Well-done animated shows have some great recall value for those who had the privilege of viewing them as children. Be it the Saturday morning action cartoons of old, or newer, more child-friendly shows like Kid vs. Kat, Kick Buttowiski, or The Amazing Spies, what is often remembered of these shows are the banger opening sequences that came with them.
While in this era of streaming, it is common to skip the intro of shows to continue the binging experience, there are certain shows that have very addictive intros that fans just cannot get enough of. This is also true for animated shows, and in the Hall of Fame sit four shows with the best intros audiences have seen on TV: Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and, Phineas and Ferb.
Gravity Falls, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Adventure Time, and Phineas and Ferb just did something right with their intros
Whether it be the generation that grew up with these shows, or the children and adults who are just discovering them now, it is undeniable that the introduction of these animated series has had a deep impact on all those who have come across them.
Be it ti eerie and subtly haunting intro of Gravity Falls, the cheerful celebration of summer that was the intro for Phineas and Ferb, the zany intro to Adventure Time, or the iconic epic intro of Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans cannot help but fall in love with these ritual beginnings to each show. Even fans on Reddit agree with the consensus, pointing out how these entries were some of the best ever put to screen.
It is almost as if the episodes feel incomplete without these intros being played before them, making it much more unlikely that people would skip them at all. These shows have managed to carve out quite the niche with the audiences that they catered to, which allowed them to stick around in the cultural zeitgeist as long as they have, and a part of the credit can be given to the banger intros that these shows boasted.
There are some other shows that also deserve to be mentioned in the list
While there were shows like Gravity Falls and Phineas and Ferb that defined the TV viewing experience of an entire generation, there are some other shows that had pretty banger intros of their own.
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is one of the shows that come to mind for the heart-thumping theme that it boasted, with the current lineup of the Avengers assembling as the intro closed out for each episode. There was also the lesser-known Iron Man: Armoured Adventure theme song, which was CG animated like the show itself.
When it comes to superhero shows and their intros, it is also hard to not mention Justice League Unlimited and Batman: The Animated Series. If original animated series are to be looked at, few can match the intensity of groove of the intro for Samurai Jack, or even Cartoon Network’s action flagship, the original Ben 10 series.
Of course, this list would get infinitely longer if anime were to be included, given that there have been many banger intros from the same show, given the insane episode count that some of them have. However, that deserves a separate article of its own.
