The Story Behind the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Opening Credits (artofthetitle.com)

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Watch the opening credits for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and two things are likely to happen. One, you’ll start singing along. Two, you’ll feel a warm nostalgia spread through you like hot cocoa. That might come from the days you watched the show when it originally aired or in reruns. It might also come from seeing something that’s nearly three decades old that — despite all its dated style, colours, and fashion — has lost none of its charm. Either way, to watch The Fresh Prince opening is to look back. But 26 years ago when the show premiered, it was looking forward, even anticipating, the evolution of TV main title design.

In 1990, TV openings — for sitcoms especially — weren’t particularly creative. More often than not they’d feature a montage of clips from existing episodes or actors dutifully posing for the camera as their names appeared. Sitcom openings conveyed basic information about the cast and crew, and propped up the theme song. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was different. Its opening was an entirely original work full of vibrant colours, intricate graffiti, sped-up cartoonish motion, and a dose of slapstick. It was a standalone work telling a self-contained backstory that was creatively distinct from the show — right down to Will Smith’s mother in the opening being different than the one in the show.

In this way, it’s not far off from what we see in our current Golden Age of TV main titles. Sure, it may not resemble the openings of series such as Game of Thrones, Jessica Jones, or Vikings, but it serves the same function: focusing on a show’s tone and spirit, rather than merely its star performers. That ahead-of-its-time inventiveness, along with its playful creative quality and infectious theme music, is what has made it one of the greatest TV openings of all time.

But how then did it come about? Well, we’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, and we’ll tell you all about the main titles for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.