Stig of the Dump

Name: Stig of the Dump
Genre: Drama

Rate it

Clive King's boy in a chalk pit and the person living at the bottom of it, adapted by Thames.

Stig of the Dump opens with a main title sequence of 25 seconds.

At 25 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on ITV in 1981, when The Sooty Show, The Big Match and Rainbow were also on the network.

1 sequence

The opening titles

25s

The pit itself, with the author credited over it.

1985–BBC OneDrama

An aerial pull-back over the Thames and the drum that answers it — thirty-two seconds that have barely changed in forty years.

1989–2001NBC / SyndicationDrama

Los Angeles County lifeguards, and at its peak the most-watched television programme on Earth.

1989CBSDrama

Basil Poledouris scoring a cattle drive from Texas to Montana — the miniseries that proved the western was not finished after all.

1985–2025Seven / Ten (Australia)Drama

Ramsay Street across forty years, and a theme song that survived every cast, network and cancellation.

1987–CBSDrama

Los Angeles fashion houses, and the most widely watched daytime serial in the world.

1982–1986NBCDrama

A narrated premise, a scanning red light and a synth arpeggio — the most efficient piece of eighties television branding after the A-Team's.