Kolchak: The Night Stalker
A reporter whistling in a car park, and a premise established in twenty-six seconds — the direct ancestor of The X-Files, as Chris Carter has said repeatedly.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker opens with a main title sequence of 26 seconds.
At 26 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for horror sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC in 1974, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
26sThe opening narration.
More horror opening titles from the 1970s
1 sequenceTales of the Unexpected
A dancing silhouette, a spinning roulette wheel and Ron Grainer's theme — an anthology opening far more unsettling than most of the stories that follow it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThriller (1973)
Brian Clemens' anthology of feature-length suspense plays, sold to America as a late-night staple.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCircle of Fear
An anthology that began as Ghost Story with a host and a hotel, then dropped both and renamed itself halfway through.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Grey's Anatomy
Twenty-six seconds of surgical instruments and a guitar figure, from a series that has now outlived most of the shows that copied it.
- Season 1
2 sequences
Twin Peaks
A bird, a sawmill blade and a waterfall, over Angelo Badalamenti at a tempo no network would approve today — ninety seconds of a town being described before anyone in it speaks.
- Seasons 1–2
- Season 3
1 sequence
The Rookie
A five-second card: THE ROOKIE in tall white capitals over a row of Los Angeles palms against a hazy blue sky, and the episode is under way.
- Season 1