Unsolved Mysteries

Name: Unsolved Mysteries
Genre: Documentary

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

Unsolved Mysteries opens with a main title sequence of 112 seconds.

At 112 seconds, it opens well above the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on NBC in 1987, when Truth or Consequences, Another World and Columbo were also on the network.

The opening titles

112s

Fan upload dated 1988, from the first full season.

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.

1980–BBC TwoDocumentary

The BBC's late analysis programme, opening on a rotating globe of headlines rather than a presenter.