Futurama
1999–FoxComedy CentralHuluAnimation
Like The Simpsons, an opening built to differ every week — a new caption under the logo and a different scrap of old cartoon on the screen the ship flies past — wrapped around Christopher Tyng's theme and a crash into a billboard.
Futurama rebuilt its titles: two distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, running between 29 and 31 seconds.
At 31 seconds at its longest, it opens well under the 58-second median for animation sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Fox in 1999, when Mystery Science Theater 3000, America's Most Wanted and The X-Files were also on the network.
Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Futurama did so once.
All 2 opening title sequences
Seasons 1–4
31sThe original standard-definition opening, animated for a 4:3 frame.
Seasons 6–7
29sRe-animated in high definition and widescreen for the revival, with the extra width filled rather than cropped into.
More animation opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
One Piece
The longest-running opening rotation in television — more than twenty distinct sequences over a quarter of a century, each announcing a new arc.
- Season 1
2 sequences
South Park
A banjo, a cut-paper Colorado town and four boys at a bus stop — re-recorded and re-animated repeatedly across nearly thirty years while staying recognisably the same twenty-nine seconds.
- Season 1
- Season 15
1 sequence
SpongeBob SquarePants
A sea shanty led by a painted pirate head, in call and response with children — one of the most universally known pieces of television music written this century.
- Season 1
2 sequences
Family Guy
A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.
- Season 1
- Season 10
2 sequences
King of the Hill
Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.
- Season 1
- Season 14
1 sequence
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Ninety seconds cut faster than the eye resolves, with whole frames of text and diagram flashed for one frame each. Yoko Takahashi's theme is bright, major-key J-pop laid over imagery that is doing nothing of the kind, and the mismatch is the point rather than an accident.
- Season 1