I vaguely recalled another show that started with a live action sequence yesterday, something with cats, but I couldn’t remember the title. I must have looked at every bloody cat show listed on the IMDB just to ease my own mind. The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty,video here
The Phantom Tollbooth movie is almost entirely animated, but the beginning and ending are live action and (while still reasonably long) are mostly just opening and closing scenes.
James And The Giant Peach - not sure about the actual opening titles, but the start and end of the movie are live action; the main part is animated.
mobo85:
And Rat Race, which was inspired by it, has animated titles as well.
Sort-of animated…Dead Man on Campus has, for its intro, a series of images from textbooks describing how to commit suicide. But in theory, that could be live film of genuine pages.
All the James Bond movies, with their girl-silhouette title sequences.
I’ve honestly never seen the entire film, but I believe The Pagemaster is animated with a live-action introduction.
The 1987 Kim Catrell movie Mannequin has animated credits.
Puni Puni Poemy has a really bizarre live action closing sequence of the voice actress who does Poemy walking along the beach singing.
I remember that Kill Bill has a anime style short in it but I don’t remember if it was at the start of the film
I believe the film keeps going back and forth to live-action and animation, as did the aforementioned James and the Giant Peach.
The first scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is entirely animated, then the film becomes a mix of live-action and animation. I don’t know if that one counts.
Dude, Where’s My Car? has animated opening credits.
Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie are the classic animated credits sequences.
Speaking of My Three Sons, the credits were the source of one of the funniest moments on Not Necessairly The News form a million years ago. A guy in a men’s room is checking under the doors for an open stall. He sees a pair of feet under all of them until the last one, which has three feet. The MTS theme music starts up and the feet start tapping. Hi-freakin’-larious.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines has an animated introduction and end credits, I believe by Sergio Aragonés.
The Great Race has animated opening & closing credits designed to look like an early 20th Century slideshow.
Should have looked further. British animator Ralph Ayres was responsible for Those Magnificent Men. I wonder if Sergio Aragonés was inspired by him.
The Patrick Dempsey vehicle Loverboy has animated credits.
My daughter watches a ghastly cartoon called (I think) Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, about two female japanese rock stars. It features at the start or the end or both a bit of live film of two japanese women–usually goofing around. My daughter assures me that these are the real Ami and Yumi.
The opening titles for Charade were the work of Maurice Binder. He went on to do the opening credits for almost all of the James Bond movies from Dr. No to License to Kill. (After that he died. The newer Bond film openings clearly do hisw style homage) He also did the opening titles for Arabesque (an attempt to recapture the “Charade” feel using some of the original cast and crew, but sadly lacking screenwriter Peter Stone), which strongly resembles the Bond openings. He also did a “Dream” sequence for the 1979 version of Dracula (the Frank Langella one), which also strongly resdembles the Bond openings.
All of these are acknowledged as very impressive opening credits using nifty optical tricks, but none of them use animation as in Charade, except for Dr. No.
Pink Panther movies have allready been mentioned, but the Pink Panther Cartoon series was close to a case of the reverse.
An animated Pink Panther would arrive in a live action Pink Panther Car in the real world.
IIRC How To Beat the High Cost of Living (I think that’s the correct title, Jane Curtin/Susan St James/Jessica Lange vehicle) has animated opening credits.
Do we want to count Murder by Death which is live action but features charicatures of the various characters? No? OK.
Indeed they are.
I can think of two other animated shows from the past that had live-action bumpers: Bobby’s World featured opening and closing introductions with the animated Bobby and live-action Howie Mandel, and Super Dave ended each episode with a comic stunt by the real Super Dave Osbourne. I’m sure there’s more.
*Who Killed Roger Rabbit? * opens with a cartoon, then goes to a mixture of 3D animation and live action.
Ralph Bakshi’s *Cool World * opens and closes with live action but consists mostly of animation. Two of his other animated films *Heavy Traffic * and Streetfight (aka Coonskin) close with live action sequences. I don’t recommend any of these, though.
Monty Python’s opening both for Flying Circus and several of their movies was animated with the skits/films being live action.
Enjoy,
Steven
I don’t know if this counts as a counter-example or not… When I was a kid I remember seeing a movie with Don Knotts called “The Incredible Mr Limpet”. The first third or so of the movie is live action, then he falls off a boat and turns into a fish on the way down to the bottom and the rest of the film is animated.