The Greatest American Hero
A schoolteacher handed a flying suit by aliens who lost the instruction manual in the first episode and never found it.
The Greatest American Hero opens with a main title sequence of 95 seconds.
At 95 seconds, it opens well above the 58-second median for sci-fi sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC in 1981, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
95sPosted by Crackle, who stream the series. Their branding sits in both lower corners throughout.
More sci-fi opening titles from the 1980s
3 sequences
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Enterprise-D passing the camera at warp while Patrick Stewart reads the mission statement. Stately, slow and completely confident — it takes almost a minute and a half before anything happens, and it never once feels the need to hurry.
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Seasons 3–7
2 sequences
Quantum Leap
Narration explaining a premise too complicated to infer, over a theme by Mike Post — the anthology format's problem solved in sixty seconds every week.
- Season 1
- Season 4
1 sequenceWar of the Worlds
A sequel to the 1953 film in which the aliens were never defeated, only dormant.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Twilight Zone (1985)
The first revival, with the Grateful Dead re-recording Marius Constant's motif — the middle of three attempts at the same idea, all of which are now in this catalogue.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAlien Nation
The film continued as a series, with a buddy-cop format used to work through immigration and prejudice week by week.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmazing Stories
John Williams scoring an animated history of storytelling — cave paintings to campfires to television — for Spielberg's anthology.
- Season 1