1960s-1970s TV shows whose intros changed more than twice

Mrs Columbo changed the name of the show a coupla times

 

One show that went through many opening-sequence changes - and even series title - was originally known as VALERIE with Valerie Harper. She got into a fight with the show's producers and walked off after two seasons. So they hired Sandy Duncan to replace her now "deceased" character as the sister of the male lead, come to keep the family together. Initially, they called that iteration VALERIE'S FAMILY.

After a year with that title, it got retitled again as THE HOGAN FAMILY and had yet another opening sequence filmed. I believe that when the show was canceled and then revived on another network, CBS, the title was shortened to THE HOGANS, and again, another sequence was made to open the show.

Throughout all of these changes, the theme song remained, and a great one it was. It was called "Together Through The Years" and was sung by Roberta Flack. Here's a decent-sounding version:

 

Laverne & Shirley... I can elaborate here!

Both seasons 6 and 8 had, for the first two broadcast episodes, carry-over intros but with different supervising producer credits.

For season 6, the first two broadcast episodes used the same Milwaukee intro as seasons 1-5, but Milt Josefsberg is the supervising producer along with Tony Marshall. After that, we see the Hollywood intro (the girls moved from Milwaukee to Hollywood).

Season 8's first two broadcast episodes also had the same Hollywood intro from seasons 6-7; but as Cindy Williams was pregnant during production of this final season, her character Shirley was basically retired from the series, but the show kept its title. The intro without Shirley, first used on the third episode, featured a group of children around Laverne doing the show's distinctive hopscotch-style count-in the girls did before (on seasons 1-7).

~Ben

 

Regarding The Odd Couple...

Season 1 initially referred to the show as Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, but the playwright requested his credit be removed as he had no involvement whatsoever in the TV version. This was seen on the first 15 episodes. Some versions last 15 seconds longer.

The remaining 14 season 1 episodes open with this monologue from Bill Woodson:

For seasons 2-3, the monologue was changed. The revisions (underlined) were...

Season 4: first two episodes used an instrumental version of the late season 1 to season 3 intro, before using a remix of the first season 1 intro theme.

Season 5: unchanged from season 4, episode 3.

~Ben

 

The Goodies had a few changes of theme & opening montage. In one season, they even used a kind-of funk version of the theme song.

 

Probably because that was when I started watching the show, but to me, the second season theme was the best. I thought seasons 3 and 4 were okay today but to this day, I dislike the first season.

 

The Rockford Files theme was originally faster, and as I recall the opening montage fit every beat perfectly. Then a slower version of the tune became a hit single so they switched to that, but with little or no altering of the montage. I always thought the music/visuals syncing looked a bit sloppy after that.

 

Add my name to the millions who loved that theme. The version I associate with the series puts the theme in my top ten TV themes.

My main beef was although the original theme stayed pretty much the same (excepting for the changes Fastnbulbous mentioned), the tempo seemed to speed up (and not in a good way for me) as the series aged, especially the introduction to the main theme itself.

Not only did the space between the first two phrases of the intro to the main theme seemed to be slightly lessened, but worst of all for me was that the five pick-up notes before the actual theme got underway came in too quickly from the last of the two phrases…less space/less drama, for me anyway.

The theme was in 12/8 time with the piano pounding out the eighth notes that may or may not have been original, but it did help popularize that particular piano pattern for many popular songs to come through the 60s’ and beyond...Webster's Dictionary 1950s' piano sound for these ears.

 

That Girl had at least 3 changes:

Season 1 - The fast theme.
Seasons 2-4 - The slowed down theme.
Season 5 - Fast theme with lyrics.

There were also different opening shots of Marlo and New York in the first season.

As to DVD's opening changes, add Laura's dress color changing from white to black.

 

(From the 80's, though) The Cosby Show and A Different World both had theme changes over their respective runs.

 

The original Hawaii Five-O had multiple themes and different openings when cast members changed. Also the end credits had different themes.

 

To clarify Get Smart, the tunnel scene to the phone booth is unchanged in every episode (even the pilot).
In the first few seasons, he pulls up to Control headquarters with a Sunbeam Tiger, then later with a VW Kharman-Gia
and when it switched networks, with an Opel GT (the opening also included zoomed images of D.C. landmarks). The music in the Opel GT openings also was changed, with more modern instruments mixed with the opening theme music.

 

Yeah, the first Get Smart theme was mainly orchestral (with a lot of horns and bells), but then the final season on CBS added a bunch of weird flourishes with a harpsichord and flute. It was an odd decision. Oh, and new fonts for the main title.

 

Good god, I never saw the Season 5 That Girl. Man, that was a bad show. And they took an OK theme and made it a lot worse, plus it threw off all the timing.

 

i could usually date the season mary and emily's hairstyles. kojak changed a few times, adding different style theme i think as well

 

The Season 5 music harpsichord reminds me of the Addams Family theme.

 

I don't recall Kojak's hairstyle changing.

 

he went from cherry to grape lollipops

 

What is interesting to me is that for most (or maybe all of its run once it became a weekly series after the longer "mystery movie" episodes), while the theme music would be re-recorded every so often with a new arrangement, the title visuals remained the same, with clips from the earliest episodes, all the way to the end. So clips from 1976 were used on episodes all the way into 1983.

Just the other night I watched the first episode ("Go Fight City Hall...To The Death") on DVD. This may be old news to everybody but me, but the "fascinating sphere" speech is from this episode, and there is indeed a jump cut in the show opening, which I guess was necessary because his speech was slightly edited:

"Gentlemen, you are about to enter the (most) (important and) fascinating sphere of police work: the world of forensic medicine..."

Klugman's face turns away from the camera for a second or two during the speech, but I guess the jump cut was required to keep his lip movements in sync.

One other thing (again, this has been out there for years but I only recently picked up the "Seasons 1 and 2" DVD set so this is new to me) -- the "NBC Mystery Movie" episodes have the original closing mentioning the umbrella show's title. But these early, longer episodes have no opening title sequence at all. They start with the teaser of preview clips, then the show opening itself is skipped -- maybe they couldn't find the "Mystery Movie" intro or couldn't clear all the rights or something.

When I saw these episodes in reruns back in the 1980s and 1990s, they would have been cut down to the length of a one hour show and as I recall, they began with the regular show opening from the first season. I don't remember the closings being different, but they may well have been.

 

"Hazel" had 10 or 11 or 12 openings in five seasons, and also several different end credits music themes. This video has nearly all of the opens - I think one is missing. Note that the color Season One opening was for a single color episode (NBC stunt) of that season, and it is a shot by shot reshoot of the first, black and white, opening - and Don DeFore had hurt his right hand and it is in a cast, which they try to hide. A few whole episodes had his hand in that cast. For the second season, which was in color, they first used the first part of that season 1 color opening, but replaced the shot with Bobby Buntrock as Harold. Ford was the sponsor for seasons 1 to 4, so Ford cars are prominent in the openings and those episodes. Not all of the openings in this video are used in the currently syndicated version. The bad sound on the last open in this video is how those episodes were made and broadcast.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3urtic

 

I haven't seen the DVDs, but in syndication, some of the episodes that were originally shown as part of the "Mystery Movie" series, kept the original closings with the first (Mystery Movie) "Quincy" theme; Some had the "Q" with this original theme and at least one had the "Q" with the second Quincy theme from the first season (Non Mystery Movie).

 

I forgot to mention that Klugman re-recorded Quincy's "speech" at some point. His voice is noticeably different, a little rougher, especially when he says "medicine". I can't remember from what season, but I'm guessing it was likely between 1980-82.

 

SCTV changed with cast members coming and going but also some years showed them in still pictures and some years showing them with a bit of movements.

 

SCTV had many intros. At least two in the first season (and the clips used for each cast member changed from episode to episode), another intro for Season 2 (my favorite), one for Season 3 (with two variations), then the first "Cycle" of nine 90-minute shows from spring-summer 1981 had three different intros. A few more followed, I lost track of how many in the last NBC years. Then there was a newly edited generic intro (with new theme music) created for the chopped up 1980s reruns.

 

Davey and Goliath has a few. This one with some genuinely creepy sounding tones:



This one is abbreviated:

Davey and goliath the shoe maker

This one seems most common to me, with the fanfare and hymn-ly tempo:

Davey and goliath all alone