How many different openings were there for all 5 seasons of Hazel?

Season 1, alone has two, the first with Hazel taking cookies out of the oven, and the second where the Baxters are arriving home from a trip and Hazel running to greet them.

Season 5, (which is on Youtube), with the second cast has Hazel seeing everyone off in the morning with umbrellas.

Then there's the best known opening with Hazel taking the groceries out of the car and Harold is up in a tree, (I think) throwing something down at everyone :confused: What seasons between 2-4 was this opening used? And were there other openings? When did they change the music theme?

I may have to wait until all the seasons of Hazel are out on DVD to find out! :lol:

Oh, theres another opening on Youtube. A "Ford Presents..." opening (obviously not used in syndication) with Hazel sitting in the convertable with flowers, probably an alternate opening with the one she's seen bring in the groceries. I think Bobby Buntrock is up in the tree throwing confetti or something! I hope all these original sponser openings are included on dvd releases in "extras"!

Maybe with Shout! now involved, we may see these sponsor openings. Sony would never bother--look at how they handled Bewitched!

...there was a different opening title for each season- the first four tied into the original sponsor, Ford Motor Company:

The first [black and white] season used a "domestic opening", then tied into the current Ford model, as the announcer said, "'HAZEL', is brought to you by....FORD...".

The second season onwards used an outdoor setting, with that current Ford model right out front. If I remember correctly, the one where Harold is throwing confetti ends with Hazel in a open Ford convertible, with a kids' football team surrounding her, the announcer declaring, "'HAZEL', is brought to you by....FORD..." [Bristol-Myers, makers of Bufferin, Excedrin, and other fine drug products, alternated as sponsor in the 1964-'65 season].

In the final season title (after the show moved from NBC to CBS), there were no direct tie-ins to the show's new alternate sponsors, Procter & Gamble and Philip Morris {Parliament, Marlboro, etc.}. That title featured Hazel trying to offer an umbrella to her "new" family as they were leaving the house, no thank you. Finally, it rains, and Hazel rushes out as announcer John Hiestand says, "'HAZEL', is brought to you by....".

When the series entered syndication in 1966, Screen Gems/Columbia believed it was easier to use only THREE main titles in syndicated film prints: the first black and white one; the one in season three {the football homecoming, minus the closing shot of the Ford that Hazel is seated in, substituting a quick shot of her bringing groceries into the house} for seasons two through four; and season five.

Screen Gems had similar "one title fits all" syndicated prints for "BEWITCHED" {never mind there was a different orchestration in the title for each new season, through 1967- the one they used was the season one title for seasons one and two, and a 1966 color title that used season one's orchestration, for seasons three through five- and the 1969 title with Dick Sargent's caricature, for the last three seasons} and "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" {there had been a season two title with an initial orchestration of the theme used from 1966 onwards, but all syndicated prints feature the season three title}.

You DO understand what I'm saying, don't you?

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You DO understand what I'm saying, don't you?

I would understand it better if you provided a source for this info.

There are some season 5 opening credits that show Hazel talking on the telephone. I have seen these in syndication.

During the first four seasons of the show, the Ford Motor Company went to great lengths to display their vehicles. The cars are seen in the opening credits, one season 3 closing credit has the latest 1964 model cruising down the road as the credits roll. The vehicles are also on display in some episodes. There is one episode where Hazel leaves to go shopping, as she enters the car and drives off there is a long shot of the car pulling out of the driveway and cruising down the road. There is also an episode or two where the Baxters go to a restaurant, again there is a long shot of the car as it cruises down the road and the driver pulls into the parking spot. I don't like this type of subliminal advertising, I think it is tacky. Like when Don Adams was required to light up a cigarette every so often in Get Smart.

I think the first opening of the first season with Hazel taking cookies out of the oven, may be the only opening, (of the NBC years) that doesn't show a Ford vehicle. The second opening, (of the first season) shows the Baxters disimbarking their car, of course a Ford! Now I know why season one changed openings mid-season.

Ford was the only car you ever saw on the streets in Hazel land. Seems everyone in Hazel Land drove a Ford, neighbors, strangers, whoever it was that was on the rode and was behind the wheel was in a Ford. Hazel arrives to a Health resort in a Ford Van, Deidra drives a Ford Thunderbird convertable, fantastic looking Thunderbird that's Silver with bright red interior and a hard cover over the back seats! Wow, I'd love to have that car now. I had a model of it as a kid. No matter who or how brief the scene it was Fords for as long as the eye could see.

Yes, there were several openings, some of the lesser known openings show the Baxter family all standing still posing for a picture from a camera that snaps with a delay reaction allowing the photographer to run and get in the picture after clicking the camera.

Another opening shows Harold in some kind of costume opening a gate to let a car drive up the driveway. Another shows them all passing groceries around and carrying them in the house. THe second b/w opening shows the family exiting out of a car (I think it's a cab) and Hazel coming to greet them all. I bet there were possibly 8 to 10 different openings used on Hazel. I don't remember them all just sitting here. Sometime I should take note of each different opening as I see it.

A second Steve Baxter era shows the family all gathered around passing the telephone around as they blab, (no Fords now since they were not the sponsor in the last year of the show.)

Ford was the only car you ever saw on the streets in Hazel land. Seems everyone in Hazel Land drove a Ford, neighbors, strangers, whoever it was that was on the rode and was behind the wheel was in a Ford. Hazel arrives to a Health resort in a Ford Van, Deidra drives a Ford Thunderbird convertable, fantastic looking Thunderbird that's Silver with bright red interior and a hard cover over the back seats! Wow, I'd love to have that car now. I had a model of it as a kid. No matter who or how brief the scene it was Fords for as long as the eye could see.

Yes, there were several openings, some of the lesser known openings show the Baxter family all standing still posing for a picture from a camera that snaps with a delay reaction allowing the photographer to run and get in the picture after clicking the camera.

Another opening shows Harold in some kind of costume opening a gate to let a car drive up the driveway. Another shows them all passing groceries around and carrying them in the house. THe second b/w opening shows the family exiting out of a car (I think it's a cab) and Hazel coming to greet them all. I bet there were possibly 8 to 10 different openings used on Hazel. I don't remember them all just sitting here. Sometime I should take note of each different opening as I see it.

A second Steve Baxter era shows the family all gathered around passing the telephone around as they blab, (no Fords now since they were not the sponsor in the last year of the show.)
Well, hopefully we will see ALL the openings on the DVD releases. I will be disappointed if they don't feature the Ford sponser openings as extras.

Hey, only Fords in Hazel land, just like only Chevrolets on Bewitched!

sure do:)

I recall seeing 4 different Hazel openings with 3 different theme songs. TV Land showed the Season 1 opening with Hazel taking cookies out of the oven in B&W. I also remember an opening from between Seasons 2 & 4 on CBN (now ABC Family Channel) with Hazel & the Baxters getting into a convertible(certainly a Ford) to a different orchestration of the Season 1 theme. Another opening, which I saw when TV Land reran the Season 4 Christmas episode, had a completely different theme song and included (IIRC) Harold throwing confetti from a tree branch. Finally Season 5 had the previously described opening of Hazel offering umbrellas to the 2nd Baxter family & Harold to a third theme song. I do not recall the other themes mentioned here, but at least the show got out of the rut common to sitcoms of using the same opening (sometimes not even changing the copyright date) year after year.

I think every SG show has altered OC's. The Bewitched is interesting--never knew that before, but suspected, since the color version first Darrins always have an MCMLXVI copyright. Hazel S5 has another opener intermingled on Antenna--one where the family is taking a phone call on different phones, then Hazel hands Harold the phone. The worst alterations are on the older shows--FKB, for instance. The S3 OC's, as far as I can tell, have disappeared. Shout evidently could not locate a good enough copy of them to include on the DVD's. S4 thru 6 syndication prints use a 'hybrid' OC--correct video with S1 audio. So you hear the kids laughing, when they're not. SG shows also have edits on CC's,as well. They seems to have always wanted to avoid their original SG logo, so they chop every conceivale piece of crap onto the end (same with Embassy TV, etc.)

....Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the original theme, which was orchestrated differently during the first three seasons. Then, in 1964, Screen Gems/Columbia asked two of its music publisher's contemporary songwriters, Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller (who also provided them with the immortal theme for "BEWITCHED" that season), to write a new theme for season four. Then, when the series moved to CBS in the fall of '65, Greenfield and Keller wrote another theme for season five.

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....Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the original theme, which was orchestrated differently during the first three seasons. Then, in 1964, Screen Gems/Columbia asked two of its music publisher's contemporary songwriters, Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller (who also provided them with the immortal theme for "BEWITCHED" that season), to write a new theme for season four. Then, when the series moved to CBS in the fall of '65, Greenfield and Keller wrote another theme for season five.

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Source?

....Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the original theme, which was orchestrated differently during the first three seasons. Then, in 1964, Screen Gems/Columbia asked two of its music publisher's contemporary songwriters, Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller (who also provided them with the immortal theme for "BEWITCHED" that season), to write a new theme for season four. Then, when the series moved to CBS in the fall of '65, Greenfield and Keller wrote another theme for season five.

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I think S2 brought a totally different theme, followed by S4 (as noted), and then again S5, as also noted.

...in the episodes featuring the various themes prominently list the composers, 'Zoneboy'. Cahn and Van Heusen during the first three seasons [different orchestrations in each season, 'stevea']; Greenfield and Keller in seasons four and five. The website classicthemes.com also documents this in full...

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Based on all three sets of DVDS and what I've seen on Youtube, here's what I have been able to account for in the way of "Hazel" openings:

1. Season one: Hazel gets cookies out of the oven, everyone else follows the smell back to the kitchen. (The only one from the Ford years that doesn't show a Ford.) There's one version of this one in color for the special 1961 color episode, and that color one was reused for the season premiere of Season Two.

2. Later in Season one, everyone's getting out of the family car (a 1962 Ford Country Squire station wagon) and Hazel comes out to greet them.

3. Season Two starts off with Hazel sitting, homecoming-queen style, on top of the back seat of a red 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible. George laughs, and beckons Mrs. B. to come look. Harold, wearing a football uniform but no helmet, is sitting in a tree throwing confetti. Then the rest of a football team is seen cheering around the car, which has a poster on the door that says "Our Coach."

4. Later in Season Two, Hazel arrives home with groceries in the aforementioned '63 Ford convertible. The family, even Smiley, takes turns helping Hazel with the groceries, and she has nothing but the newspaper to bring in.

5. In what appears to be one-time-only use, in the Season Three season premiere, the Baxters are getting ready to get their picture made in front of a red 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 XL (this time it's a hardtop with a black vinyl top). Hazel sets the timer on the camera and joins George, Dorothy and Harold next to the car.

6. The main Season Three opening: Hazel gets behind the wheel of the car. One by one, everyone else gets in, with George and Dorothy taking the back seat and Harold and Smiley riding shotgun. Then the car, a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 XL, red, leaves frontways out of the driveway and drives off stage left.

7. The season finale of Season Three shows Hazel driving up in the family's new red Mustang (quite possibly one of the first ever shown on television, outside a commercial or news footage). Harold, playing a pretend toll booth operator, collects change from Hazel. George, in the front yard with garden shears, motions for Dorothy to come look, which she does. Harold lifts the pretend tollgate and Hazel drives the Mustang into the driveway, in a shot that looks like it could've come from a Ford commercial.

8. There's a Season four opening on Youtube in which George and Dorothy want to know where the keys are to their 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 hardtop (blue with a black vinyl top). Apparently Harold was using them in his Thunderbird lookalike kiddie car. There's new theme music that I specifically also remembering hearing on "The Flintstones" (another Screen Gems production, and no it's not the iconic Flintstones main theme).

9. The season five opening where Hazel tries to hand out raincoats to her new family plus Harold, is on Youtube. It has all new music that was likely used more in syndication that it ever was on CBS.

10. There's a syndicated opening that I saw for years on TBS, that's a bizarre mashup of some of the above. It shows Hazel getting groceries out of the car, then George laughs and calls for Dorothy, who then waves, then Harold throws confetti from the tree. We see Hazel slipping into the house, inexplicably now holding raincoats instead of groceries. The whole time we're hearing the season five theme which cuts off abruptly. This is also on Youtube, minus the closing shot with the raincoats.

I haven't seen the one where they're passing around the telephone yet, but I'll take everyone's word for it. I wouldn't be surprised to know of at least one more Season Four opening.

Based on all three sets of DVDS and what I've seen on Youtube, here's what I have been able to account for in the way of "Hazel" openings:

1. Season one: Hazel gets cookies out of the oven, everyone else follows the smell back to the kitchen. (The only one from the Ford years that doesn't show a Ford.) There's one version of this one in color for the special 1961 color episode, and that color one was reused for the season premiere of Season Two.

2. Later in Season one, everyone's getting out of the family car (a 1962 Ford Country Squire station wagon) and Hazel comes out to greet them.

3. Season Two starts off with Hazel sitting, homecoming-queen style, on top of the back seat of a red 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible. George laughs, and beckons Mrs. B. to come look. Harold, wearing a football uniform but no helmet, is sitting in a tree throwing confetti. Then the rest of a football team is seen cheering around the car, which has a poster on the door that says "Our Coach."

4. Later in Season Two, Hazel arrives home with groceries in the aforementioned '63 Ford convertible. The family, even Smiley, takes turns helping Hazel with the groceries, and she has nothing but the newspaper to bring in.

5. In what appears to be one-time-only use, in the Season Three season premiere, the Baxters are getting ready to get their picture made in front of a red 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 XL (this time it's a hardtop with a black vinyl top). Hazel sets the timer on the camera and joins George, Dorothy and Harold next to the car.

6. The main Season Three opening: Hazel gets behind the wheel of the car. One by one, everyone else gets in, with George and Dorothy taking the back seat and Harold and Smiley riding shotgun. Then the car, a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 XL, red, leaves frontways out of the driveway and drives off stage left.

7. The season finale of Season Three shows Hazel driving up in the family's new red Mustang (quite possibly one of the first ever shown on television, outside a commercial or news footage). Harold, playing a pretend toll booth operator, collects change from Hazel. George, in the front yard with garden shears, motions for Dorothy to come look, which she does. Harold lifts the pretend tollgate and Hazel drives the Mustang into the driveway, in a shot that looks like it could've come from a Ford commercial.

8. There's a Season four opening on Youtube in which George and Dorothy want to know where the keys are to their 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 hardtop (blue with a black vinyl top). Apparently Harold was using them in his Thunderbird lookalike kiddie car. There's new theme music that I specifically also remembering hearing on "The Flintstones" (another Screen Gems production, and no it's not the iconic Flintstones main theme).

9. The season five opening where Hazel tries to hand out raincoats to her new family plus Harold, is on Youtube. It has all new music that was likely used more in syndication that it ever was on CBS.

10. There's a syndicated opening that I saw for years on TBS, that's a bizarre mashup of some of the above. It shows Hazel getting groceries out of the car, then George laughs and calls for Dorothy, who then waves, then Harold throws confetti from the tree. We see Hazel slipping into the house, inexplicably now holding raincoats instead of groceries. The whole time we're hearing the season five theme which cuts off abruptly. This is also on Youtube, minus the closing shot with the raincoats.

I haven't seen the one where they're passing around the telephone yet, but I'll take everyone's word for it. I wouldn't be surprised to know of at least one more Season Four opening.

In the mash-up syndication opener for S1-S4:

Hazel unloading the groceries is from S2, Opening 2; George calling Dorothy to the door, up to the confetti throw, is S2, Opening 1; Hazel sneaking into the house with the raincoats is S5, Opening 2. That way, there's absolutely no trace of any identifiable Ford product (unless you know what the inside of the '63 Galaxie 500/XL convertible looked like).

There was at least one other S5 opener besides the "Umbrella/Downpour" used in the montage of openings: The one where Hazel, then Steve, then Barbara. then Susie, then Harold are all talking with the invisible George and Dorothy from Saudi Arabia. Both of them contain the phrases "INTRODUCING RAY FULMER" and 'INTRODUCING LYNN BORDEN."

(Incidentally, the photo-taking opening from S3--the one that shows the "scatback" 500/XL 2-door hardtop--first appeared in early 1963, when Ford launched the new hardtop, plus the Monte Carlo Thunderbird, Fairlane 500 sport coupe hardtop, and Falcon Sprint hardtop as their "'63 1/2" models. The same opening was used when Screen Gems dubbed "Hazel" into French for the Canadian market. The title character, by the way, was renamed "Adele" for French-Canadian consumption!)

Great Job Dwayne with the opening descriptions. I am now on season 4. The season opening where Hazel hurries in to the photo session . Whitney hair is different in the new episodes . I guess a new haircut going into season 4.

I think that new hairstyle is only in place for the first few episodes and then she goes back to the old style, which I like better.

Season four also only had 26 episodes I think. I really wish they had filmed at least 28 if not 30 episodes so we'd have more Don DeFore and Whitney Blake!

I saw the UTUBE collection of openings. I don't recall any shows that had so many.

Whitney looks GORGEOUS in the main Season 3 opening.

And that longer-look hairstyle where her left eyebrow is getting covered -- it makes me crazy!

1. Season One: Hazel gets cookies out of the oven, everyone else follows the smell back to the kitchen (the only one from the Ford years that doesn't show a Ford) . . . There's one version of this one in color for the special 1961 color episode, and that color one was reused for the season premiere of Season Two . . . I haven't seen the one where they're passing around the telephone yet, but I'll take everyone's word for it. I wouldn't be surprised to know of at least one more Season Four opening.



https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vGArhgzgZSg/WVsLSD4NPfI/AAAAAAAADbA/CZmKt3yx6501_jUn56AU3uoBlscLPWjOgCLcBGAs/s1600/Bobby%2BBuntrock.jpg


Your assumption about "not being surprised to know of at least one more" opening sequence of Hazel was semi-correct, except the one I recall is an additional opening for the very first episode ("Hazel's Cousin") of Season Two, which you referenced, but incorrectly, as it was not the exact same one as the special color opening for Episode Six of Season One titled "What'll We Watch Tonight?" It is the same basic opening (the one with "Baxter" family maid "Hazel Burke" removing fresh-baked cookies from the oven) used in the first half of Season One, most identical with that special color episode's opening, except where "Harold Baxter" (Bobby Buntrock) would usually double back and run stage right from the patio into the "Baxter" house after having smelled the cookies "Hazel" just baked, "Harold" ran off stage left.

This used-one-time opening sequence of Hazel also made no sense, since why would "Harold" have run away from the smell of the cookies? But perhaps the patio door was locked behind "Harold" and he was merely running around the house to get back in through the unlocked front door or to ring the doorbell to gain reentry? I guess we'll never know for sure. But one would assume "Sport" (the nickname "Hazel" called "Harold") would never have run away from his best friend's (the family maid's) fresh-baked cookies.