Comedy · 1960s
32 shows34 sequences
2 sequencesSesame Street
1969–PBS / HBOComedy
Children running through a New York street to a song asking how to get there — an opening that has been remade every decade for over fifty years.
- Season 1
- Seasons 24–25
1 sequenceThe Addams Family
1964–1966ABCComedy
Harpsichord, bass clarinet, and two finger snaps that half a century of television has never managed to shake off. The family assemble for a portrait while Lurch supplies the only three adjectives the song needs.
- Seasons 1–2
1 sequenceThe Brady Bunch
1969–1974ABCComedy
A three-by-three grid of faces all looking at each other — a title sequence so structurally famous that the grid alone is the reference.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBewitched
1964–1972ABCComedy
Animated witches and a swing arrangement — a live-action sitcom that opens as a cartoon, which was the only way to show the magic on a 1964 budget.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGilligan's Island
1964–1967CBSComedy
A theme song that narrates the entire premise, names every castaway, and was rewritten after the first season to stop leaving two of them out.
- Season 3
1 sequenceThe Andy Griffith Show
1960–1968CBSComedy
A father and son walking to a fishing hole while somebody whistles — twenty-three seconds, and one of the most quoted pieces of music in American television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Beverly Hillbillies
1962–1971CBSComedy
"The Ballad of Jed Clampett" — a bluegrass number that reached number one on the country chart while the series was running.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Munsters
1964–1966CBSComedy
The rival monster sitcom, launched the same year, opening with a surf-rock instrumental and a family filing out of a house at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHogan's Heroes
1965–1971CBSComedy
A prisoner-of-war camp run as a sabotage operation, opened by a march whistled rather than sung.
- Season 1
2 sequencesThe Dick Van Dyke Show
1961–1966CBSComedy
A man walking into his own living room and either tripping over the ottoman or stepping neatly around it — two versions shot, and the network alternated them.
- Season 1
- Season 2
1 sequenceMister Rogers' Neighborhood
1968–2001PBSComedy
Thirty-three years of the same arrival: the door, the cardigan, the shoes, the song.
- Season 1
1 sequenceI Dream of Jeannie
1965–1970NBCComedy
A full animated origin story every week — the bottle, the beach, the astronaut — told in sixty seconds so the episode never has to.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962–1992NBCComedy
A curtain, a rainbow arch and an announcer saying the two words — thirty years of the same entrance.
- Season 18
1 sequenceThe Carol Burnett Show
1967–1978CBSComedy
Twenty-three seconds and a Bob Mackie gown, from the variety show that taught American television how a sketch ensemble should work.
- Season 1
1 sequenceH.R. Pufnstuf
1969–1970NBCComedy
Sid and Marty Krofft's first series, and the reason a generation associates foam costumes with a talking flute.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMy Three Sons
1960–1972ABC / CBSComedy
Fred MacMurray raising three boys, opening on animated feet in a row that everyone remembers before the theme.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDad's Army
1968–1977BBC OneComedy
The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard, opened by animated arrows advancing and retreating across a map of Europe.
- Season 1
1 sequencePetticoat Junction
1963–1970CBSComedy
The Shady Rest Hotel, sharing a universe with Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMonty Python's Flying Circus
1969–1974BBC OneComedy
Terry Gilliam's cut-out animation and a Sousa march — a title sequence that behaves like a sketch, because it is one.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGreen Acres
1965–1971CBSComedy
A duet in which husband and wife argue about the move the series is built on, sung directly to camera.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRowan & Martin's Laugh-In
1967–1973NBCComedy
Psychedelic panels opening onto one-liners, cut faster than anything else on 1960s television and directly responsible for the pacing of sketch comedy since.
- Season 3
1 sequenceThe Banana Splits Adventure Hour
1968–1970NBCComedy
Four costumed animals in a rock band, wrapped around cartoons and serials, with a theme that has outlived all of it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHee Haw
1969–1993CBS / SyndicationComedy
Country music and cornfield jokes, cancelled by CBS in the rural purge and then outliving it in syndication by twenty years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSteptoe and Son
1962–1974BBC OneComedy
Two rag-and-bone men who cannot leave each other, and the series Sanford and Son was remade from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTill Death Us Do Part
1965–1975BBC OneComedy
Alf Garnett shouting at his family, and the series All in the Family was remade from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Monkees
1966–1968NBCComedy
A band assembled for a television series that then became an actual band, with the titles as their first single.
- Season 1
1 sequenceF Troop
1965–1967ABCComedy
A frontier cavalry post run badly, opened by a sung account of how badly.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMcHale's Navy
1962–1966ABCComedy
A PT boat crew running a black market in the South Pacific.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCar 54, Where Are You?
1961–1963NBCComedy
Two Bronx patrolmen, with a theme that lists everything going wrong in New York and then asks where the car is.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMr. Dressup
1967–1996CBCComedy
A tickle trunk, two puppets and twenty-nine years of the same man drawing on a pad — Canada's answer to Mister Rogers, made by a man who worked on it.
- Season 19
1 sequenceGet Smart
1965–1970NBC / CBSComedy
A man walking through a corridor of doors that each slam behind him, ending in a phone box that drops him into headquarters. The joke is the length of it.
- Season 3
1 sequenceThe Morecambe & Wise Show
1968–1983BBC Two / ThamesComedy
Bring Me Sunshine and a skip off stage, in front of the largest audience British television has ever had.
- Season 2