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Animation · 2000s

The 2000s account for 108 of the 463 animation shows here, and 109 opening sequences.

Cartoon Network carries the most, with 20.

One rebuilt its titles mid-run: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, with two sequences.

108 shows109 sequences

Still from the opening titles of Avatar: The Last Airbender1 sequence

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2005–2008NickelodeonAnimation

Four elements demonstrated in turn by four benders, then a narrated history — a world explained completely in about a minute, every week.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Phineas and Ferb1 sequence

Phineas and Ferb

2007–2015Disney ChannelAnimation

A theme that lists everything the characters intend to build over the summer, at a tempo that leaves no room to breathe.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of American Dad!1 sequence

American Dad!

2005–Fox / TBSAnimation

A CIA agent singing about his morning routine, in a sequence that varies its final line to suit the episode.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Boondocks1 sequence

The Boondocks

2005–2014Adult SwimAnimation

Aaron McGruder's strip animated in an anime register, opened by Asheru's theme over ink-wash stills.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Naruto Shippuden1 sequence

Naruto Shippuden

2007–2017TV TokyoAnimation

Twenty distinct openings across a decade, changed roughly every cour — one of the largest rotations of title sequences any series has produced.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Bleach1 sequence

Bleach

2004–TV TokyoAnimation

Fifteen different openings across its original run, each one a complete restyling — a long-running series that treated its titles as a rotating commission rather than a fixed asset.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Archer1 sequence

Archer

2009–2023FXAnimation

Sixties spy-thriller title design executed straight — silhouettes, gun barrels and a brass sting, with the joke being that the show underneath refuses to match it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Star Wars: The Clone Wars1 sequence

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008–2020Cartoon Network / Disney+Animation

A newsreel rather than a title sequence — a narrator reporting the state of the war, rewritten every episode, preceded by a different aphorism each week.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Teen Titans1 sequence

Teen Titans

2003–2006Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A J-pop theme by Puffy AmiYumi, recorded in both Japanese and English and alternated between episodes.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Code Geass1 sequence

Code Geass

2006–2008MBS / TBSAnimation

Mecha and monarchy over a rock track, with the aristocratic cast posed like a fashion shoot.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Fairly OddParents1 sequence

The Fairly OddParents

2001–2017NickelodeonAnimation

A theme that runs through the entire premise as a checklist, revised several times across sixteen years.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Robot Chicken1 sequence

Robot Chicken

2005–Adult SwimAnimation

A chicken reanimated with machinery and forced to watch television, which is the show's premise and its title sequence at once.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Naruto1 sequence

Naruto

2002–2007TV TokyoAnimation

Nine openings across five years, each announcing a new arc — and the first is the one an entire generation can still hum.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Gurren Lagann1 sequence

Gurren Lagann

2007TV TokyoAnimation

A mecha series whose opening escalates as fast as the show does, and which by the end is operating at a scale the first episode could not have suggested.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Aqua Teen Hunger Force1 sequence

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

2000–2015Adult SwimAnimation

A rap theme introducing three fast-food items who do not solve crimes, performed with the conviction of a show that does.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Samurai Jack1 sequence

Samurai Jack

2001–2017Cartoon Network / Adult SwimAnimation

A villain narrating his own defeat of the hero, over graphic-design animation that owes more to UPA than to Saturday morning.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Kim Possible1 sequence

Kim Possible

2002–2007Disney ChannelAnimation

'Call Me, Beep Me' over split-screen spy graphics — a theme so tied to the show that Disney rerecorded it for the live-action film and was widely told not to.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Venture Bros.1 sequence

The Venture Bros.

2003–2018Adult SwimAnimation

Jonny Quest's adventure-cartoon grammar played straight and then left to rot for fifteen years.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Samurai Champloo1 sequence

Samurai Champloo

2004–2005Fuji TVAnimation

Nujabes and Shing02 over Edo-period swordplay — hip-hop and historical drama treated as obviously compatible, which nobody had assumed before.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Codename: Kids Next Door1 sequence

Codename: Kids Next Door

2002–2008Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A spy-thriller opening for five children fighting adults, played with the seriousness of a much larger programme.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy1 sequence

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

2001–2007Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Two children who win the Grim Reaper in a limbo contest and keep him as a friend.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Batman1 sequence

The Batman

2004–2008Kids' WBAnimation

The series that had to follow Batman: The Animated Series and chose to look nothing like it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Moral Orel1 sequence

Moral Orel

2005–2008Adult SwimAnimation

Stop-motion in the Davey and Goliath idiom, which by its third season had stopped being a parody at all.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Justice League1 sequence

Justice League

2001–2006Cartoon NetworkAnimation

An orchestral fanfare and seven heroes introduced in sequence, from the same production team as Batman: The Animated Series and with the same refusal to condescend.

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

The Cleveland Show

2009–2013FoxAnimation

The Family Guy spin-off, moving Cleveland Brown to Virginia and giving him a theme song about it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends1 sequence

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

2004–2009Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A boarding house for imaginary friends whose children have outgrown them.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ouran High School Host Club1 sequence

Ouran High School Host Club

2006Nippon TVAnimation

A scholarship student mistaken for a boy and conscripted into the school's host club.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex1 sequence

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

2002–2005AnimaxAnimation

Yoko Kanno again, this time with Origa singing in Russian over cybernetic bodies being assembled — a sequence that treats the human form as hardware.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Clone High1 sequence

Clone High

2002–2023MTV / MaxAnimation

A theme that introduces the entire premise as a shouted list of historical figures, which remains the fastest exposition in animation.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Invader Zim1 sequence

Invader Zim

2001–2006NickelodeonAnimation

Gothic-industrial design on a children's network, with a theme that sounds like it was made under duress.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Total Drama Island1 sequence

Total Drama Island

2007–2008TeletoonAnimation

Survivor animated for children, with confessional booths and eliminations played entirely straight.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Danny Phantom1 sequence

Danny Phantom

2004–2007NickelodeonAnimation

A narrated origin sung over the transformation, in the tradition the network had been running since Doug.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ben 101 sequence

Ben 10

2005–2008Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A theme that lists the premise as a countdown, over a boy who becomes ten different aliens.

  • Seasons 1–2
Still from the opening titles of Cyberchase1 sequence

Cyberchase

2002–PBSAnimation

Three children pulled into a network to stop a villain with mathematics, which is the plot and the curriculum at once.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Batman: The Brave and the Bold1 sequence

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

2008–2011Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Batman team-ups in the Silver Age idiom, opened with a straight-faced superhero fanfare.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Jackie Chan Adventures1 sequence

Jackie Chan Adventures

2000–2005Kids' WBAnimation

Jackie Chan as an archaeologist hunting talismans, with the real Chan answering fan questions at the end of each episode.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Dora the Explorer1 sequence

Dora the Explorer

2000–2019NickelodeonAnimation

A bilingual preschool series built on asking the audience questions and leaving room for the answer.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters1 sequence

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

2000–2004TV TokyoAnimation

A card game staged as a series of duels to the death, with an opening rebuilt several times inside its first season.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Drawn Together1 sequence

Drawn Together

2004–2007Comedy CentralAnimation

A reality-house parody whose cast are each drawn in a different studio's style.

  • Seasons 1–2
Still from the opening titles of The Proud Family1 sequence

The Proud Family

2001–2005Disney ChannelAnimation

Penny Proud and her family, opened by a theme Solange recorded with Destiny's Child.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Metalocalypse1 sequence

Metalocalypse

2006–2013Adult SwimAnimation

A death-metal theme written and performed by the show's creator, for a cartoon about a band whose concerts have a body count.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Spectacular Spider-Man1 sequence

The Spectacular Spider-Man

2008–2009The CW / Disney XDAnimation

Web-line geometry and a surf-rock horn chart, widely held to be the best Spider-Man adaptation in any medium.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of My Life as a Teenage Robot1 sequence

My Life as a Teenage Robot

2003–2009NickelodeonAnimation

A teenage combat robot who would rather be at school, drawn in hard mid-century angles.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius1 sequence

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

2002–2006NickelodeonAnimation

One of the first fully CG series made for American television week to week.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Static Shock1 sequence

Static Shock

2000–2004The WBAnimation

A hip-hop theme over a Black teenage superhero in Dakota — from the same DC animation house as Batman and Superman, and tonally nothing like either.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack1 sequence

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

2008–2012Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A boy raised by a whale, in a sea-shanty register that got steadily more unsettling.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Chowder1 sequence

Chowder

2007–2010Cartoon NetworkAnimation

An apprentice cook in Marzipan City, animated over patterned backgrounds that never stop moving.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Toradora!1 sequence

Toradora!

2008–2009TV TokyoAnimation

Two students agreeing to help each other with the wrong crushes, which goes exactly as expected.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of American Dragon: Jake Long1 sequence

American Dragon: Jake Long

2005–2007Disney ChannelAnimation

A New York teenager who is also the American Dragon, and the only one.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Xiaolin Showdown1 sequence

Xiaolin Showdown

2003–2006Kids' WBAnimation

Four apprentice monks collecting artefacts, in a series that borrows its fight grammar from wuxia rather than from superheroes.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi1 sequence

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi

2004–2006Cartoon NetworkAnimation

The Japanese pop duo animated as cartoon versions of themselves, with a theme they recorded.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of As Told by Ginger1 sequence

As Told by Ginger

2000–2006NickelodeonAnimation

Middle school treated as continuing drama rather than a gag engine, which was unusual for the slot.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Camp Lazlo1 sequence

Camp Lazlo

2005–2008Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A Brazilian spider monkey at a scout camp run by a humourless beetle.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of 6teen1 sequence

6teen

2004–2010TeletoonAnimation

Six sixteen-year-olds working in the same shopping centre, from the Total Drama creators.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law1 sequence

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

2000–2007Adult SwimAnimation

Birdman as a lawyer representing Hanna-Barbera characters, opened in the register of a network legal drama.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Back at the Barnyard1 sequence

Back at the Barnyard

2007–2011NickelodeonAnimation

Farm animals who behave like people the moment the farmer leaves.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera1 sequence

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

2007–2008NickelodeonAnimation

A boy from a family of both superheroes and supervillains, who has not chosen yet.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX1 sequence

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

2004–2008TV TokyoAnimation

The Duel Monsters sequel, moved to a boarding school for duellists.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Emperor's New School1 sequence

The Emperor's New School

2006–2008Disney ChannelAnimation

The Emperor's New Groove continued as a school comedy, with the film's narrator still interrupting.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Sealab 20211 sequence

Sealab 2021

2000–2005Adult SwimAnimation

A 1972 Hanna-Barbera series redubbed into something else entirely, keeping the original's animation and none of its intentions.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Squidbillies1 sequence

Squidbillies

2005–2021Adult SwimAnimation

Appalachian squids, with a theme song rerecorded by a different artist almost every season — one of the longest-running rotating title sequences on American television.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Between the Lions1 sequence

Between the Lions

2000–2010PBSAnimation

A family of lions running a library, in a reading programme built by the people who made Sesame Street.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Fanboy & Chum Chum1 sequence

Fanboy & Chum Chum

2009–2014NickelodeonAnimation

Two boys in superhero costumes they never take off, in one of Nickelodeon's first CG series.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ozzy & Drix1 sequence

Ozzy & Drix

2002–2004Kids' WBAnimation

The film Osmosis Jones continued as a series, with a white blood cell and a cold pill policing a teenager's body.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Megas XLR1 sequence

Megas XLR

2004–2005Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A New Jersey mechanic who finds a giant robot in a scrapyard and bolts a car to its head.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Superjail!1 sequence

Superjail!

2007–2014Adult SwimAnimation

A prison inside a volcano inside another volcano, animated with more detail per frame than the slot required.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of ChalkZone1 sequence

ChalkZone

2002–2008NickelodeonAnimation

A world made of everything ever erased from a blackboard.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Zeta Project1 sequence

The Zeta Project

2001–2002Kids' WBAnimation

A Batman Beyond spin-off about an assassin robot that refuses to kill and runs from the agency that built it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Yin Yang Yo!1 sequence

Yin Yang Yo!

2006–2009Disney XD / Toon DisneyAnimation

Twin rabbits studying woo-foo under a panda, in a series that never once slowed down.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Mighty B!1 sequence

The Mighty B!

2008–2011NickelodeonAnimation

Amy Poehler's Honeybee scout collecting every badge in existence.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Charlie and Lola1 sequence

Charlie and Lola

2005–2008CBeebiesAnimation

Lauren Child's collage illustration animated as collage, with children rather than actors doing the voices.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Class of 30001 sequence

Class of 3000

2006–2008Cartoon NetworkAnimation

André 3000's series about an Atlanta music class, with a theme he wrote and performed himself.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Time Squad1 sequence

Time Squad

2001–2003Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Time police correcting history, which keeps going wrong in ways they caused.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Brandy & Mr. Whiskers1 sequence

Brandy & Mr. Whiskers

2004–2006Disney ChannelAnimation

A pampered dog and a manic rabbit stranded together in the Amazon.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Replacements1 sequence

The Replacements

2006–2009Disney ChannelAnimation

Two orphans with a phone number that replaces any adult in their lives.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Buzz on Maggie1 sequence

The Buzz on Maggie

2005–2006Disney ChannelAnimation

A teenage fly in a rubbish dump, which the series treats as an ordinary suburb.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Tom Goes to the Mayor1 sequence

Tom Goes to the Mayor

2004–2006Adult SwimAnimation

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's first series, animated from photographs of the cast with almost no motion.

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

The Brak Show

2000–2003Adult SwimAnimation

The Space Ghost villain relocated to a 1950s sitcom family, with the sitcom open played completely straight.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Gintama1 sequence

Gintama

2006–2021TV TokyoAnimation

Samurai comedy in an alien-occupied Edo, and one of the longest lists of distinct opening sequences in television.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Krypto the Superdog1 sequence

Krypto the Superdog

2005–2006Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Superman's dog on Earth without him, living with a boy in suburban Metropolis.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of 12 oz. Mouse1 sequence

12 oz. Mouse

2005–2020Adult SwimAnimation

Drawn deliberately badly in flat colour, and the show that pushed hardest at what the block would broadcast.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Life & Times of Tim1 sequence

The Life & Times of Tim

2008–2012HBOAnimation

A man in New York whose every conversation makes his situation worse, drawn as simply as possible.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher1 sequence

Dennis the Menace and Gnasher

2009–2013CBBCAnimation

The Beano strip animated for CBBC, with the comic's line kept largely intact.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Backyardigans1 sequence

The Backyardigans

2004–2013Nick Jr.Animation

Five animals whose garden becomes a different world every episode, with a full musical score in a different genre each time.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom1 sequence

Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom

2009–2013Channel 5 / Nick Jr.Animation

Elves and fairies from the people who made Peppa Pig, drawn in the same flat two dimensions.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Clannad1 sequence

Clannad

2007–2009TBSAnimation

A Kyoto Animation adaptation that spends a full season setting up what the second season does to you.

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

Dinosaur Train

2009–PBS KidsAnimation

A Tyrannosaurus raised by Pteranodons, riding a train between geological periods.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Doraemon (2005)1 sequence

Doraemon (2005)

2005–TV AsahiAnimation

The robot cat from the twenty-second century, remade in 2005 with an entirely new voice cast after twenty-six years of the old one.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood1 sequence

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

2009–2010MBS / TBSAnimation

Alchemical circles and transmutation, animated at a scale the first adaptation could not afford.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Hajime no Ippo1 sequence

Hajime no Ippo

2000–2014Nippon TVAnimation

A bullied shopkeeper's son taken into a boxing gym, and one of the few sports series that gets the training right.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Handy Manny1 sequence

Handy Manny

2006–2011Playhouse DisneyAnimation

A bilingual repairman whose tools talk, and the programme that taught a generation of American children their first Spanish.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Happy Tree Friends1 sequence

Happy Tree Friends

2000–Mondo MediaAnimation

Woodland animals drawn in the shape of greetings cards and then killed in every episode, made for the web years before television wanted it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Johnny Test1 sequence

Johnny Test

2005–2014Kids' WB / Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A boy who lets his scientist sisters test inventions on him in exchange for whatever he wants that week.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast1 sequence

Maggie and the Ferocious Beast

2000–2002TeletoonAnimation

A girl, a spotted beast and a pig live on Nowhere Land, where nothing much goes wrong.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Max & Ruby1 sequence

Max & Ruby

2002–2020Nick Jr. / Treehouse TVAnimation

A rabbit of three and his sister of seven, in a world where no adult ever appears on screen.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya2 sequences

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

2006–2009Tokyo MXAnimation

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
Still from the opening titles of Miffy and Friends1 sequence

Miffy and Friends

2003–2005KRO / CITVAnimation

Dick Bruna's rabbit animated in stop motion, keeping the flat colours and the two-dot face intact.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Monster1 sequence

Monster

2004–2005Nippon TVAnimation

Restrained to the point of austerity — portraits, European streets and a single held tone, for a series about a doctor who saved the wrong life.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Mr. Bean: The Animated Series1 sequence

Mr. Bean: The Animated Series

2002–2019ITVAnimation

The character animated, which suits him — he barely spoke in live action either.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Mr. Men Show1 sequence

The Mr. Men Show

2008–2009Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Roger Hargreaves' shapes rebuilt as a sketch show, forty years after the books.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Oswald1 sequence

Oswald

2001–2003NickelodeonAnimation

A blue octopus and his dachshund in a town drawn without a straight line in it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Peppa Pig1 sequence

Peppa Pig

2004–Channel 5Animation

A preschool series drawn in flat two dimensions and sold to a hundred and eighty countries, which is more than almost anything else British television has made.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Pocoyo1 sequence

Pocoyo

2005–2010La 2 / CITVAnimation

A Spanish preschool series played out on plain white, with no scenery at all to compete with the four-year-old and the narrator who argues with him.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Popee the Performer1 sequence

Popee the Performer

2000–2001Kids StationAnimation

A circus in the desert, animated in early CGI and far more violent than its length suggests.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Spider-Man: The New Animated Series1 sequence

Spider-Man: The New Animated Series

2003MTV / YTVAnimation

MTV's computer-animated Spider-Man, set between the first two films and cancelled after thirteen episodes.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Super Why!1 sequence

Super Why!

2007–2016PBS KidsAnimation

Four children who solve their problems by climbing into storybooks and changing the spelling.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Tokyo Mew Mew1 sequence

Tokyo Mew Mew

2002TV TokyoAnimation

Five girls infused with the DNA of endangered animals, in the magical girl series that made cat ears a convention.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Totally Spies!1 sequence

Totally Spies!

2001–2014TF1 / Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Three Beverly Hills schoolgirls working for a spy agency, made in France and drawn in a style borrowed from anime.

  • Season 7