Little House on the Prairie
Three girls running down a hill, one of whom falls — a shot kept in for nine years because it was better than the take where nobody did.
Little House on the Prairie opens with a main title sequence of 64 seconds.
At 64 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on NBC in 1974, when Truth or Consequences, Another World and Search for Tomorrow were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
64sThe opening credits and theme.
More drama opening titles from the 1970s
1 sequenceThe Waltons
A Virginia mountain homestead in the Depression, introduced with a warmth the decade's other dramas had no interest in.
- Season 1
2 sequences
The Young and the Restless
Genoa City, and the daytime ratings leader in America for more than thirty-five consecutive years.
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- Season 45
1 sequenceDallas
A three-panel split screen over the Dallas skyline, and the theme that defined what a primetime soap was allowed to sound like.
- Season 10
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Emmerdale
A Yorkshire Dales farming serial that dropped Farm from its name in 1989 and kept the landscape.
- Season 27
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1 sequenceEmergency!
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- Season 1
1 sequenceRoots
The miniseries that changed what American television believed it was allowed to broadcast, opened with Quincy Jones and a slave ship.
- Season 1