Happy Days
A fifties jukebox theme that started as a closing song and was promoted to the opening once it became a hit record.
Happy Days opens with a main title sequence of 79 seconds.
At 79 seconds, it opens well above the 38-second median for comedy sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC in 1974, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
79sThe opening titles.
More comedy opening titles from the 1970s
1 sequence
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A new cast montage every single season for fifty years — New York at night, the current company photographed in it, and a band playing over the top. The longest-running rotating title sequence on television.
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1 sequenceAll in the Family
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1 sequenceFawlty Towers
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1 sequenceThree's Company
A theme that explains the premise, the address and the invitation in about forty seconds, then hands you a farce.
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1 sequenceThe Love Boat
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- Season 3
1 sequenceTaxi
A single cab crossing the Queensboro Bridge to Bob James's electric piano — no cast, no jokes, and an unusually melancholy opening for a comedy.
- Season 1