Why don't prime-time cartoons bradcast their titles on screen?

K

Kunmui

New member
This is something that I've been curious about for years, and I figured one of the experts here could tell me if there's a specific reason for it: Why is it that prime-time/adult TV cartoons never broadcast their episode titles on screen? Kid vid cartoons usually either super impose their titles during the first scene or they will have separate title cards made. The only exceptions that come to mind right now are Wait 'Til Your Father Get's Home (which had title cards) and Duckman (in which the titles were super imposed).

So why is it OK for kids' cartoons to broadcast their episode titles on screen but not OK for adult cartoons to do the same?
 
For a good many sitcoms, the episode titles are rarely meant to be taken seriously. The writers admit that the reason shows like The Simpsons and The Mary Tyler Moore show had mostly wacky and non-sequitur titles was because they never expected that the audience would see them.
 
My guess is that many of the producers of adult cartoons feel that the general public regards wacky title cards and pun-laced episode names as the stuff of kiddie cartoon fare, and they want their shows to stand out and be taken seriously, as it were, so they don't broadcast these titles on screen to make these shows seem more 'mature'.

Personally, I wish they would broadcast their titles; knowing the names of these episodes would make keeping track of them and referencing them a lot easier.
 
I never noticed this until my brother brought this up. He said that Monk was the only adult show (animated or live-action) that he could think of that displays the titles. I wish they did too. It would be so much easier.

Just for the record, the episode titles of the Simpsons are/were broadcast in Germany.
 
I think it has to do with the fact that most adult shows never really showed their episode titles on screen, so they went with the flow, as it were.
 
Moral Orel and R&SAPC showed the title of the episodes.

And Latin American dubs of prime-time shows usually narrate the title.
 
Seems kind of pointless to make a title if the audience never sees it. Wouldn't they be able to just go by a numbering system for reference purposes?
 
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