Johnny Bravo
1997–2004Cartoon NetworkAnimation
A pompadour, a bass riff and a character who has never once been correct about anything.
One opening sequence is catalogued for Johnny Bravo, covering season 1.
It arrived on Cartoon Network in 1997, when Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Dexter's Laboratory and I Am Weasel were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
The pompadour against a pink grid, the flex, the double take, and the name in red on green.
More animation opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequenceOne Piece
The longest-running opening rotation in television — more than twenty distinct sequences over a quarter of a century, each announcing a new arc.
- Season 1
2 sequencesSouth Park
A banjo, a cut-paper Colorado town and four boys at a bus stop — re-recorded and re-animated repeatedly across nearly thirty years while staying recognisably the same twenty-nine seconds.
- Season 1
- Season 15
1 sequenceSpongeBob SquarePants
A sea shanty led by a painted pirate head, in call and response with children — one of the most universally known pieces of television music written this century.
- Season 1
2 sequencesFamily Guy
A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.
- Season 1
- Season 10
2 sequencesKing of the Hill
Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.
- Season 1
- Season 14
1 sequenceNeon Genesis Evangelion
Ninety seconds cut faster than the eye resolves, with whole frames of text and diagram flashed for one frame each. Yoko Takahashi's theme is bright, major-key J-pop laid over imagery that is doing nothing of the kind, and the mismatch is the point rather than an accident.
- Season 1