In this 2004 SDMB thread Master_Wang-Ka said,
…there is the matter of the fact that Speed Racer remains the only cartoon of which I am aware which features people getting killed in the opening credits.
So assuming that’s true, it got me thinking… how many other TV shows (dramas, cop shows, westerns, etc.) show someone getting killed in the opening credits? Or could it be that Speed Racer is the only TV show (cartoon or otherwise) to show someone getting killed in the opening credits?
Didn’t the special guest star in each “Police Squad” episode get killed during the credits?
Yes they did.
The opening credits of Firefly showed a brief flash of the Battle of Serenity Valley. Mucho dead there.
An animated James West out-draws a back-shooter in the credits of The Wild, Wild West.
The opening of, “Jonny Quest,” has the scene from the Anubis episode where the mummy grabs the bad guy and the ceiling caves in on them; you have to assume the bad guy dies, but not the mummy–he’s already dead.
I believe every episode of Six Feet Under began with a death.
Matt Dillon has a gunfight with an unnamed somebody in the opening credits of Gunsmoke. I assume the other guy dies.
Named somebodies get it at the start of Police Squad!
A lot of episodes of the Law & Order franchises start with a death before the opening credits even start.
The Six Million Dollar Man has a man who’s barely alive.
The opening of The Fugitive has a shot of Richard Kimball’s murdered wife.
NYPD Blue also started episodes with a murder that already happened.
Every episode of the original L&O started with a death before the opening credits.
Been a while, but Homicide: Life on the Street often had the detectives at a crime scene.
I have forgotten now. Were the murders in the show Colombo before the opening credits? Or were they after them? Or were the credits played during the murders?
And the real pilot who flew the M2-F2 lifting body in that crash, Bruce Peterson, was nearly killed. Like Steve Austen, he lost an eye in that crash. Unlike Steve, no bionic replacements were available.
I wonder how many times he watched that crash at the start of the show.
Colombo usually took some time to establish the backstory of the murder, including the relationship between the killer and victim, and a look at the actual crime itself. I haven’t seen many, but I don’t think the format allowed for a murder until several minutes in.
All the various CSI franchises usually began showing a dead body before the opening credits.
Almost none of these replies are actually answering the OP. There are about a bajillion TV episodes where someone is killed before the credits. The OP is asking what shows have someone being killed during the credit sequence.
Indeed the OP seems to ask a person getting killed in the credits. I still wonder whether it is intended to be so specific, as credits are very brief and a kill would be almost a throwaway thing (you couldn’t have a prolonged death scene), so you would only see an assault, or the final gasp, but not both.
If the question is about a killing at the very beginning (i.e. before the credits), there are of course the countless detective shows (many mentioned above), but also the pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Many shows these days don’t even have opening credits per se. After the cold open, they might have a title card. Then the credits themselves flash while the show itself goes on. If someone is killed while this is happening, does that count?
Do you guys in the US get “Death in Paradise”? Hugely formulaic, hugely popular British/French comedy cop series, where exactly this happens every time.