It Ain't Half Hot Mum
A Royal Artillery concert party in wartime India, and the Croft series that has aged worst.
It Ain't Half Hot Mum opens with a main title sequence of 47 seconds.
It arrived on BBC One in 1974, when A Question of Sport, Grandstand and This Is Your Life were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
47sPosted by the David Croft estate — the fifth of his series from the same source.
More comedy opening titles from the 1970s
1 sequence
Saturday Night Live
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
Two people at an upright piano singing about how things used to be — an opening performed live by the cast rather than scored.
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1 sequenceFawlty Towers
A hotel sign whose letters are rearranged into a different rude anagram every episode — the earliest running title gag in this catalogue by two decades.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHappy Days
A fifties jukebox theme that started as a closing song and was promoted to the opening once it became a hit record.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThree's Company
A theme that explains the premise, the address and the invitation in about forty seconds, then hands you a farce.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Love Boat
A cruise ship with a new guest cast every week, introduced by name in the titles.
- Season 3