Title Sequences

Looking at some of the title sequence tutorials on videocopilot.net had me thinking of the art of the title sequence in general, especially because I know we're going to have to make one soon for class. I YouTube'd "best title sequence" and came up with this video. This guy sums up pretty well some of the best TV title sequences we've seen:

I agreed with a lot of what he had to say. Mad Men, Dexter, Fresh Prince, The Simpsons, etc. all have title sequences I would call "iconic". They take the quality and creativity of title sequences in TV to another level. Fresh Prince does it mostly through catchy music, but how can anybody deny a title sequence where almost everybody knows the lyrics to it's song front-to-back.

Mad Men in particular is a fantastic example of how a title sequence can use motion graphics and animation to display themes of the show beautifully. This video I found does a great job explaining just how much of Mad Men's themes are telegraphed in the intro: