Knight Rider

Name: Knight Rider
Genre: Drama

1982–1986NBCDrama

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A narrated premise, a scanning red light and a synth arpeggio — the most efficient piece of eighties television branding after the A-Team's.

Knight Rider opens with a main title sequence of 90 seconds.

At 90 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on NBC in 1982, when Truth or Consequences, Another World and Search for Tomorrow were also on the network.

The opening titles

90s

The original opening, from NBC.

1985–BBC OneDrama

An aerial pull-back over the Thames and the drum that answers it — thirty-two seconds that have barely changed in forty years.

1989–2001NBC / SyndicationDrama

Los Angeles County lifeguards, and at its peak the most-watched television programme on Earth.

1989CBSDrama

Basil Poledouris scoring a cattle drive from Texas to Montana — the miniseries that proved the western was not finished after all.

1985–2025Seven / Ten (Australia)Drama

Ramsay Street across forty years, and a theme song that survived every cast, network and cancellation.

1987–CBSDrama

Los Angeles fashion houses, and the most widely watched daytime serial in the world.

1981–1989ABCDrama

Gold lettering, oil money and an orchestral theme played with no irony whatsoever — the decade's idea of wealth, stated in ninety seconds.