The Living Planet

Name: The Living Planet
Genre: Documentary

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The Life on Earth sequel, on habitats rather than lineages, opening on the planet doing the sorting.

The Living Planet opens with a main title sequence of 58 seconds.

At 58 seconds, it opens well above the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on BBC One in 1984, when A Question of Sport, Grandstand and This Is Your Life were also on the network.

The opening titles

58s

Fan upload.

1987–2002NBCDocumentary

Robert Stack in a trench coat, a synthesiser and a fog machine — the most frightening thing on American television that was not fiction.

1983–2006PBSDocumentary

LeVar Burton reading to children for twenty-three years, and "but you don't have to take my word for it".

1988–2013FoxDocumentary

The programme Fox launched itself on, and the one that turned a network into a switchboard.

1989–MTVDocumentary

Sixteen seconds and an acoustic guitar — a format whose whole argument is in the title card.

1986–ITVDocumentary

Say what you see, and a golden robot called Mr Chips who was the reason anyone watched.

1980–1988SyndicationDocumentary

The weekly chart countdown as a dance routine, with its own troupe named after it.