
1 sequence
SpongeBob SquarePants
A sea shanty led by a painted pirate head, in call and response with children — one of the most universally known pieces of television music written this century.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Smiling Friends
A tiny company whose job is making people happy, with a title card that is over almost before it starts.
- Seasons 1–2
1 sequence
Rick and Morty
A montage of adventures that mostly never happened, re-cut every season out of clips from episodes that do not exist.
- Season 1
1 sequence
The Mighty Nein
Critical Role's second campaign animated, three years after The Legend of Vox Machina did the first.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Four elements demonstrated in turn by four benders, then a narrated history — a world explained completely in about a minute, every week.
- Season 1
2 sequencesFamily Guy
A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.
- Season 1
- Season 10
2 sequencesKing of the Hill
Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.
- Season 1
- Season 14
1 sequenceBluey
A blue heeler puppy and her family, animated in Brisbane, whose titles introduce the whole household in under half a minute.
- Seasons 1–3
1 sequenceNeon Genesis Evangelion
Ninety seconds cut faster than the eye resolves, with whole frames of text and diagram flashed for one frame each. Yoko Takahashi's theme is bright, major-key J-pop laid over imagery that is doing nothing of the kind, and the mismatch is the point rather than an accident.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Legend of Vox Machina
The first Critical Role campaign animated as a series, with a proper broadcast title sequence to go with it.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Arcane
Painterly animation of two sisters pulling apart, rendered in the same hand-worked style as the series — one of the few animated openings that is not a step down from the show it introduces.
- Season 1
1 sequencePrimal
Twenty seconds of charcoal and blood, with no dialogue anywhere in it — which is also true of most of the series.
- Season 1
2 sequencesFuturama
Like The Simpsons, an opening built to differ every week — a new caption under the logo and a different scrap of old cartoon on the screen the ship flies past — wrapped around Christopher Tyng's theme and a crash into a billboard.
- Seasons 1–4
- Seasons 6–7
2 sequences
Pokémon
The longest-running video-game adaptation on television, and a theme song that outlasted every cast change.
- Season 1
- Season 5
1 sequencePhineas and Ferb
A theme that lists everything the characters intend to build over the summer, at a tempo that leaves no room to breathe.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJujutsu Kaisen
Eve's 'Kaikai Kitan' over animation that keeps breaking its own frame — one of the sequences that made the studio's reputation.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAttack on Titan
A new opening for almost every cour, each one restating the series' situation as it currently stands — which over four seasons means the titles document a war changing sides.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBob's Burgers
Three running gags in nineteen seconds — the burger of the day, the shop next door, and the pest-control van — all three rewritten for every single episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBeavis and Butt-Head
Two teenagers on a sofa, and a guitar riff played about as well as they would play it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCyberpunk: Edgerunners
Franz Ferdinand over Night City, cut by Studio Trigger at a speed that dares you to keep up.
- Season 1