Top of the Pops
1964–2006BBC OneDocumentary
Forty-two years of the chart, and a Phil Lynott instrumental called Yellow Pearl for a theme.
Top of the Pops rebuilt its titles: two distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1, 18, 19 and 20, running between 21 and 23 seconds.
At 23 seconds at its longest, it opens well under the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on BBC One in 1964, when Grandstand, This Is Your Life and The Sooty Show were also on the network.
Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Top of the Pops did so once.
All 2 opening title sequences
Season 1
23sFan upload of the 1964 titles, from the launch year — seventeen years before the Phil Lynott theme arrived.
Seasons 18–20
21sFan upload. The uploader dates this version to 1981 through 1983; counting a season per year from the 1964 launch, those are the eighteenth to twentieth.
More documentary opening titles from the 1960s
1 sequence
University Challenge
College Boy by Derek New, and a split screen that has stacked two teams on top of each other since 1962.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTomorrow's World
Live demonstrations of things that did not work yet, opening on graphics that promised they would.
- Season 29
1 sequenceReady Steady Go!
"The weekend starts here" — the British pop programme that put the Beatles, the Stones and Motown on the same stage.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWorld of Sport
ITV's answer to Grandstand, which is remembered now almost entirely for the wrestling at four o'clock.
- Season 20
1 sequenceSportsnight
The midweek sports programme, and the strand most of British sports broadcasting learned its trade on.
- Season 26
2 sequences
Match of the Day
Barry Stoller's theme, unchanged since 1970, over whatever graphics the decade happens to allow.
- Season 7
- Season 62