Pokémon
The longest-running video-game adaptation on television, and a theme song that outlasted every cast change.
Pokémon rebuilt its titles: two distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1 and 5, running between 46 and 62 seconds.
Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Pokémon did so once.
All 2 opening title sequences
Season 1
62sPosted by the official Pokémon channel — the Indigo League opening, in its English broadcast form.
Season 5
46sAlso from the official channel: Master Quest, the fifth season. The format is one new opening a season, which is why this catalogue can only ever hold a sample.
More animation opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
One 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 sequences
South 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 sequence
SpongeBob 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 sequences
Family 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 sequences
King 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 sequence
Neon 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