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Comedy · 1960s

The 1960s account for 32 of the 654 comedy shows here, and 34 opening sequences.

CBS carries the most, with twelve.

Two of them rebuilt their titles mid-run.

32 shows34 sequences

Still from the opening titles of Sesame Street2 sequences

Sesame 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
Still from the opening titles of The Addams Family1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of The Brady Bunch1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of Bewitched1 sequence

Bewitched

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
Still from the opening titles of Gilligan's Island1 sequence

Gilligan'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
Still from the opening titles of The Andy Griffith Show1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of The Beverly Hillbillies1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of The Munsters1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of Hogan's Heroes1 sequence

Hogan's Heroes

1965–1971CBSComedy

A prisoner-of-war camp run as a sabotage operation, opened by a march whistled rather than sung.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Dick Van Dyke Show2 sequences

The 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
Still from the opening titles of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood1 sequence

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

1968–2001PBSComedy

Thirty-three years of the same arrival: the door, the cardigan, the shoes, the song.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of I Dream of Jeannie1 sequence

I 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
Still from the opening titles of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of The Carol Burnett Show1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of H.R. Pufnstuf1 sequence

H.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
Still from the opening titles of My Three Sons1 sequence

My 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
Still from the opening titles of Dad's Army1 sequence

Dad'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
Still from the opening titles of Petticoat Junction1 sequence

Petticoat Junction

1963–1970CBSComedy

The Shady Rest Hotel, sharing a universe with Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Monty Python's Flying Circus1 sequence

Monty 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
Still from the opening titles of Green Acres1 sequence

Green 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
Still from the opening titles of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In1 sequence

Rowan & 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
Still from the opening titles of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of Hee Haw1 sequence

Hee 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
Still from the opening titles of Steptoe and Son1 sequence

Steptoe 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
Still from the opening titles of Till Death Us Do Part1 sequence

Till 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
Still from the opening titles of The Monkees1 sequence

The 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
Still from the opening titles of F Troop1 sequence

F Troop

1965–1967ABCComedy

A frontier cavalry post run badly, opened by a sung account of how badly.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of McHale's Navy1 sequence

McHale's Navy

1962–1966ABCComedy

A PT boat crew running a black market in the South Pacific.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Car 54, Where Are You?1 sequence

Car 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
Still from the opening titles of Mr. Dressup1 sequence

Mr. 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
Still from the opening titles of Get Smart1 sequence

Get 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
Still from the opening titles of The Morecambe & Wise Show1 sequence

The 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