In the Heat of the Night
The 1967 film continued as a series, with Carroll O'Connor as the chief.
In the Heat of the Night opens with a main title sequence of 61 seconds.
At 61 seconds, it opens well above the 47-second median for crime sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on NBC in 1988, when Candid Camera, Guiding Light and As the World Turns were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
61sThe 1988 series' first season, found once the query carried the year and the lead actor. The Jewison film still ranks above it on the title alone.
More crime opening titles from the 1980s
1 sequenceMiami Vice
Flamingos, jai alai and pastel architecture over Jan Hammer — a title sequence that sold an entire aesthetic and arguably a city.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMurder, She Wrote
A typewriter, a bicycle and Cabot Cove — twelve seasons of the most reassuring opening ever attached to a programme about repeated homicide.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAgatha Christie's Poirot
Art Deco geometry and Christopher Gunning's theme — a title sequence that establishes the period, the register and the fastidiousness of the detective in one gesture.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMagnum, P.I.
Hawaii, a Ferrari and a moustache, over a theme so brash it dates the decade to within about eighteen months.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMatlock
Andy Griffith as a defence attorney in a grey suit, nine seasons long.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHill Street Blues
Mike Post's piano over squad cars pulling out into snow — the sequence that taught American drama an opening could be melancholy rather than exciting.
- Season 1