Great title sequences in TV history

We're in both a Golden Age of and the Era of Death for television title sequences.

Network TV, and some of cable, has slimmed them down to under a minute or axed them all together, fearful of DVR remote trigger fingers. (Thanks, Mad Men, for keeping it real.) 30 Rock has been one of the holdouts, though its theme music is delightfully manic, as if composer Jeff Richmond agreed to play it at triple-time (19 seconds long!) just to fit it in (having wife Tina Fey in charge of the operation must help). Lostnailed the post-theme-song-era title sequence by simply floating its logo at viewers for a second with one very recognizable sound effect, the end. Meanwhile, over at HBO, most shows are still wallowing in the luxury of multi-minute openings, because, of course, it's not TV, it's HBO, which in many ways is pretending to be old-school TV, but with graphic sex. That elaborately animated Game of Thronesopening is mesmerizing (more than a minute and a half!), and I miss Bored to Death's cool, catchy little song. (I had no idea this blogging stint was going to become some kind of extended therapy session for me about the demise of Bored to Death, but apparently I have a lot of feelings there.)

In any case, I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the great title sequences in TV history. Here are a few (just a few! please don't yell at me for leaving some out!) of mine — what are yours?

The Muppet Show : Just seeing this puts me in a better mood, and makes me wonder: How do we continue to live in a world where this is no longer regularly on network television?

The Brady Bunch : I mean, is this a beautiful work of simplicity and graphic art or what?

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air : Anyone who was younger than 20 when this show was on can recite the Fresh Prince's life story ("I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie, 'Yo, homes, smell ya later!'").

The Mary Tyler Moore Show : You knew I couldn't forget this one. I prefer the version I linked to here, the first season's opening with the most plaintive lyrics from the brilliant Sonny Curtis: "How will you make it on your own? This world is awfully big, and girl, this time, you're all alone." The hat toss is so legendary you'll see women doing this all the time at the corner in Minneapolis' Nicollet Mall where it was filmed.

Friends : This just is the '90s, as far as I'm concerned.

You can find Jennifer Keishin Armstrong on Twitter at @jmkarmstrong or at her website.