Ally McBeal
Vonda Shepard singing over a lawyer walking through Boston — a theme so tied to the show that the singer became a recurring character.
Ally McBeal opens with a main title sequence of 58 seconds.
At 58 seconds, it opens well above the 38-second median for comedy sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Fox in 1997, when America's Most Wanted, The X-Files and MADtv were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
58sThe opening credits.
More comedy opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
Friends
A fountain, an umbrella and six people who are not, on any reading of the physics, getting less wet.
- Season 6
1 sequence
Sex and the City
A tutu, a bus and a splash of dirty water — an opening whose entire joke is that New York does not care who you think you are.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Mr. Bean
A man dropped from the sky in a spotlight while a choir sings about him in Latin, every week, for a character who never explains himself.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Everybody Loves Raymond
A brass sting and a family photograph, in forty-eight seconds that promise nothing more complicated than what you are about to get.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTeletubbies
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
1 sequenceThat '70s Show
The cast singing 'In the Street' from the back of a Vista Cruiser, re-recorded and reshot every season — plus one-off Halloween and Christmas versions.
- Seasons 1–8