I completely forgot about this show until recently. They really went all out with this
@âhellomrkearnsâ#p71176 i'm sorry, did that one robot say âZoolanderââŚ? i appreciate this far more than i did as a young child. this intro was buried deep in my memory banks as well.
like everything else about Severance, its opening is a dense and weird work of beauty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmS3m0OG-Ug
Canât have a convo about openings without a lot of anime imo. Iâm partial to some big robot ones:
https://youtu.be/nxtT-7fTO9o
https://youtu.be/Da3JfD4CDnY
@âwhatsarobotâ#p71177 yes, but spelled differently: Ziv âZZâ Zulander
I always thought M.A.S.K. sucked as a kid, but that intro sure is an absolute banger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Z1yLO9C-Q
I can't find the actual version, so here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JqWWPSBLZs
@âHerbâ#p71190
This is a very close flavor I feel. Never saw the show, simply came up due to its absolute banger of an opening. I particularly enjoy a narrative exposition dump appetizer before my main course soaring-vocals opening theme.
https://youtu.be/y9K0SzFIf4A
One of my all time favorites with a theme song which goes pedal to the floor from minute one:
https://youtu.be/Ak384HDEimI
Absolutely no reason to go this hard, but I'm so glad they did.
American sitcoms in the 80âs would often land and start broadcasting a few years later in non-English countries, as import or piracy concerns were still practically non-existent, and many local TV stations wanted to make sure they had a hit and enough episodes before they started dubbing the whole thing. I am just prefacing this to explain I might be talking about shows that were antiquated for US folks my age by the time I got to discover them.
These shows often had this gimmick âweâll show you the protagonists / family / friends interacting through some touristic spots of the cityâ to quickly establish that the Tannerâs full house was in San Francisco or that Punky Brewster (and her dog Brandon!) was a fan of the Chicago Cubs. I am pretty sure the intended target audience was US only but, overseas, it gave people a cool window into cities theyâd often otherwise never expect to ever interact with.
As a young boy, one of my favorite examples of this bite-sized sterilized _Americana_ was the opening of _Head of the Class_ and how the teacherâs journey romanticized the same streets and common folks which pretty much all the movies depicted as depraved and dangerous a few hours later down the TV programming schedule. It made New York and New Yorkers look relatable.
https://youtu.be/Xjb3Py_37nM
_When Harry Met Sally_ is often praised (rightfully) as the movie that completely reset the image deficit of NYC and made shows like Seinfeld possible (not just because of the Castlerock connection) but the opening to _Head of the Class_, which apparently first aired in 1986, gave a glimpse of that same energy a few years ahead.
Man, that bots master thing⌠did I ever really watch it!? Iâm not sure!! Itâs familiar, but I can't remember ever actually seeing it.
A Man Called Hawk has a good intro, I love the sequence with the bird and the eyes and the sun!! ridiculous.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6s95dc
Unfortunately all the good versions got taken off youtube (uh oh) so I guess I'd better watch them fast on dailymotion. It stars my favorite dude Avery Brooks.
Love a good exposition dump intro song. This one for Dog House is incredible.
I know the full story of the author, but today I remembered this and let me tell you: there are three iconic openings in my zone: The Kenshin ones, the FMA ones and (personal choice) the Inuyasha ones:
https://youtu.be/EoF4Iz193NQ
I know there are more mythical OPs, but fuck it, this is the one that made me feel nostalgic.
Even though, my faves are these two. The first is my fave anime of all time:
https://youtu.be/K28Lcc-MdJs
https://youtu.be/pITNm95Sd1k
@âhellomrkearnsâ#p71245 I did not know this existed but wow, I sure do now.
@"ttzop"#p71266 HOLY LORD. I don't remember watching this but this song brought me right back to a certain place and time. yikes.
@âxhekrosâ#p71251 that last one is incredibly hot.
here's some classic canadiana for ya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zacsrdPwydw
Eric Nagler is an American folk singer who moved to Canada to dodge the Vietnam War draft and had a series of children's shows and specials including _Eric's World_! I actually hadn't thought about him for years until the closer to his Family Music Special (["Don't Say Goodbye, Just Say So Long"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw0KGKxzPBY)) suddenly popped into my head the other day. A nearly forgotten fragment of my childhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xx5598nlhs
@âttzopâ#p71266 yeah wow, did this happen to air at the same time as Sister, Sister and Brotherly Love? (never mind I checked)
@âconnrrrâ#p71282 heeeeck yeah. love Eric Nagler. i was a big-time Sharon Lois and Bram fan, where he often had cameos. i remember being super stoked to learn he'd gotten his own show.
lol guess i'm obligated to post this here now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xul7waCH590
you can catch these two intros on my (and now my family's) tv every sunday evening, almost every sunday, for the past 12 years. they are worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrRdVce9Mc
(this is the super-deluxe long version of the Chibi Maruko-chan intro. usually the one on tv is only about a minute and a half long. a few different artists have performed the theme over the years.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoF1aicoSvE
(this one, for Sazae-san, is cool, because it changes periodically to show different seasons and famous locations in Japan. this here is a Tokyo version.)
I think I saw bots master like twice total, it was pretty late or almost completely after I stopped watching most cartoons, and still somehow that song has been stuck in my head ever since.
It's layyyzer time booooys
Two great 1992 animated shows from North America* that faced very similar challenges: adapting a classic comics with a huge legacy and nitpicking fanbase, needing to appeal to fickle kids and obsessed adults, modernizing yet staying faithful to an iconic design, conveying the overall vibe of the show without any speech, removing all the racist and colonialist references
https://youtu.be/rrmUk2YUm14
https://youtu.be/dicqsorzd1o
The production timings are extremely close but I still wonder if Nelvana took heavy inspiration from Warnerâs opening track (or simply got similarly inspired by Danny Elfmanâs work on the movie).
Obviously, Batmanâs opening remains more iconic and original. Then again, itâs possibly the greatest animated show of all time⌠Tintinâs is more a faithful recreation of iconic scenes from the (remaining culturally acceptable) comics, since that was the showâs seemingly impossible mandate at the time.
*Tintin is a Belgian comics but this animated series was produced in Canada. Both series obviously benefited from heavy uncredited support from Asian studios.