Hawaii Five-O
The wave, the zoom onto the hotel balcony, and one of the four or five most recognisable television themes ever recorded.
Hawaii Five-O opens with a main title sequence of 60 seconds.
At 60 seconds, it opens well above the 47-second median for crime sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on CBS in 1968, when Candid Camera, Guiding Light and As the World Turns were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
60sThe opening alone, and moving: the wave, the tower and the woman turning on the beach. The copy rejected before was a still image with the closing attached.
More crime opening titles from the 1960s
2 sequences
Batman
Cartoon versions of the cast run at the camera and fight their way through the rogues' gallery, because the budget for that in live action did not exist and the animation is funnier anyway. Neal Hefti's twelve-bar riff has an eight-voice chorus whose entire lyric is the word Batman.
- Seasons 1–2
- Season 3
1 sequenceThe F.B.I.
Nine seasons made with the Bureau's cooperation and its approval of every script, from the Quinn Martin production line.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRandall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
A private investigator and his dead partner, who only he can see, in a white suit.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAdam-12
One patrol car, one shift, from the Dragnet producer.
- Season 1
1 sequence
The Big Bang Theory
Fourteen billion years of natural history in twenty-three seconds, flashing past at one image per beat.
- Season 1
4 sequences
Young Sheldon
The Big Bang Theory prequel, narrated by the adult Sheldon it never shows. Its titles are one family portrait in the West Texas hills, reshot every couple of seasons as the children outgrow the last version of it.
- Seasons 1–2
- Seasons 3–4
- Seasons 5–6
- and 1 more