I’ve started watching Better Call Saul, a great show. I love its brief, slapdash and interrupted introduction (opening credits). The “intro”, with title and brief credits of the biggest names, occasionally appears at the beginning of the episode. But sometimes it appears as much as eighteen minutes from the beginning. Is this a record, for TVs or movies? What is the most amount of time from beginning to opening credits?
Well there was one episode of Seinfeld where the opening credits were the very last thing.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus had one episode where the opening credits rolled just a few minutes before the end of the ~30-minute episode (and another with the closing credits just a few minutes after the beginning).
The longest “normal” gap from beginning to credits that I have seen was one Miami Vice episode that was nearly ten minutes into the episode (and that ten minutes was pretty artsy even so. Minimal dialog and lots of driving, IIRC). That was back when that simply wasn’t done.
Then we got shows like 2 1/2 Men whose theme music takes less time to sing than it does to type. Might as well not even have credits, no matter when they arrive.
When Breaking Bad was on, I listened to the pod cast with Vince Gilligan and Kelley Dixon (the editor). The subject of opening credits came up from time to time. I remember one of the episodes had the opening credits well into the show (15ish minutes) and Vince mentioning he had to get permission from, IIRC, the writers/actors unions to do that.
Apparently there’s a lot of rules surrounding credits.
My wife used to watch “Castle” a lot, and I swear the credits were still rolling 15 minutes into each episode. It was a regular thing.
Don’t the titles for Apocalypse Now occur just before the closing credits?
Monty Python occasionally had the credits mid-show and once put them at the endm
For that matter, which are the shortest opening credits on a TV show, which have a song and are repeated regularly?
I thought the “titles” for that film were just the words “APOCALYPSE NOW” showing up randomly in the background of one scene near the end. (IIRC, there’s a copyright notice after the last scene.)
Scrubs has to be in the running.
The O.A.
Hilariously, the pilot episode didn’t show an opening until well over 30-40 minutes.
After this, they never aired another opening…until season 2, which was also 40+ minutes into the season premiere.
It’s a bizarre joke if you watch the show, but the entire show is very strange.
My wife and I use to watch the timestamp on Alias to see how late its credits would air. 14 minutes or so was the record.
The part before the credits is traditionally known as the “teaser”. When it’s 18 minutes, that term seems wrong–or cruel…
I may be the only person on this board who watches the show, but Blue Bloods is in the running. They don’t run the credits until after the first full segment of the show.
Yeah, that’s my gold standard for delayed opening credit. Whenever we’re watching a show and the credits come on 10-15 minutes after it starts, my wife and I both shout “Castle!”.
Depending on your definition of “theme song”, Frasier just had the title card and the jazzy theme.
Likewise The Good Place and Great News (minus the jazziness).
I mean, Supernatural just played a brief splash.
All of them below:
It consists of, and I quote: “me-e-e-en.” About 2 seconds.
I remembered Noah Hawley’s Legion doing something like this, had to click through a whole lot of episode descriptions to find it. IMDB tells me it was Season 3 Episode 6:
Bizarrely, the episode’s opening “Marvel” credits don’t appear until the episode’s 43rd minute, and the “Legion” title doesn’t appear until a few minutes later, at the end of the episode, immediately followed by the closing credits.