Monk
2002–2009USA NetworkCrime
Randy Newman singing about being obsessive over a detective straightening things — a theme that explains the character faster than the pilot does.
Monk opens with a main title sequence of 56 seconds.
It arrived on USA Network in 2002, when Law & Order: Criminal Intent and The Dead Zone were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
56sThe opening. The show used an instrumental theme for its first season before Newman's replaced it.
More crime opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
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The Wire
The same song recorded five different ways. Every season re-cuts the images and hands 'Way Down in the Hole' to a new artist, matching the institution that season is about.
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- Season 3
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A red smiley face drawn in blood, which is the whole of the series' mythology compressed into one image.
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Leather, chrome and a reaper patch, over a theme re-recorded by a different artist as the club's situation deteriorates.
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Bones
Skeletal reconstruction rendered as clean laboratory graphics — a procedural that opens on anatomy rather than crime.
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