The Daily Show
1996–Comedy CentralComedy
A news-graphics package rebuilt for each of its four hosts, and the programme that made the fake-news desk a form.
The Daily Show 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 1996, when Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
23sThe Craig Kilborn opening from 1996, with the word cards flashing over the newsroom footage. Off tape and dark, but it is the sequence and it is the season this entry is filed at.
More comedy opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
Friends
A fountain, an umbrella and six people who are not, on any reading of the physics, getting less wet.
- Season 6
1 sequence
Sex and the City
A tutu, a bus and a splash of dirty water — an opening whose entire joke is that New York does not care who you think you are.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Mr. Bean
A man dropped from the sky in a spotlight while a choir sings about him in Latin, every week, for a character who never explains himself.
- Season 1
1 sequence
Everybody Loves Raymond
A brass sting and a family photograph, in forty-eight seconds that promise nothing more complicated than what you are about to get.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTeletubbies
A baby's face in the sun, four aerials and a narrator counting them in — over two minutes of titles for a programme aimed at people under three.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThat '70s Show
The cast singing 'In the Street' from the back of a Vista Cruiser, re-recorded and reshot every season — plus one-off Halloween and Christmas versions.
- Seasons 1–8