America's Most Wanted

Name: America's Most Wanted
Genre: Documentary

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The programme Fox launched itself on, and the one that turned a network into a switchboard.

America's Most Wanted opens with a main title sequence of 15 seconds.

At 15 seconds, it opens well under the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on Fox in 1988, when Married... with Children, 21 Jump Street and The Tracey Ullman Show were also on the network.

The opening titles

15s

Fan upload of the 1988 open, from the launch year.

1987–2002NBCDocumentary

Robert Stack in a trench coat, a synthesiser and a fog machine — the most frightening thing on American television that was not fiction.

1983–2006PBSDocumentary

LeVar Burton reading to children for twenty-three years, and "but you don't have to take my word for it".

1989–MTVDocumentary

Sixteen seconds and an acoustic guitar — a format whose whole argument is in the title card.

1986–ITVDocumentary

Say what you see, and a golden robot called Mr Chips who was the reason anyone watched.

1980–1988SyndicationDocumentary

The weekly chart countdown as a dance routine, with its own troupe named after it.

1980–BBC TwoDocumentary

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