Documentary · 1990s
The 1990s account for 26 of the 190 documentary shows here, and 26 opening sequences.
BBC Two and Channel 4 carry three each.
26 shows26 sequences
1 sequence
The Real World
"This is the true story of seven strangers" — the narration that invented the reality format, and the one every parody since has copied.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDateline NBC
NBC's newsmagazine, which outlasted every other network attempt at the form by turning into a true-crime hour.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTime Team
Three days to excavate a site, with the clock running in the titles before anyone picks up a trowel.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWho Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Keith and Matthew Strachan's music, which unusually runs continuously under the questions rather than only over the titles — one of the few game shows scored like a thriller.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Beatles Anthology
The band's own account of itself, assembled with the three surviving members.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBill Nye the Science Guy
Science for children at the speed of a music video, with a theme that shouts the presenter's name.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRobot Wars
Twenty-one seconds of sparks and industrial metal, for a programme in which people destroyed their own hardware for sport.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceNBA on NBC
Roundball Rock, written by John Tesh and hummed into an answering machine because he had no way to record it — the most fondly remembered sports theme in America.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCome Outside
Auntie Mabel and her dog Pippin flying a spotted aeroplane to find out where one ordinary thing comes from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWalking with Dinosaurs
A natural history series about animals nobody has filmed, shot as though somebody had.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGrand Designs
One self-build per episode, opening on drawings that assemble themselves into the house you are about to watch fail to be finished on time.
- Season 20
1 sequenceArt Attack
Neil Buchanan making things out of household rubbish, and the big art laid out on the floor at the end.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBeakman's World
Science explained by a man in a green coat and a person in a rat suit, which is more rigorous than it sounds.
- Season 4
1 sequenceThe Crocodile Hunter
Steve Irwin handling animals at arm's length or closer, for eight years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Crystal Maze
Four themed zones and a warehouse in Essex, opened with an orchestral fanfare grander than any game show has earned before or since.
- Season 5
1 sequenceForensic Files
Real cases retold through the laboratory work that closed them, and the programme that made luminol a household word.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGladiators
Contenders ready, gladiators ready — a Saturday-night format built entirely out of its own catchphrases.
- Seasons 1–8
1 sequenceIron Chef
A cookery contest staged as a martial-arts tournament, presided over by a man in a gold cape.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJudge Judy
Small claims heard by a former family court judge who lets almost nobody finish a sentence.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLegends of the Hidden Temple
A children's game show staged inside a temple, presided over by a talking stone head.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLouis Theroux's Weird Weekends
Theroux embedding himself with American subcultures and letting the awkwardness do the work.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNickelodeon Guts
Children competing on wires and ramps, and climbing a fake mountain that shed foam.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTotal Request Live
MTV's daily video countdown, broadcast from a studio above Times Square with the crowd outside kept in shot.
- Season 5
1 sequenceWCW Monday Nitro
The programme that made Monday nights a ratings war, and lost it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWhere in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
A geography quiz whose house band sang the answers, and which taught a generation of children where Ouagadougou is.
- Season 1
1 sequenceZoboomafoo
The Kratt brothers and a leaping lemur, teaching natural history to an audience too young to read.
- Season 1