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"  Over the years, TV programs have opened with everything from custom-written, minute-long ditties to a few jarring notes on a bass guitar. Given that the great majority of these introductory songs are forgettable, it always registers as a shock when we encounter genuine artistry within such a limited framework. Below, check out some of our favorite show intros in television history.  The Simpsons      As much as we love the olde-tyme photo-illustrations that do such a wonderful job of evoking the middle-of-the-century pub atmosphere, the Cheers intro is all about the song. The fourth attempt by cowriters Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo at composing the theme, &amp;quot;Where Everybody Knows Your Name&amp;quot; initially opened with the more Boston-centric verse &amp;quot;Singing the blues when the Red Sox lose. It&amp;#039;s a crisis in your life,&amp;quot; which was later replaced with &amp;quot;Making your way in the world today takes everything you&amp;#039;ve got.&amp;quot;  The Andy Griffith Show      A father and son stroll off toward a fishing hole. The narrator announces the title and the stars. Somebody whistles. It doesn&amp;#039;t get much simpler than this, nor any more effortlessly evocative. The guy who did the whistling? Renowned composer Earle Hagen, who also wrote the themes for The Mod Squad, Eight Is Enough and That Girl.  The Sopranos      The concept is simple enough: Let viewers ride along with organized crime titan Tony Soprano as he emerges on the less sunny side of the Lincoln Tunnel and heads home, passing many a Northern Jersey landmark (Pizzaland!) along the way. The sequence was tweaked over the course of the show&amp;#039;s run to reflect changes to Tony&amp;#039;s reality\u2014for example, a glimpse of the Twin Towers in his side-view mirror was removed after 9/11. Meanwhile, props go to the band Alabama 3, whose &amp;quot;Woke Up This Morning&amp;quot; provides a sonic backdrop as menacing as Tony himself.  Sanford and Son      Visually, the intro to Sanford and Son doesn&amp;#039;t distinguish itself from the clips-rich title sequences of the 1970s. It shows Fred in his junkyard habitat and paints son Lamont as perpetually beleaguered\u2014as does pretty much every episode within its first 90 seconds. But the funky, cowbell-infested instrumental theme\u2014&amp;quot;The Streetbeater,&amp;quot; composed and performed by the great, ubiquitous Quincy Jones\u2014vaults the intro into a.m.-radio nirvana. To quote another memorable theme from this list: Those were the daaaaaaaays.  Lost      From the numbers in the Hatch to the flashbacks/flash-forwards/flash-sideways to the good-versus-evil themes, everything about Lost boasted layers upon layers of complexity\u2014a few of which even made some small amount of sense at the end of the show&amp;#039;s run. But Lost enjoyed one memorably minimalist moment every week: the few seconds at the start of each episode when the opening scene cut suddenly to black and the title floated ghost-like across the screen. Set to an unidentifiable strain of sound effect, the sequence pulled viewers back into the mystery, again and again.  The Brady Bunch      This one works on two fronts. Visually, you get the oft-imitated tic-tac-toe grid filled with all the Brady family members. Musically, the theme manages both to tell a tale\u2014of a lovely lady, of a man named Brady, etc.\u2014and to ape the sound of the day with uncanny precision. That&amp;#039;s a credit to the band that performs it: the hip-tacularly named Peppermint Trolley Company, which released five singles and a full-length record before realizing they would forever be known by this theme song.  Carniv\u00E0le      Maybe you don&amp;#039;t remember the show itself, a gone-too-soon parable of good and evil, set in Dust Bowl U.S.A. against the backdrop of the Great Depression. However, its dark, involving intro sticks with anyone who has seen it once. Mixing quick pans of tarot cards with images of Depression-era demagogues and destitutes, the Carniv\u00E0le opening sequence was apparently the most expensive ever produced. Random trivia: The discordant music that underpins it comes courtesy of former Prince band members Wendy &amp;amp;amp; Lisa.  The Twilight Zone      The effect this intro had on the way sci-fi storytellers go about their time-warpy business cannot be understated. It reset the rules: The auteurs who followed the show&amp;#039;s creator (and narrator), Rod Serling, could now involve viewers with ominous narration (of the sort The Twilight Zone itself employed), dread-inducing imagery (The X-Files) or anything else. It&amp;#039;s worth noting that Serling edited down the Twilight Zone intro two or three times before settling on the final version.  All in the Family      A few shots of the Glendale, Queens, neighborhood in which the sitcom is set intermingle with crank extraordinaire Archie Bunker (Carroll O&amp;#039;Connor) and wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) belting out an ode to a simpler time. All in the Family may have been a progressive show by the standards of the era\u2014it tackled anti-Semitism and racial unrest\u2014but its central character, Archie, remained rooted in the one before it, often to the effect of rendering himself unlikable. The intro, with its wistful nostalgia, bridges those two eras.   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<http://www.womansday.com/life/entertainment/a1629/10-unforgettable-tv-show-intros-107825/>