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BBC Two opening titles

BBC Two accounts for 62 shows here, running from 1962 to the present, and 66 opening title sequences between them.

Mostly comedy — 36 of the 62.

Four of them rebuilt their titles at least once.

62 shows · 66 sequences · oldest first

18 of these moved between networks during their run and appear under each one.

Still from the opening titles of University Challenge1 sequence

University Challenge

1962–ITV / BBC TwoDocumentary

College Boy by Derek New, and a split screen that has stacked two teams on top of each other since 1962.

  • Season 1
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
Still from the opening titles of The Goodies1 sequence

The Goodies

1970–1982BBC TwoComedy

Three men on a trandem who will do anything, anytime — sketch comedy shot like a silent film.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Old Grey Whistle Test1 sequence

The Old Grey Whistle Test

1971–1988BBC TwoDocumentary

The serious music programme to Top of the Pops' singles chart, with a harmonica riff and a star-kicker cartoon.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Ascent of Man1 sequence

The Ascent of Man

1973BBC TwoDocumentary

Jacob Bronowski on science as a human activity, made as the BBC's answer to its own Civilisation.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Fawlty Towers1 sequence

Fawlty Towers

1975–1979BBC TwoComedy

A hotel sign whose letters are rearranged into a different rude anagram every episode — the earliest running title gag in this catalogue by two decades.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of I, Claudius1 sequence

I, Claudius

1976BBC TwoDrama

A snake crossing a Roman mosaic — one image, held for forty-five seconds, and among the most efficient title sequences ever made.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Butterflies1 sequence

Butterflies

1978–1983BBC TwoComedy

Carla Lane's series about a housewife considering an affair and never quite having one.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Ski Sunday1 sequence

Ski Sunday

1978–BBC TwoDocumentary

A downhill run cut to Pop Looks Bach, and a theme that in Britain means winter rather than skiing.

  • Season 43
Still from the opening titles of Life on Earth1 sequence

Life on Earth

1979BBC TwoDocumentary

The series that invented the modern natural history film, and the template for everything Attenborough made afterwards.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Not the Nine O'Clock News1 sequence

Not the Nine O'Clock News

1979–1982BBC TwoComedy

The sketch show that launched Rowan Atkinson and Mel Smith, opening on a parody of the bulletin it was scheduled against.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy1 sequence

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

1979BBC TwoDrama

A Russian nesting doll opening onto a blank face, over Geoffrey Burgon's setting of the Nunc Dimittis — the most quietly devastating title sequence the BBC has made.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Great Railway Journeys1 sequence

Great Railway Journeys

1980–1999BBC TwoDocumentary

A writer and a railway line, one country per episode, in the strand that gave Michael Palin his second career.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Newsnight1 sequence

Newsnight

1980–BBC TwoDocumentary

The BBC's late analysis programme, opening on a rotating globe of headlines rather than a presenter.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Yes Minister1 sequence

Yes Minister

1980–1984BBC TwoComedy

Whitehall obstructing its own minister, opened by Gerald Scarfe caricatures drawing themselves.

  • Seasons 1–3
Still from the opening titles of The Young Ones1 sequence

The Young Ones

1982–1984BBC TwoComedy

Four students in a condemned house, and the series that ended the British sitcom's post-war manners in one go.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Alas Smith and Jones1 sequence

Alas Smith and Jones

1984–1998BBC TwoComedy

Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones after Not the Nine O'Clock News, with a title that puns on a western.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV1 sequence

Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV

1985–1987BBC TwoComedy

Sketches, songs at a piano, and the soap parody Acorn Antiques, which outlived the programme around it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of A Very Peculiar Practice1 sequence

A Very Peculiar Practice

1986–1992BBC TwoDrama

A campus medical practice used as a way of writing about what was happening to universities.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Yes, Prime Minister2 sequences

Yes, Prime Minister

1986–1988, 2013BBC Two / GoldComedy

The sequel that promotes Hacker to Number Ten, and the 2013 revival that recast the whole thing.

  • Seasons 1–2
  • Season 3
Still from the opening titles of A Bit of Fry & Laurie1 sequence

A Bit of Fry & Laurie

1987–1995BBC TwoComedy

Sketches written and performed by two people who had just left Cambridge and sounded like it.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of French and Saunders1 sequence

French and Saunders

1987–2007BBC TwoComedy

Twenty years of film parodies, and the double act that came out of the Comic Strip.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Red Dwarf2 sequences

Red Dwarf

1988–BBC Two / DaveComedy

The last human alive, three million years from Earth, introduced with a mining ship the size of a city and a theme sung over the end of it.

  • Season 1
  • Season 10
Still from the opening titles of Harry Enfield & Chums1 sequence

Harry Enfield & Chums

1990–1992BBC TwoComedy

Enfield's characters given a series each week, and most of British catchphrase comedy for a decade after.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Have I Got News for You1 sequence

Have I Got News for You

1990–BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Newspaper mastheads and printing presses, rebuilt periodically across thirty-five years of British political humiliation.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Bottom1 sequence

Bottom

1991–1995BBC TwoComedy

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in a Hammersmith flat, hitting each other.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Absolutely Fabulous1 sequence

Absolutely Fabulous

1992–2012BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Twenty-one seconds of Julie Driscoll's 'This Wheel's on Fire', re-recorded for the show by its own star.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Come Outside1 sequence

Come Outside

1993–1997BBC TwoDocumentary

Auntie Mabel and her dog Pippin flying a spotted aeroplane to find out where one ordinary thing comes from.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge1 sequence

Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge

1994–1995BBC TwoComedy

The radio chat show moved to television, opening on a title sequence that is itself the character's idea of a good one.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Day Today1 sequence

The Day Today

1994BBC TwoComedy

News-graphics bombast pushed just past the point of sense — a parody so accurate that actual bulletins caught up with it within a decade.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Game On1 sequence

Game On

1995–1998BBC TwoComedy

Three flatmates and an agoraphobic landlord, recast in the middle and carried on regardless.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Never Mind the Buzzcocks1 sequence

Never Mind the Buzzcocks

1996–2015BBC TwoComedy

A music panel game whose identity parade round outlasted most of the acts standing in it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of This Life1 sequence

This Life

1996–2007BBC TwoDrama

Five law graduates sharing a house in Southwark, shot handheld and stopped after two series while it was still growing.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of I'm Alan Partridge1 sequence

I'm Alan Partridge

1997–2002BBC TwoComedy

A theme with all the brass of a chat show its subject is no longer allowed to host, over a Travel Tavern car park.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Teletubbies1 sequence

Teletubbies

1997–2001BBC TwoComedy

A baby's face in the sun, four aerials and a narrator counting them in — over two minutes of titles for a programme aimed at people under three.

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

Big Train

1998–2002BBC TwoComedy

Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews' sketch show, which opens on nothing explaining itself and never does.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Goodness Gracious Me1 sequence

Goodness Gracious Me

1998–2001BBC TwoComedy

A radio sketch show that transferred to television and gave British comedy going for an English one.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends1 sequence

Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends

1998–2000BBC TwoDocumentary

Theroux embedding himself with American subcultures and letting the awkwardness do the work.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Robot Wars1 sequence

Robot Wars

1998–2018BBC TwoDocumentary

Twenty-one seconds of sparks and industrial metal, for a programme in which people destroyed their own hardware for sport.

  • Seasons 1–4
Still from the opening titles of The League of Gentlemen1 sequence

The League of Gentlemen

1999–2017BBC TwoHorror

Royston Vasey, a local shop, and a radio series that arrived on television already knowing exactly what it looked like.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Coupling1 sequence

Coupling

2000–2004BBC TwoComedy

Six friends in a bar, structured as farce rather than warmth — the British sitcom most often, and most unfairly, compared to Friends.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Top Gear2 sequences

Top Gear

2002–BBC TwoDocumentary

Twenty-one seconds of engine noise and a rock riff — a motoring programme that opens like a trailer for itself.

  • Season 1
  • Season 23
Still from the opening titles of QI1 sequence

QI

2003–BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Sepia illustration and a music-box theme, in a panel show that has changed almost nothing about its opening in two decades and two hosts.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Dragons' Den1 sequence

Dragons' Den

2005–BBC TwoDocumentary

The Japanese format Britain took and exported again, opening on money stacked in front of five people who are not going to give you any.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Mock the Week1 sequence

Mock the Week

2005–2022BBC TwoComedy

A topical panel show whose titles cut the week's news into a strobing collage before anyone speaks.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of That Mitchell and Webb Look1 sequence

That Mitchell and Webb Look

2006–2010BBC TwoComedy

The sketch show out of the radio series That Mitchell and Webb Sound, and the home of Numberwang.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Only Connect1 sequence

Only Connect

2008–BBC Four / BBC TwoDocumentary

A quiz whose easiest round asks what four things have in common, and whose hardest does not admit there is a connection at all.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Miranda1 sequence

Miranda

2009–2015BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Miranda Hart addressing the camera in a joke shop, in eleven seconds of open.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Great British Bake Off1 sequence

The Great British Bake Off

2010–BBC Two / Channel 4Documentary

Bunting, a tent and a xylophone — twenty seconds of deliberate gentleness, and one of the most effective pieces of format branding on British television.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Episodes1 sequence

Episodes

2011–2017Showtime / BBC TwoComedy

Two British writers watching their sitcom be remade badly in Los Angeles, with Matt LeBlanc as himself.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Line of Duty1 sequence

Line of Duty

2012–2021BBC Two / BBC OneCrime

Redaction as a design language — evidence bags, case files and blocks of black covering the parts you are not cleared for.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Parade's End1 sequence

Parade's End

2012BBC Two / HBODrama

Tom Stoppard adapting Ford Madox Ford across the First World War.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Hollow Crown1 sequence

The Hollow Crown

2012–2016BBC TwoDrama

The history plays filmed as features, with a title card so brief it barely qualifies as a sequence.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Count Arthur Strong1 sequence

Count Arthur Strong

2013–2017BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Steve Delaney's radio character given a sitcom around him, co-written by Graham Linehan.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Peaky Blinders1 sequence

Peaky Blinders

2013–2022BBC Two / BBC OneCrime

Nick Cave's 'Red Right Hand' over Birmingham furnaces and a man walking away from a fire — a period drama scored entirely out of period.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Fall1 sequence

The Fall

2013–2016BBC TwoCrime

Belfast, and a series that shows you the killer in the first episode and spends three series on the pursuit anyway.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Top of the Lake1 sequence

Top of the Lake

2013–2017BBC Two / SundanceTVCrime

Jane Campion's missing-girl series, opened across the South Island lake it is named for.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Inside No. 91 sequence

Inside No. 9

2014–2024BBC TwoComedy

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's anthology, every episode set somewhere numbered nine, opened in seventeen seconds by a brass hare.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Upstart Crow1 sequence

Upstart Crow

2016–2020BBC TwoComedy

Ben Elton's Shakespeare sitcom, written in the shape of the plays it mocks.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Good Omens2 sequences

Good Omens

2019–2026Amazon Prime Video / BBC TwoComedy

An angel and a demon who have both grown too fond of England to let it end, from Pratchett and Gaiman.

  • Season 1
  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Cunk on Earth1 sequence

Cunk on Earth

2022BBC TwoComedy

Philomena Cunk presenting human civilisation, opened by a ten-second parody of every documentary open ever made.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The English1 sequence

The English

2022BBC Two / Prime VideoDrama

Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer crossing 1890 Wyoming, and — for this catalogue — the single most disruptive title in the whole project.

  • Season 1