Twice; pre- and post-mustache.
Hill Street Blues had 146 episodes over 7 years.
The haunting theme tune (by Mike Post) stayed the same and I believe the credits did too.
Nope, there were numerous cast changes, especially after Esterhaus died.
Actually, the opening credits did change a little bit. There was This and there was also this version. It may be a bit nit picky but it is a difference.
And the opening theme for Newhart (the second series about the Vermont inn that ran for eight years) was rather lovely and relaxing. The theme brings back pleasant memories of late-night reruns many years ago. Another intro that never changed was I Love Lucy, but despite its fame that old classic only ran for six seasons.
Wow, I just want to correct the I Love Lucy reference I made above. I based my comment on all the reruns I’ve seen, but with reference to the original broadcasts, I couldn’t have been more wrong! :eek: The shows used to open with animations depicting whoever the primary sponsor was. The familiar “heart on satin” opening was created for reruns and subsequently for syndication, where it indeed appeared to have been used consistently.
It wasn’t a show I watched often as a kid (or later on in reruns for that matter), but I don’t remember Quincy’s intro changing significantly, if at all.
Howsabout Cheers? Cast changes aside, wasn’t the opening unchanged through all 11 episodes?
(I know this doesn’t strictly fit the OP question, but it’s fun to discuss).
mmm
The music was the same, but the montage changed considerably as people came and went, especially when Shelley Long left and Kirstie Alley joined the cast.
Coach died and was replaced with Woody; Cliff and Frasier were added after they proved to be popular with viewers.
For the first five years, Long and Ted Danson were given more or less equal billing; when Alley came on board, she was definitely ranked below Danson.
How about “ER?” Fifteen seasons and the opening sequence was always the same, because the cast credits ran as type over the actual episode. Otherwise that approximately 8 second long intro was the same start to finish.
The UK has some really, really long running shows.
The show Coronation St, a ‘kitchen sink’ drama about working class characters in the industrial north of the England has been running for 59 years with the same opening scenes, a set of still images and a very sad trumpet based signature tune. It even has one cast member who still appears and he was in the very first episode when he was a young student. He is getting on a bit now, but for someone in the precarious career of acting, he has had the longest of runs.
My elderly mother still watches the show and pretty much all the others such as ‘East Enders’. Another gritty ‘kitchen sink’ drama about working class characters in a working class East London since 1985. It hasn’t changed its signature tune or its opening scenes either.
Consistency and longevity seems to be a hallmark of the British TV soaps and they are always about poor people living in strong communities full of vivid characters who argue a lot but become reconciled when they suffer misfortunes and calamities.
Personally I quite liked Lost in Space, but they went a bit crazy with the spray paint when it was shot in color. I was not in the least impressed by Dr Who when they decided to jazz up the opening scenes and tamper with its signature tune.:dubious:
I can understand when producers avoid changing intros and credits that is well liked and familiar. There is plenty of scope for new ideas in the plot lines.
Corrie’s opening titles have changed quite a bit over the years.
I haven’t got a cite for this one, but I’m pretty sure they redid the aerial shots in the EastEnders titles to include the Millennium Dome (as was) when it was built.
Same sombre tune, scenes of grim back to back terraced houses and chimneyscapes with domestic cats slinking about on roof tiles. But no smoking chimneys, given that coal fires were replaced by gas heating by the 1970s. Just a few tweaks, concessions to the passage of time, in what is supposed to be a contemporary drama.
I suspect there were some rumblings of discontent with that brief experiment with a landscape scene, what were they thinking of…:dubious:
Says here the US had a soap opera ‘As the World Turns’ run 56 years until it stopped turning in 2010. Surely a contender?
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-running-tv-soap-opera
I’m not an avid, rabid fan of the show, but all the episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” seem to have used the same opening montage.
Nope. It changed each time they added a female to the regular cast.
That wasn’t the actual opening tho, it was an in episode scene referencing/parodying the opening.
No, the last several seasons (after it became the fucking Neela show) the opening was completely changed in style to that “8 second” thing you mention. Older seasons had a full, completely different, opening. Maybe reruns omit this to shorten runtime (very common in syndication of old shows)?
I don’t know about reruns, I just have a downloaded set of the entire run of the show–I wanted to catch up because I missed the last few seasons because of the, as you say, Neela show among other missteps that made a formerly great show into a caricature of itself. Although I did laugh hysterically when they dropped the second helicopter on the one armed wonder, that was hilarious although I’m not sure I was supposed to find it so risible.
^ Whenever someone in the main cast died (Dr. Greene - Anthony Edwards) or left the show (George Clooney), the opening credits were changed.
“Law & Order” perhaps? Only in the pre-murder opening:
I know the post-murder opening changes with each new cast lineup.