TV intros.  You’ll be hard pressed to find them anymore.  Hardly anybody uses them.  Time is money, especially in television.  Who has time for theme songs and the 30-seconds to a minute and a half you could use to tell the viewer what they’re about to watch and why they should care when you could sell that time to advertisers to hawk Sham-Wows or Starbuck’s instant coffee.  Besides, with digital cable or those omnipresent chyrons at the bottom of your screen, you can easily find out what you’re watching or what you’ve missed, right?  Well, like movie poster art (Wow, “Two Big Photoshopped Heads Staring At Me” opens this Friday! Can we go, Mom? Please?), television intros are a dying art form, so I decided to celebrate a few from our shared pop culture history.

Join me, will you, as I rank the Top Five Action-Adventure TV Intros Of All Time.

The criteria I used to judge were: 1) Does it feature a signature theme song?  2) Does it contain iconic imagery, scenes, or presentation?  3) Do #1 and #2 hold up over time, or does it feel dated?  4) My own capricious whims.

HONORABLE MENTION:

The Six Million Dollar Man*

It is the sound mix of terse narration combined with static-filled radio transmissions, the steady beep of medical monitoring equipment and the distant, spare military percussion that make this title sequence so gripping.  The iconic “da-da-da-DAAA” theme itself is barely more than a stinger in the last fifteen seconds of the credits, but the way the strings rise up to signal Steve Austin’s bionic resurrection leave a lasting impression.  Also, the graphics overlaid atop the lens-flared image of Steve Austin running toward the viewer are still quite impressive.

*YouTube forbids embedding of “The Six Million Dollar Man” opening credit sequence, but you can find it on their site at the link.

#5 Miami Vice

The opening credits for Miami Vice included scenes of the Miami high life: South Beach, jai alai, Grand Prix racing, cigarette boats skimming the waves and jiggling breasts. Taken out of context, the images could be part of any travelogue sponsored by the Miami tourist bureau, but juxtaposed with Jan Hammer’s instrumental theme, (which was an odd blend of blues by way of 80s New Wave synth), they underwent an alchemical transformation and implied something a little seamier and more dangerous.  Also, despite the fact that Jan Hammer’s theme and Miami Vice virtually defined the sound and look of the mid-1980s, I find that the opening credit sequence holds up surprisingly well nearly a quarter of a century (DEAR HEAVEN! REALLY?!!) later.

#4 The Incredible Hulk

This title sequence was fairly heavy in narration, but everything you need to know about the show’s leads, Bruce Banner and his uncontrollable alter ego, The Hulk, was encapsulated by a mere thirteen words: “Mr. McGee, don’t make me angry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”  It wasn’t just the words, but the way Bill Bixby delivered them less as a threat to the intrepid reporter of Jack McGee, but more as a desperate plea to be left alone.  This intro also told a compelling story, and everything from the frantic piano riff at the beginning over the flashing “DANGER” sign to the split screen of the Hulk and Banner at the end, ratchets up the tension and enhances the mood.

#3 The Dukes Of Hazzard

You wanna know how good this title sequence is? It’s so good that 99% of Black folks don’t even care that the show’s about two hillbillies who tool around in a car emblazoned with the CONFEDERATE FLAG! For all we knew, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane might have been a Bull Connor-level tyrant who drove the Black folks out of Hazzard County with dogs and fire hoses.  We don’t care.  If anything, we want to see more of the car.  Like the General Lee itself, this opening sequence fires on all cylinders with shots of dynamite-tipped arrows, automotive mayhem, and Catherine Bach in heels and the tight, signature jean shorts which still bear her character’s name.

#2 ThunderCats

The music is a little cheesy, but it serves the purpose of telling viewers that, yes, these are the ThunderCats and they are on the move and they are loose, but it is the anime-influenced, jaw-dropping animation that earned this one a number two spot on the list.  I don’t think American kids had ever seen anything like this before.  Kids of my generation had mostly been raised on a cartoon diet of well-designed, but somewhat stiff Hanna-Barbera animation or gloriously loopy Warner Brothers cartoons, mixed with the occasional Speed Racer or Battle Of The Planets, but we had never seen such realistic animation used in such a deft manner to convey personality, grace, athleticism, speed and power.

#1 The Rockford Files

Before The Simpsons used the running joke of changing the couch sequence in their intro for every episode, The Rockford Files employed a similar gag and had different callers leave a message on detective Jim Rockford’s answering machine for each episode.  I love the big, bombastic theme that includes everything from harmonica to timpani.  Most of all, I loved the photo montage.  The photo montage technique was similar to the one Gordon Parks, Jr. used in Super Fly, but instead of giving an inside look at the cocaine distribution chain, it presented a day in the life of Jim Rockford.  Viewers were treated with shots of Rockford’s using good old-fashioned shoe leather investigation, the tedium of dealing with government bureaucracy, the banality of grocery shopping, and the simple joy of Jim Rockfordfishing with his father.  It was a candid, playful, and innovative way to demonstrate the life of a down-on-his heels private investigator in Southern California.

- JEP