The Colbert Report
2005–2014Comedy CentralComedy
An eagle, a flag and a barrage of adjectives flying at the camera — a parody of cable-news branding so precise that cable news started copying it back.
The Colbert Report opens with a main title sequence of 23 seconds.
At 23 seconds, it opens well under the 38-second median for comedy sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Comedy Central in 2005, when Mystery Science Theater 3000, Chappelle's Show and Drawn Together were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
23sThe opening. The adjectives circling the host were changed periodically across the run.
More comedy opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
The Big Bang Theory
Fourteen billion years of natural history in twenty-three seconds, flashing past at one image per beat.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Malcolm in the Middle
They Might Be Giants' 'Boss of Me' over archive film of chaos — falling, crashing and general misadventure, cut faster than a network comedy usually dares.
- Season 1
1 sequence
The Office
Scranton, a car park and a filing cabinet, shot like stock footage for a regional business — twenty-two seconds that promise nothing will happen.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Scrubs
Twelve seconds, an X-ray and a guitar — a medical comedy that spends less time on titles than most shows spend on a network ident.
- Season 1
1 sequence
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Photographs of Philadelphia over a jaunty public-domain waltz, with the episode's absurd title card dropped into the middle of it.
- Seasons 2–4
1 sequence
Modern Family
Fourteen seconds of family photographs sliding into place, and a card. Nothing else.
- Season 1