Skip to content
TVTitles

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

1997–2003The WBUPNHorror

Rate it

An organ sting, a shot of the moon, and then Nerf Herder's surf-punk theme over black-and-white monster-movie footage that bursts into colour. The design never changed in seven years; the fifty seconds behind it were re-cut every one of them.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer rebuilt its titles: seven distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1–7, running between 50 and 61 seconds.

It arrived on The WB in 1997, when 7th Heaven, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Star Trek: Voyager were also on the network.

Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Buffy the Vampire Slayer did so six times.

7 sequences13th most looked up of 409 in the 1990sIMDb ↗
XFacebookPinterest

All 7 opening title sequences

Season 1

61s

The original, cut from a ten-episode midseason run. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and Anthony Stewart Head — the only three names that survive all seven seasons are the first three.

Season 2

50s

Re-cut from the new season's footage, and David Boreanaz joins the credits as Angel.

Season 3

50s

Seth Green is added as Oz, placed between Boreanaz and Head. The last season for both Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter, who leave together for Angel.

Season 4

50s

The college year, and the largest turnover the credits ever had: Boreanaz and Carpenter gone, Marc Blucas and James Marsters in. Marsters stays to the end.

Season 5

50s

Emma Caulfield and Michelle Trachtenberg arrive — Trachtenberg's name appearing in the titles of a show her character had not existed in a week earlier. Anthony Stewart Head's last season in the main credits, and Blucas's.

Season 6

51s

Amber Benson is finally named, two years after Tara became a fixture of the show, and only for this season.

Season 7

50s

The last re-cut, drawn from the final season and the move to UPN.

More horror opening titles from the 1990s

Still from the opening titles of Are You Afraid of the Dark?1 sequence

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

1990–2000Nickelodeon / YTVHorror

A campfire, a handful of powder thrown into it, and a children's anthology that frightened a generation on a Saturday teatime.

  • Season 1
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 Charmed8 sequences

Charmed

1998–2006The WBHorror

Love Spit Love's cover of 'How Soon Is Now?' over the Book of Shadows and three sisters, re-cut every season. It goes further than that, though: the credits were rebuilt whenever the cast of an episode changed, so a season carries several versions rather than one — eight of them in the second year alone.

  • Season 1
  • Season 2
  • Season 3
  • and 5 more
Still from the opening titles of Millennium1 sequence

Millennium

1996–1999FoxHorror

Chris Carter's other series, opened with the same Mark Snow unease as The X-Files and none of its wit — thirty-four seconds that promise a much worse world.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Goosebumps1 sequence

Goosebumps

1995–1998Fox Kids / YTVHorror

A briefcase blowing open in a wind that follows a dog down a street — thirty seconds of genuine dread aimed at nine-year-olds.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of American Gothic (1995)1 sequence

American Gothic (1995)

1995–1996CBSHorror

A South Carolina sheriff who is something worse than corrupt, created by Shaun Cassidy and produced by Sam Raimi.

  • Season 1