The opening credits and especially the theme song to Taxi is one of my favorites. It perfectly sets up the mood of the show, you can’t really tell that it’s a comedy at all.
The original “The Twilight Zone” openings, in all their incarnations, just really set the mood.
Speaking of alternative titles, Enterprise did a great “dark” version when they had that alt-timeline two episode arc, where the Federation was basically a conquering empire.
Everyone knooows it’s Butters!
That’s the one I came in to post. Just a great, great opening sequence.
A couple good openings from Buffy episodes: The old-fashioned titles for Once More With Feeling, and the Jonathan-centric opening from Superstar
Oh, I forgot. The Mad Men credits are ridiculously well designed, too.
You know what has great opening credits? Parks and Recreation. It perfectly sets up the City of Pawnee and has a catchy tune to boot.
Loved the alternate theme for the D&D episode of Community.
For me, the strongest thing about the Parks credits its how well it contrasts the show with The Office, the sort of stepfather show that cast a big shadow over it. The Office credits show everyone scowling or looking bored, which is entirely appropriate for the milieu, whereas Parks has everyone in a happy moment, beaming and laughing (or the relative equivalent for the more taciturn characters).
Wielding a golden gun? Perfect!
It’s a tight finish, but Rockford comes in third behind – come on, now – Hawai’i 5-0 and S.W.A.T.
I’ll third Dexter. Even better that they’ve used the music twice in the show to show when Dexter was off his game and things didn’t line up the same.
Magnum PI. It is everything great about a staple 80’s show. It helps that I’m a sucker for the show, admittedly.
A-Team. Whatever you think of the show it did a great job of giving you the background and throwing in some action.
The Fall Guy. Yeah, I said it.
The Garry Shandling Show. “This is the theme to Garry’s Show, the opening theme to Garry’s Show…”
I might have a soft spot for 80’s credits the more I look at this…
Tales from the Crypt: Danny Elfman’s music and the opening tour of the Crypt Keeper’s place set the tone for this series so well. No matter how terrible some of the episodes were, I never got tired of those credits.
Honorable mentions: Night Court, Invader Zim, Misfits of Science, Gilligan’s Island, Chuck, and Brisco County, Jr.
I loved Big Love’s opening credits from the first 3 seasons, the sequence that used “God Only Knows.” I still don’t understand why they changed it.
“The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.”, which I’ve been watching for the first time, has stellar opening credits. I love the theme music most of all. Not the most original opening credits, but what they do, they do well. I like the '78 Superman-like recap with the newspapers telling the story of the pilot before we get clips from other episodes and the standard iconic shots of the cast. On the topic of one-time custom credits for a show, I love what was done for the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode where Jonathan is suddenly the main character. The inserted clips of him seemed sort of awkwardly forced in there, but that’s part of the gimmick’s charm. I second the love for the alternate “Star Trek: Enterprise” opening.
Welcome Back, Kotter
JPL, great call on Tales From the Crypt.
And may I just say that it makes me sad that we’re 36 posts in and not a single person–including myself–has mentioned The Simpsons. C’mon, it features the song stylings of Danny Elfman before Tim Burton ruined him and the best introduction to the citizens and geography of an entire town since The Andy Griffith Show (I presume). Plus, new gags in each opening that force you to pay attention. Hate what The Simpsons has become, but respect it for what it was.
My all time fave:
For one minute every week, they made a portly middle aged British Gentleman with a Jaguar XJ6 look like the fucking Punisher.
Also at the risk of sounding a bit fleedy, I love a lot of those openings from the 1980s that had cool narration, no matter how awful/cheesy the actual show e.g. John Ashley on the A-Team, Ernie Anderson (father of Paul Thomas) on Street Hawk, and of course the supreme gravitas of Richard Basehart on Knight Rider.
Actually Paul McCartney mentioned them in a negative context, along with the B:TAS opening, thereby proving once again that he’s an evil being from another dimension.
Ah, well, so much for reading for content as I did scan back through the thread before posting, although, of course, I’m right while he’s really, really wrong.