Not so much like Gilligan’s Island changing from “and the rest” to “the professor and Mary Ann,” but a total change of their bginning sequences.
The Drew Carey Show went from a cartoon Dew singing “Moon Over Parma” to the “It’s A Five O’Clock World,” and later “Cleveland Rocks” dance sequences.That 70’s Show started out lip syncing in the car but later changed it to the round table scene the show became famous for doing.
What otherx?
F Troop dropped the lyrics from their theme song in the show’s second season. And showed artistic renderings of the troop’s adventures, rather than the video of the saga the lyrics described.
I’m still mad about that.
From that era: despite the increasing campiness of the show itself, Lost in Space switched from the goofy title theme of the first two seasons to a more “heroic” theme in season 3.
Babylon 5 had a different opening sequence (different narration, different music) for every season.
The old Happy Days began with Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock but later seasons had their own “Sunday Monday Happy Days, Tuesday Wednesday Happy Days”.
The original Brady Bunch had the kids sing the theme song. Later they used some professional singers.
I think Everyone Loves Raymond’s opening got changed several times. I think the first seasons had the characters moving past Raymond on a treadmill.
After 9/11 the Sopranos cut out a shot of the twin towers.
Roseanne’s intro would change for each new season.
Weeds.
Buffy and Angel both updated their opening credit sequences with each new season, although the I believe they always kept the same opening music. I think Buffy ditched the opening narration from Giles after a couple seasons, but I might be misremembering.
The Cosby Show did that too.
Actually it’s the other way around. Bland, vanilla professional singers first season then Brady kids belting it out later in the run.
The Cosby Show changed its opening sequence each season and reworked the theme song while still remaining true to the original melody. More or less.
Actually, the *Angel *theme music changed. It used to have a killer Viola part all the way through - but they later dropped it out of the full orchestration section. Still pisses me off.
Doctor Who has had at least 10 different opening sequences over the years…
I Love Lucy originally had an animated opening. In fact, I think they had a couple of them. When I was growing up, though, the syndicated openings were all the satin-surrounded heart. I didn’t even know about the original animated openings until recently.
as a general rule, openings got clipped when the show went to syndication. I was surprised to hear the LONG version of Mickey Mouse Club on my daughter’s CD several years ago – mit was a LOT longer than I recalled. When I finally saw the full opening on the DVD set, I finally saw what I’d never seen as a kid – the unabbreviated opening sequence (and in color, no less).
For non-syndicated changes, I Dream of Jeannie changed its opening. There were a long and a short animated opening, but there was also a version with voice-over narration.
The original Twilight Zone had several different animated openings – it wasn’t just the “E = MC[sup]2[/sup] plus eye plus shattered window plus sketcher’s doll with hair” – there were other versions, with drawn rocks and the like.
South Park.
The Dick van Dyke Show had two openings – one where he trips over the hassock and another where he avoids it.
I don’t know what season it happened, but the famous Rob-tripping-over-the-ottoman in the opening of The Dick Van Dyke Show was subverted when they changed it to Rob deftly stepping around the ottoman.
Then in the show’s final season they scrapped that bit altogether and used an opening with a collage of photographs of the cast.
(Edit: Damn these slow-typing fingers!)
Some shows had different length openings and closings - to adjust for the length of the episodes. * Friends *comes to mind.
Don’t most shows change the pictures seasonally, if not the music?