21 Jump Street
Officers young enough to pass for pupils, in one of the four shows Fox launched its network with.
21 Jump Street opens with a main title sequence of 61 seconds.
At 61 seconds, it opens well above the 47-second median for crime sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Fox in 1987, when Married... with Children, The Tracey Ullman Show and Werewolf were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
61sFan upload of the first season's credits, from a classic-television archive channel.
More crime opening titles from the 1980s
1 sequenceMiami Vice
Flamingos, jai alai and pastel architecture over Jan Hammer — a title sequence that sold an entire aesthetic and arguably a city.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMurder, She Wrote
A typewriter, a bicycle and Cabot Cove — twelve seasons of the most reassuring opening ever attached to a programme about repeated homicide.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAgatha Christie's Poirot
Art Deco geometry and Christopher Gunning's theme — a title sequence that establishes the period, the register and the fastidiousness of the detective in one gesture.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMagnum, P.I.
Hawaii, a Ferrari and a moustache, over a theme so brash it dates the decade to within about eighteen months.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMatlock
Andy Griffith as a defence attorney in a grey suit, nine seasons long.
- Season 1
1 sequenceIn the Heat of the Night
The 1967 film continued as a series, with Carroll O'Connor as the chief.
- Season 1