Roots
The miniseries that changed what American television believed it was allowed to broadcast, opened with Quincy Jones and a slave ship.
Roots opens with a main title sequence of 61 seconds.
It arrived on ABC in 1977, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
61sThe opening credits.
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.
- Season 16
- 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
2 sequences
Emmerdale
A Yorkshire Dales farming serial that dropped Farm from its name in 1989 and kept the landscape.
- Season 27
- Season 49
1 sequenceEmergency!
Los Angeles County paramedics, made with the fire department's cooperation and credited with popularising the profession.
- Season 1
2 sequences
All My Children
Pine Valley, Agnes Nixon's serial, and the first American soap to put issue storylines in daytime.
- Season 23
- Season 41