The pilot episode of The Nanny had an opening with Fran putting on makeup in a mirror, then walking off into the distance with a baby carriage (which was silly as none of the children in the TV series were young enough to be in a baby carriage).
Thankfully it was switched to the now-famous animated opening with the theme song, and the pilot animation has never been shown again, not even on the first season DVD.
Perry Mason (the original series) went through several iterations of the video, all set to the same theme music. YouTube has them available if you search “Perry Mason intro”.
The Partridge Family changed the entire lyrics to the opening song fairly early on (“When We’re Singing” ——> “C’mon Get Happy”)
Gunsmoke went through a couple versions (some black-and-white, some in color) of the shootout on mainstreet opening, plus some later versions that didnt’ feature the shootout at all, but instead had the actors’ pictures in little oval picture frames crop up… in addition to all that I faintly recall seeing an intro that had a real ominous voice-over something vaguely like “Gunsmoke… by the time you can smell it, it’s too late”, although I was so young back then that might have been an ad for the show instead of the opening credits.
The animated intro to The Wild Wild West had color added and the theme music jazzed up, which would hardly rate a mention here, but one change rather shocked me the first time I saw it.
Which was in reruns, of course!
I think “Lost in Space” had a different start later on.
Of course, Three’s Company went from Jack doing a pratfall off his bike and Janet watering Chrissy out the window to Jack, Janet, and whatsername and Furley at the bumper cars to Jack, Janet, and Teri at the zoo.
That was beautiful. Thank you.
To justify my post, I had to really dredge but … The Wonder Pets changes the episode title and its style, the contents of the schoolroom and occasionally other things too.
Ed used the Foo Fighters’ “Next Year” as its theme song during season 1. But the band and the show’s producers got into some sort of legal dispute over it, so in season 2 it was Clem Snide’s “Moment in the Sun.”
Then, though, the Foo Fighters and the producers resolved their differences and “Next Year” was back for seasons 3 and 4.
No it did not. I watched the show in the original run and there was only one theme song – purely instrumental. Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the theme, but that was to get songwriter royalties; they were absolutely awful and were never used in the show.
I was watching a re-run from *A Different World *last night - and that theme entry definitely changed.
Of course, a huge part of this was because Lisa Bonet was in the cast originally, and then it all changed. But the stylizing was pretty different too.
Originally they had 4 main cast members and had them doing different scenes around town: washing a car, jumping rope with some young kids, playing the piano on the back of a pick-up truck, talking on a pay phone, etc.
Once Lisa Bonet and Marisa Tomei had left - the show went to the more bright colored, choreographed opening.
And in one episode they make it most of the way through the regular opening sequence only to have Peter fall down the stairs and crush one of the showgirls.
Yes, yes it did.
The original theme was written by John Williams (yes, that John Williams).
In season 3, it was rewritten by Williams to include the countdown sequence and a much better song.
In addition to a different opening sequence each season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer also ran a once-off opening for the episode “Superstar.”
The plot of the episode involved the tertiary character Jonathan making a deal with a demon to be the most famous person in the world, so the credits reflected his “new” influence and status. He was in every snippet, doing hero-y things.
There’s another spoofing the opening of the Naked Gun movies too, following Stewie on his tricycle.
He didn’t say lyrics, he said a singer. And yes, there were versions with and without a wordless female voice singing the melody.
Robot Chicken has had at least one Christmas-themed and one Star Wars-themed opening sequence.
I thought that the difference was due to whether or not it was a rerun or not.
Leave It to Beaver also had different opening sequences. Leave It to Beaver - Wikipedia
Yes, it did. Your Snopes link says only that the lyrics were never used. But I didn’t say anything about lyrics. In the sung version that was used, a soprano sings the theme on “ah”, not words. Actually, there were more than two versions of the theme. Theme from Star Trek - Wikipedia
I didn’t watch all of it in the original run. But I’ve definitely heard both versions in syndication.
“Two and a half men” used basically the same opening, except at the end they showed the characters from the first season morphing into the characters of the current season.
We wish they wouldn’t do that! The boy creeps us out with his speed growing. Make them stop it!
I dream of Jennie originally had a live opening when she comes out of the bottle and gives Tony a loooooong kiss. Later the opening was a cartoon where she danced and gave him a little peck on the check.