Ellen
A Los Angeles bookshop owner, in the sitcom whose fourth season changed what American television would say out loud.
Ellen opens with a main title sequence of 59 seconds.
At 59 seconds, it opens well above the 38-second median for comedy sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC in 1994, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
59sFan upload of the first season's theme.
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