Gilligan's Island
A theme song that narrates the entire premise, names every castaway, and was rewritten after the first season to stop leaving two of them out.
Gilligan's Island kept one opening title sequence, 62 seconds long, across season 3.
At 62 seconds, it opens well above the 38-second median for comedy sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on CBS in 1964, when Candid Camera, Guiding Light and As the World Turns were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 3
62sRestored fan upload of the third season. The first-season lyric ended with "and the rest"; the professor and Mary Ann were written in by name from the second season on, which makes this one of the earliest documented cases of a title sequence changing because of a credit dispute.
More comedy opening titles from the 1960s
2 sequences
Sesame Street
Children running through a New York street to a song asking how to get there — an opening that has been remade every decade for over fifty years.
- Season 1
- Seasons 24–25
1 sequenceThe Addams Family
Harpsichord, bass clarinet, and two finger snaps that half a century of television has never managed to shake off. The family assemble for a portrait while Lurch supplies the only three adjectives the song needs.
- Seasons 1–2
1 sequenceThe Brady Bunch
A three-by-three grid of faces all looking at each other — a title sequence so structurally famous that the grid alone is the reference.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBewitched
Animated witches and a swing arrangement — a live-action sitcom that opens as a cartoon, which was the only way to show the magic on a 1964 budget.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Andy Griffith Show
A father and son walking to a fishing hole while somebody whistles — twenty-three seconds, and one of the most quoted pieces of music in American television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Beverly Hillbillies
"The Ballad of Jed Clampett" — a bluegrass number that reached number one on the country chart while the series was running.
- Season 1