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70s US Sitcom Format

C

Calhoun

In the 60s/70s, many US TV programs, particularly sitcoms, would open the show with a short (for lack of a better word) "vignette" scene before running opening credits. In most cases, that ~1 minute scene was independent of the episode story line. Anyone know the history of that programming format? Who came up with it, and why/when it was abandoned?

Watching repeats of sitcoms on the various nostalgia networks/channels, I noticed they do not usually show that opening vignette. Instead, they jump to and open with the credits. I get it, shows are often cut down in syndication. Since those opening bits seldom impacted the episode story line, it's an obvious place to shave off a minute or so. Syndicators must love that format.
 
Calhoun said:
In the 60s/70s, many US TV programs, particularly sitcoms, would open the show with a short (for lack of a better word) "vignette" scene before running opening credits. In most cases, that ~1 minute scene was independent of the episode story line. Anyone know the history of that programming format? Who came up with it, and why/when it was abandoned?
Click to expand...
That opening segment is usually called a “teaser” and was actually quite common. The short segment of a sitcom between the final break and credits is the “kicker”.
Calhoun said:
Watching repeats of sitcoms on the various nostalgia networks/channels, I noticed they do not usually show that opening vignette. Instead, they jump to and open with the credits. I get it, shows are often cut down in syndication. Since those opening bits seldom impacted the episode story line, it's an obvious place to shave off a minute or so. Syndicators must love that format.
Click to expand...
Shows you how much commercial loads have increased on broadcast television over the decades. The teaser and kicker segments are the first to get cut in syndication to reduce program content time.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
That opening segment is usually called a “teaser” and was actually quite common. The short segment of a sitcom between the final break and credits is the “kicker”.

Shows you how much commercial loads have increased on broadcast television over the decades. The teaser and kicker segments are the first to get cut in syndication to reduce program content time.
Click to expand...
But the kicker usually was a continuation of the story line, or a wrap up of the episode story line. That makes more sense to me than what was, in effect, a short, one act play that had nothing to do with the story line.

As opposed to sitcoms, dramas and action series always seemed to use the teaser to set the story line. If Joe Mannix saved a pretty girl getting beat up in the teaser, she was the story line.
 
Which network was it that restored all the kicker segments to The Andy Griffith Show, after it had been shown without them for decades in syndication? TV Land?
 
Teasers and kickers are still used on sitcoms produced today -- for example, both "Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage" and "Ghosts" follow that format. Conversely, there were sitcoms in the 70s that did not, neither "Mary Tyler Moore" nor "MASH" ever had a teaser segment before the opening credits, and there was at least one season of "Mary Tyler Moore" that didn't have the kicker segment.
 
Kate and Allie had this opening as well. It usually showed the leads walking around in NYC, though sometimes the children were involved, such as when Susan Saint James was pregnant.

Jane Curtin said they had a rough synopsis of the episodes plots for six months and would shoot half the openings in September and then shoot the other half after Christmas. She said in the interview the openings tried to tie into the plot but the way it was filmed it didn't always work out as smoothly as they hoped for.
 


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