The Flintstones
The first animated series in American primetime, and the source of a theme that did not arrive until the third season — the first two opened on something else entirely.
The Flintstones opens with a main title sequence of 56 seconds.
It arrived on ABC in 1960, when The Bugs Bunny Show, American Bandstand and The Lawrence Welk Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
56sThe first season's opening alone. This is the earlier sequence, before Meet the Flintstones became the theme.
More animation opening titles from the 1960s
1 sequenceThe Jetsons
The same studio's future to answer its own past, with a theme that names the whole family in about fifteen seconds.
- Season 1
1 sequenceScooby-Doo, Where Are You!
A theme that asks the title as a question, over a van and five characters who have been drawn the same way for fifty-five years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSpeed Racer
Mach GoGoGo dubbed into English at speed, and the anime that got there before anyone called it that.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWacky Races
Eleven cars introduced one at a time by a narrator, which is a title sequence that is also the entire premise.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTop Cat
Hanna-Barbera doing Sgt. Bilko with alley cats, in the primetime slot the studio kept trying to hold.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Magic Roundabout
A French stop-motion series that Eric Thompson re-narrated in English without translating the scripts, inventing different characters over the same pictures.
- Season 1