Are intros becoming shorter?

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vijay pindoria

New member
I've been noticing on TV that cartoons tend to have shorter intros nowadays. Instead of the common 1-minute intro, many shows now have intros that are 30 seconds or even less. Even shows that have 1-minute intros have their intros shortened for reruns, such as Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends or Ben 10.

The question is, why? Do the creators make intros shorter to have more story time? Are formerly-long intros shortened to make room for more commercials? What's the story?
 
Ever since they started squashing outro credits for ads for other shows, they've been shortening cartoon intros. I remember when these things were like full minute songs, now it might just be a quick intro with some quick montage, then the titles.
 
Well, to answer your second question, yes formerly-long intros are shortened to make room for more commercials. Networks nowadays are trying to find ways to squeeze in ads and promos for shows, and shortening the intros is one way of doing it.

I do miss the one-minute intros. The time was long enough to get in some lyrics and a catchy hook. Actually, I think a lot of theme songs today aren't as catchy or memorable as they were in the 80's and 90's. It's too bad, as that's one way to get people to remember a show if they can't remember the plot or characters themselves.
 
Sometimes it works and sometimes it dosen't. With the short intros. The intros that were made short I hate, but shows that have short intros like KND and Chowder, the intros are very catchy.
 
I noticed it. I remember classic Disney cartoons of the 80's and early 90's have long catchy theme songs while most modern cartoons have 30 second long tunes.
 
Disney Channel doesn't have commericals, so whatever little amount of new cartoons they have, they are bound to have a long intro. But if they are catchy is another story.
 
You should hear it in French. All I'm saying. It's even better.

But that's sad. We no longer have outtros for ads, and now the intros are suffering. I mean, other than the fact that the Simpsons is using more and more extended intros (the evolution, the Middle age tapestry, the pull out of the universe back to Homer), everything else has been shortened. And even still, I haven't heard any catchy theme songs in a while. Well, maybe Johnny Test. And that theme song is better than it should be for that show.

I indeed miss the 80's. But a lot of those theme composers (Chuck Lorre, Haim Saban) have gone on to bigger and better things.

Indeed, the US just doesn't care about theme openings to cartoon shows. I mean, look at Japans market? Not only is their opening (and closing) theme market huge (even unpopular shows get multiple CD's of openings/closings and unrelated Character songs), but some openings are an excuse for a J-Pop group to make a hit single. Here, we're lucky to get a song onto a cheesy compilation CD (We'll never see the likes of Animaniacs albums, and the Disney Afternoon soundtrack again. That's for sure). Hell, even France had a booming cartoon soundtrack industry at one point. Inspector Gadget had a few soundtracks, and singles featuring extended versions of our favorite cartoon themes, in French of course. Hense my earlier Ghostbusters comment.

It's a shame our rich animation history of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound albums, theme songs, et al has been deminished to jingle writing, and 20 second clips. just so we can see an extra Frsoted Flakes promo.
 
While shortening the opening sequence for re-runs smacks of corporate money-grabbing, the only problem I have with most of them is that the cuts in the tune are so noticeable; even if you haven't seen the full thing, you can tell there's been some funny stuff going on.

For the record, the worst was Cheers in my opinion.
 
I acaully don't like long intros. The shorter ones are quicker and less annoying. It's sad they're short because of ad space but when you look at how affective Home Movies or Metalocolyps intros are it's ok. They just lead you into the show you're about to see with little need for explanation of the show. I found when watching the longer intros I was getting gyped of cartoon time and most of the plot intro you find during the shows progress anyway. And how many of you skip through the intros on the DVDs anyway?

The Simpsons intros are the best long and short. They cut them to get the funny stuff from the intros. The long version is so old, most of the characters arn't in the show anymore. One thing I really hated about intros though is that they'll either be really cheep about it or they'll spend most of the budget on it. boondocks is a good way to make use of the intro by using clips of the show but also using hand drawn looking frames to shows it's uniqness. Justice Leage did intro where they had clips from episode so you know ep was coming up. Spongebob is good where they don't tease you with the shows style and it usues very limited character expressions.

I think this StrongBad E-mail explains everythign I like and dislike about show intros> SBMAIL #155 Theme Song
 
Very rarely, actually, unless the intro either sucks or doesn't leave an impact on me, which is only about 10% of my collection.

Now ENDING songs, on the other hand...
 
Not unless I'm watching a marathon of the episodes, and I just don't want to sit through it five times, I will... but there isn't a single program I have on DVD that I don't enjoy the openings to. Most of my music collection (Cd and Mp3 files) is cartoon openings. I mean, there are a few theme songs I hate, but I can't even think of them right now.
 
I actually don't think that I've ever skipped through the intros to any of my DVDs before. I usually watch only one or two sets at a time and I normally just watch one episode of each set every weekday. Most of the openings in my DVD sets are a bit over a mintue long, so I've never really felt that I needed to get to the program that much faster. Besides that, I enjoy the intros to my DVD sets.

Anyway, most intros are getting shorter because of more commercial time. I haven't seen it in too many other channels, except for Cartoon Network when I noticed that they cut the Foster's intro short one day. It is kind of a shame since there are fewer and fewer good intros into shows. Just a few years ago, many shows could be idenitfied with their openings.
 
How are anime intros too long? OP/ED's are always 1:30, with the exception of One Piece which their most recent Openings being 2:30 due to not having any ending credits.

There's nothing in the Opening that needs to be in the ED credits, since it would just be extra credits. :sweat:
 
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