Traditionally, TV shows have Title Sequences. These intros tend to last at least 40 seconds, with lengthier ones going on for almost 2 minutes.
Starting in the early 2010s, a trend began (at least on American television) for more and more televised programming to have much shorter intros. It became common for newer programming to have title sequences that max out around thirty seconds, with some shows doing the bare minimum to avoid Title-Only Opening by lasting around six seconds or so.
This is due to multiple reasons. Namely that a shorter intro costs less money to produce and leaves more time for advertisements. But it also gives the writers more room to work with, as the average runtime for a half-hour television show has shrunk over the yearsnote , meaning a long intro will only reduce your storytelling time down even more. With cartoons, the decrease is also in direct correlation with the increase of Quarter Hour Shorts. More and more cartoons are being treated as singular 11-minute episodes in production, instead of the traditional Two Shorts format, which leaves less time for opening sequences.
Similarly, the Credits Pushback is the reason why a lot of shows don't have their endings shown. All shows do have outros which can be seen on digital or home video releases, but on television, the outro will either share screen time with commercials via pushback or voiceover, or the credits will be overlaid onto the final minute of the show itself to make space for advertising.
Compare to a Title-Only Opening, which is as short as you can get, and Truncated Theme Tune, for when a series intro is shortened for reruns.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- While Japan still has their 1-minute-and-30-seconds themes, English Pokémon the Series intros have gotten shorter with time. The first intro was 1 minute long which went down to around 40 seconds by the ninth intro (in Battle Frontier). By Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, the standard intro is 30 seconds.
- The theme song to Deko Boko Friends is about three seconds long and contains only the lyrics "Deko Boko Friends!".
- Bakugan: Battle Planet has a 20 second intro. It doesn't include the 40-second narration of the original 1-minute, 10 seconds Bakugan intro.
- The anime adaptation of Babylon has only a 30 second long opening
with a purely instrumental song.
- The Cantonese and Thai opening themes for Ojarumaru are only five seconds long.
- Tamagotchi:
- The opening to Let's Go! Tamagotchi is only 15 seconds long, due to the short (approximately three minutes long) length of the episodes.
- The opening to Tamagotchi Friends is a little over 15 seconds long, compared to the Japanese original Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream which has two openings that are both over a minute.
Asian Animation
- The intro to Akis is 15 seconds long.
- The intro to Fun Alliance is about six seconds long, not including the episodes' title cards (which the theme song overlaps with).
- The short (about one minute and thirty seconds) runtime of each episode of Kaun Banega Superstar doesn't leave much possible for an intro. It simply displays the title of the show, Blue Star and Red Star, and the episode's title while a voice sings "Kaun banega superstar?" in the background.
- Lamput's intro is about three seconds long.
- The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Everyday Pleasant Goat opening lasts around 12 seconds.
- Simple Samosa: Keeping with Indian television tradition of having a short intro, the intro used in the TV broadcasts and Disney+ Hotstar copies is about five seconds long and shows nothing but the logo and the main characters laughing happily. Interestingly, since the show has a legitimate theme song (the full version of which is around two minutes and thirty seconds long), this means that the theme song has to be written into the episode itself if the producers want to use it.
Live-Action TV
- The Amanda Show, barring the fact that the Theme Tune came from Spyro the Dragon (1998), only has a 15-second intro sequence, which was short by late 1990s/early 2000s standards.
- "Better Call Saul" has 16 seconds of bluesy guitar overtop of psychedelically colored and distorted images of anything from roadside billboards to the Statue of Liberty.
- Bunk'd: Starting in Season 3, the theme song is shortened and altered, lasting 30 seconds and only using the last few verses.
- The first title sequence for The Drew Carey Show is a 20-second Animated Credits Opening consisting solely of Drew's face singing "Moon Over Parma".
- General Hospital joined the trend in 2012, when it shifted to a roughly 10-second intro centered around a 3D cityscape with the titular hospital, and a giant glass "GH" logo with photos of the current cast in its reflections. This intro also had a Milestone Celebration version when GH celebrated its 50th anniversary, with the photos being cast members from across the show's history.
- The open changed again in January 2019, now featuring a fast, sepia-colored "flipbook" of cast photos, concluding with a fade-in of the hospital on its final slides. In May 2019, the show introduced a slower and slightly longer theme song, with the existing "flipbook" slowed to match the new length.
- Ghosts (US): The opening is only several seconds long, which is a contrast to the much longer British version.
- The original intro for Hawaii Five-O lasted 60 seconds. When the remake premiered in 2010, the intro was shortened to 30 seconds.
- The intro sequence of How I Met Your Mother only lasts for 15 seconds, with simplistic effects and a scatting theme music.
- The title sequence for Interview with the Vampire (2022) is only about 23 seconds in length.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid started out with a standard opening; however, after the show got darker and more plot-heavy, the opening was dropped and replaced with simply the logo appearing over some sound effects. The opening theme was instead used either for crucial fight scenes or at the end of the episode, never halting the action. Eventually, the opening was added back in.
- Last Man Standing's intro only contains a few bars of music and almost no visuals or animation — just a pair of boots dropping from off-screen.
- Lost: Less than ten seconds long, the opening title is simply a zoom-in to the word "LOST," in white 3D letters floating in a black space.
- New Girl: The title sequence was shortened from the fourth season to 'New Girl'' and the creators name, accompanied with the instrumental theme song.
- Once Upon a Time (2011) has a variation. The "Intro" is just a couple of seconds long but is preceeded by the episode's plot-enabler.
- Our Miss Brooks: The syndicated opening sequence for Our Miss Brooks is only 13-seconds long. Notable in that the syndicated version dates back to the 1950's. The theme itself dates to the 1948 radio premier, when it was played briefly at the start and end of the radio episodes. A much longer version of the tune plays over the closing credits.
- This is pretty common with shows produced by Rick Siggelkow like Shining Time Station, The Noddy Shop and Ace Lightning, where the intros usually run for 30 seconds.
Web Original
- Akfamilyhome's intro sequence is only 10 seconds long.
- Normally, The Daily Object Show's intro is precisely 6 seconds but the extended version is just over 20 seconds.
- The Game Grumps intro is about 6 seconds long, but some of the other series have slightly longer intros.
- Battle for Dream Island has a 10-second-long intro sequence.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series' intro is a 10-second version of "Kawaita Sakebi" (the opening to the Toei anime).
Western Animation
- Teen Titans Go! shortened the original 1-minute, 20-second Teen Titans (2003) intro down to a 20-second remix.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold has a 30-second intro, which is still shorter than the one-minute The Batman (2004) intro that preceded it, but longer than future DC cartoons.
- In contrast to previous Batman cartoons (like Batman: The Animated Series and The Batman (2004)), Beware the Batman's intro is only 20 seconds long.
- The Amazing World of Gumball opening only lasts 20 seconds. In America, it's actually even shorter, showing only the final four seconds of it, where it's cutting to the logo and the creator's name with the theme finishing up (although the full intro has aired in America in some rare instances).
- There exists a full version of the opening of The Powerpuff Girls (2016), but the televised version only lasts 25 seconds. The original series had a nearly 70 second-long intro with a narration. Though, unlike other contemporary Cartoon Network shows, at least the ending theme is shown on TV.
- Young Justice (2010) originally had a twenty second intro. Season 2, Invasion, outright removed it, though a new title sequence with a remixed theme would return for season 4, Phantoms.
- The theme for OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes is 20 seconds long. The theme for its pilot, Lakewood Plaza Turbo, is about 7 seconds longer.
- The intro to The Legend of Korra is roughly 20 seconds long and is much shorter than its predecessor Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is due to it including the "Earth, fire, air, water..." portion of the intro but no long narration about the plot of the series, like Avatar had. An extended intro exists that is over 1 minute long.
- Justice League Action's intro is about 20 seconds long. In contrast, the previous Justice League cartoon from a decade prior had a 1-minute long intro.
- The intro for ThunderCats Roar is about twenty six seconds long. While longer than the 2011 cartoon, it's especially short when compared to the intro for the original cartoon, which was three times as long. The two-parter "Exodus" ditches the intro entirely, instead having a simple jingle and title card lasting only a few seconds.
- The intro to the Spanish cartoon Capelito is 20 seconds long.
- The intro used by Regular Show is about six seconds long, featuring a sustained synth note accompanied by the sound of a light switch when the title card is swapped for the creator credit.
- The intro for Close Enough, which features trippy-looking animation by James Baxter, is 15 seconds long.
- The intro used in Purno de Purno's third series is about 15 seconds long.
- The opening for The Crumpets is 25 seconds long.
- Both Kiff and StuGo happens to have the shortest intro for a animated Disney Channel show, only lasting 25 seconds each.
- Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart originally had a 40 seconds intro, which was later cut down to 20 seconds.
- Infinity Train has a six-second intro that consists an ominous synth, followed by the show's Recurring Riff and the sound of a passing train. The train sound may or may not bleed into the start of the episode proper depending on if the characters are entering/exiting a train car or not.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts has a theme tune that starts playing at the end of each episode's cold open, with the scene panning to show some part of the environment that spells out the titular character's name. At which point it hard cuts to the actual show title card, followed by the episode title.
- The intro for Sarah & Duck is just 15 seconds long.
- The intro for Smiling Friends is only about three seconds long, featuring the title and creator names flashing in bright text with fast, dissonant music.
- The intro for Angels of Jarm is somewhere around 15 seconds long.
- The Chocolix: The intro, which gives the names of the Chocolix family, lasts under ten seconds. Averted as of Season 4.
- The intro for Wylde Pak is ten seconds long and only consists of the series title and creators names (complete with Line Boil animation) followed by the episode title card and credits, with a piece of the series’ theme song playing over them.