I know there have been threads before about the shows main titles/themes,but I thoiught I'd put a different slant on it...

Apart from Days,which has maintained it's original opening(with slight modifications)since it's debut,all the other shows have updated/changed theirs.

Y&R returned to the original music after the 'porno'theme but every other show has moved on.

Do you think this is a good thing?

Should the shows updated every say,5 years or so,to reflect the changes on the show,or should they have stuck with the original titles?

Back in the 70's most of the shows kept the original openings.

AMC from 70-90

AW had the 'concentric rings'from around 66 till 81

ATWT had the spinning globe from 56-81

SFT had the clouds from 51-81(with different music)

Secret Storm had waves crashing throughout 60's and 70's etc

Interestingly,Guiding Light was one show that did change its opening quite regularly.

Are the any original opening titles that you think could still work today(as they were,or with slight updates?)

I think Y&R could still go with the character sketches.

AMC with the book would be fine by me

The openings with character pictures present problems in terms of updates.

Also,with the move towards shorter openings,a quick title card would work eg the spinning globe,title ATWT and a snatch of music

Please post about original themes and your opinions

No. Most would be ridiculously outdated had they kept their originals from over 20, 30, 40 years ago.

I remember how much I enjoyed the porn opening on Y&R and OLTL. Just loved 'em.

Which shows me I like it when they switch it up and give us something new. It is a way of updating (putting in present context) a show with a longer history.

Ultimately, I kind of like AMC's continued use of the book/bible...updated, but with a continous through line.

The openings are one thing that should be updated and kept modern.

All of Y&R's openings have been timeless, IMO. Once they tire of the current one, they could easily go back to the drawings. Just add the cast member names, change the title on the left to the YR symbol, and it would work.

All of Y&R's openings have been timeless, IMO. Once they tire of the current one, they could easily go back to the drawings. Just add the cast member names, change the title on the left to the YR symbol, and it would work.

I think the got tired of the current one years ago, which was about the last time they even bothered updating it

I don't mind ABCD's soaps, for example, updating their opening sequences every now and then, but I do mind the fact that each opening no longer has a sense of originality. It's almost Angela Shapiro's concept of one, ginormous "super-soap" come frighteningly to life!

I don't mind ABCD's soaps, for example, updating their opening sequences every now and then, but I do mind the fact that each opening no longer has a sense of originality. It's almost Angela Shapiro's concept of one, ginormous "super-soap" come frighteningly to life!

correction, OLTL and GH dont. AMC still has its common family album theme visible throughout the opening

I think the got tired of the current one years ago, which was about the last time they even bothered updating it

True. I wonder if the drawings would be easier to update...if they want to be lazy, they can PhotoShop pictures into drawings, but that would just be chintzy.

I don't mind ABCD's soaps, for example, updating their opening sequences every now and then, but I do mind the fact that each opening no longer has a sense of originality. It's almost Angela Shapiro's concept of one, ginormous "super-soap" come frighteningly to life!

Amen to that. OLTL got the crap end of the deal, though, big time. It looks like the entire cast is gathered together in a back alley for a breakdancing competition. Remember Starr's old pose? I thought she was going through a trap door.

Edited April 28, 200916 yr by All My Shadows

Yeah, but, take that (the photo album) away, and it's basically the same as OL's and GH's: actors turning their heads every which way in front of some nondescript background, while incessant, over-synthesized music plays.

I think AMC by FAR did the best in adapting the generic format to fit the theme of the show. They kept a lot of photos integrated, the photo album at the end... the fact that all the photos come to life and float up in the air, that makes me feel that the streaks of color they have over people's shots are meant to imply some kind of flip-animation with multiple photos "flipping" to give life to the image. The torn photos during the flying segments that peel away from or float into the frame... the look is consistent overall and they never really lost their general opening credits imagery.

GH just bucked the order and for the most part used green screen shots, rather than the studio lights background (even some shots with studio lights backgrounds were manufactured through green screen!) and they are so frenetic and seizure-inducing I believe they did it to distract from the fact they have no actual concept in their opening. However, the siren light was incorporated enough to give it some kind of central image tying the opening together. I think THEY have an idea of what the opening represents, but no one in the audience has been able to connect to it.

OLTL's is by far the worst product of the homogenized openings, because they never decided on a concept either. From the start of this format you could BARELY tell what was superimposed over the actor's shots, and over time they have even gotten away from fragmented building shots and have used spinning squares and other nonsense as "spice" for their opening. It just looks like a gigantic mish-mosh amounting to absolutely nothing. Their closing title shot is also the worst, and calls to mind no identifying image for the show. Personally, as I've done on YouTube, OLTL should have tried to go back to its Sun/Clouds imagery and worked that more into the opening. My opening titles combined Sun/Clouds imagery with the cast faces/logo type of 1980s OLTL opening titles. Might not be the choice everyone would make, but at the very least it's a CHOICE.

As for the rest, I think B&B's is oddly restrained for such a campy soap, so I'd like to see something bolder, livelier, than they have right now. I always wanted some campy thing like fashion sketches of the cast that come to life. If done properly, mixing enough artwork and live-action images, it could look fantastic.

I'd like Y&R's, if they updated it.

GL should go back to their lifesavers opening.

ATWT really sold itself short with the last cast-featuring opening they had. Concept was good... didn't like the "farmland" theme song they had going, really, but the look was good.

I know Days, the opening is classic, etc, but I always wanted them to include the cast. For a show built so much on supercouples, and characters with rabid fan bases, they sure never touted them in the opening credits.

ATWT really sold itself short with the last cast-featuring opening they had. Concept was good... didn't like the "farmland" theme song they had going, really, but the look was good.

You don't like the ATWT theme tune, David? Although I have come to think of it more as the H&S theme nowadays...

You don't like the ATWT theme tune, David? Although I have come to think of it more as the H&S theme nowadays...

LOL! I'm resistant to soaps set in farm towns anyway. Doesn't every viewer want to see soaps in a splashy big city?!

The theme, combined with images of farms and windmills, etc, just comes off as a Little House on the Prairie ripoff to me.

Combined with your images, it takes on a classier tone, stately, majestic. It's a combination thing, not a theme on its own thing.

I'm resistant to soaps set in farm towns anyway. Doesn't every viewer want to see soaps in a splashy big city?!

Not necessarily.

Not necessarily.

This is why I always tell myself not to generalize.

Very well! I only want to see soaps set in a big splashy city!!!