The Secret Life of the American Teenager
2008–2013ABC FamilyDrama
A teen pregnancy drama that ran five seasons on the channel that had spent the decade before avoiding the subject.
The Secret Life of the American Teenager opens with a main title sequence of 15 seconds.
At 15 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC Family in 2008, when Greek and Kyle XY were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
15sThe title card over the flowerbed. The copy an archive channel labels as the intro is an off-air recording that starts before the titles and never reaches them.
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Carole King's 'Where You Lead' rewritten as a mother-and-daughter duet, over a small Connecticut town in every season at once.
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2 sequences
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Anatomical illustration and MRI imagery over Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' — a diagnostic show that opens by looking inside a body rather than at one.
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Art history restaged as domestic comedy — Cranach's Eve, Egyptian tomb painting, American Gothic — each one collapsing under a woman's exasperation.
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