# Why do TV show episodes have individual titles?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-tv-show-episodes-have-individual-titles/320382>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 6, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-tv-show-episodes-have-individual-titles/320382 "2005-09-06T18:32:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-tv-show-episodes-have-individual-titles/320382/41 "2005-09-08T07:54:32Z")

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All “Seinfeld” episodes are “The something” except for the pilot and fourth episode. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld felt it would be easier to just have simpler titles for episodes so the writers wouldn’t have to worry about what to come up with.

Episode 1 is “Good News, Bad News” (although I’ve seen it just called “The Pilot”). Episode 4 is “Male Unbonding”.

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**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-tv-show-episodes-have-individual-titles/320382/42 "2005-09-08T08:19:13Z")

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I spent some time in Spain in the late 80’s and remember that they would announce the epsiode titles of the dubbed American shows at the beginning; for example at the beginning of a “Cheers” episode a woman’s voice announced “Coach Returns to the Action”. They would also announce the name of the show - my favourite was “RRRemeengton eSteele”.

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