Couch Gag / Live-Action TV

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• The production company Vanity Plate at the end of shows produced by Chuck Lorre (Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon) contains text written by him. The text can usually only be read by freeze-framing on it (using a VCR or DVR). The card is different for most episodes and is numbered, starting with #1 for the first episode of Dharma & Greg and continuing through the other shows.
• The 100's opening titles play out over a montage of various locations on post-apocalypse Earth as seen from above; the last of these aerial shots changes each episode so that it can also serve as an Establishing Shot for where the first post-credits scene will be taking place.
• During the first season of The Amanda Show the clips which appeared on Amanda's TV were different every time.
• In ESPN's Around The Horn, frequent panelist Woody Paige appears with a chalkboard on the wall, with a new saying (typically humorous, sometimes snarky) appearing after each commercial break (as long as he isn't eliminated from the game)
• Battlestar Galactica
  • The opening credits includes the current population of the Rag-Tag Fleet. This tally is updated in each episode, based on the events (and body count) in the previous episode (and the teaser, if someone dies before the opening credits). The credits always end with lightning cuts of various moments in the episode. Fortunately, they usually went by too fast and out of context to count as spoilers.
  • Also, the Vanity Plate at the end of BSG is different every episode.
• The ending credits of Alas Smith and Jones featured the duo as lounge singers. At a break in the song, one of them would say a Captain Obvious riff on a trite saying, such as "Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry" or "A rich man is just a poor man with an incredible amount of money".
• Blackadder
  • Each episode of Blackadder II has a humorous summary of the episode's plot as lyrics for the closing theme song sung by a minstrel fleeing the wrath of the title character. In one episode, he finally catches the minstrel and beats him. In another, the minstrel unexpectedly bonks Edmund over the head with his lute and dances round the unconscious figure.
    • Also, the opening credits end with a hand placing some object on a table. Each time, the object pertains to that episode's title.
  • Blackadder the Third had Blackadder read a saucy novel at the beginning of the opening credits, and it would be shoved onto a library shelf at the end of the credits, showing the episode title.
• Every episode of Boohbah began with the Boohbahs' bubble vehicle, the Boohball, traveling to various parts of the world, where children notice its presence and play with it. The country the Boohball travels to changed every episode, as did the children that played with it.
• In The Chase, the different descriptions of the Chasers at the start of the game count as this, usually with the phrasing "They're so adjective that description applies". Sort of like how they describe the Stig on Top Gear.
• Starting with the 2007 season, The Chaser's War On Everything features an image of a celebrity with a caption underneath it which is different in every episode. Also, a number of the "locked on" images in the rest of the title sequence are different in each episode.
• Episodes of Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule start with footage of the American flag flapping (as it's meant to convey Channel 5's sign-on sequence) before transitioning to "Community Calender" announcements - usually gag announcements ("AQUARIUMS NOW FOR SALE!!! Not suitable for fish").
• Chockablock: The closing titles for each episode always feature something which appears in the episode, such as Joe Crow from Episode 2 or the cake-stealing snake from Episode 11. Usually, whatever it is pops up between the credits, but Episode 5 has the ball from Chockablock's game of skittles bouncing across the bottom of the screen.
• Each episode of Chou Sei Shin Gransazer ends with a clip show of footage from said episode.
• The title of Chucky appears as a mass of moving objects, usually weapons of a sort wielded by the killer doll during the episode.
• The Colbert Report
  • There's an opening sequence where Colbert is in a box filled with patriotic words (and an eagle?). The Couch Gag, which doesn't change every episode but rather once every couple of months, is the last of a certain flurry of words. It's often a nonword, such as "Megamerican", a short phrase, such as "George Bush have a hotdog with me!", or both, in the case of "Factose intolerant". Leading up to the election, it was simply a command to "Vote".
  • Almost every episode opens with Stephen giving a humorously-worded description of the topics he'll be covering (accompanied by punny captions) followed by a non-sequiter one-liner right before the credits.
• The opening title sequence of Colonel March of Scotland Yard shows Colonel March taking off his coat in his office and writing the title of each episode in a book. This then dissolves to an image of an object from within the following story. Often it's a murder weapon or an item of clothing. Sometimes its relevance is a mystery until it is revealed later in the episode. Other episodes, such as in "The Headless Hat", show the item that the episode is named after.
• Episodes of Conan that debuted on Thursdays usually have a different variant of the "bridge scene" which varies from week to week, such as:
  • Ones done in the style of a movie or TV show (Such as a "Back To The Future" version where the car travels through time)
  • Ones based on current events (One that aired on the opening day of baseball season had a variant where the car drives to a baseball game a and baseball flies into the camera)
  • Ones just plain different than usual (Such as the car being replaced with a clown car that overstuffed the house, robotic legs sprouting from the house and walking away, or the Dreamworks kid in the moon hooking the car by accident).
  • During a week of shows filmed in New York City, each episode featured the same gag: The family jumps onto the top of an underground subway.
  • In some cases, the show's opening credits also look different (The aforementioned New York City episodes were done in the style of a subway map and there was also an episode opening done as the opening to Happy Days).
  • Guest names on the title cards are usually accompanied by icons demonstrating the medium of whatever they're promoting (the typical ones being a TV for a TV actor, a reel-to-reel projector for film, a microphone for comedians, and music notes for musicians). Occasionally, guests have icons specific to them (such as "Nerdist" podcast host Chris Hardwick's name being accompanied by the Nerdist symbol).
  • In another example, after Conan walks onstage and points to Andy Richter, Andy often employs some sort of improvised visual gag that changes from episode to episode, such as pulling a weird face, making use of a prop, standing at an odd angle relative to the camera, etc.
• Community
  • Has a literal couch gag during The Tag. Save for the first and eighth episodes thusfar, every show will end with Abed and Troy (many times literally on the couch in the library) doing/saying something funny, right before or as the credits begin to roll.
  • As of the second season, certain special episodes have new versions of the title sequence. The Halloween episode (paid out of the creator's pocket) altered the scribbles on the cootie catcher and desk to fit a scary theme, the animated Christmas episode had Abed sing new lyrics to the theme song while dancing on the cars in the parking lot, and the Dungeons and Dragons episode changed the scribbles and theme song to medieval versions.
• Cougar Town
  • On the second season, the "Welcome To" part of the title sequence was changed to a gag subtitle lampshading the fact that the title no longer goes with the premise but the producers coudn't find a better one. For example, the season opener reads "Still Cougartown", while a later episode has "Titles are hard".
  • A season 3 episode even references the Trope Namer: "This is not The Simpsons chalkboard thing. This is not The Simpsons chalkboard thing. This is not The Simpsons chalkboard thing."
• The fourth and final season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend had "Other Rebecca" have a different speaking line each week at the end of the theme song. Some of the highlights:
  "My name's Debra."
  "I live in this park!"
  "I think I'm a fork! Uh-oh!"
• Cult has split-second shots of images from later in the episode on each title card.
• Da Ali G Show has him saying something different in the intro of each episode.
• The Daily Show
  • Episodes on the set of created in 2007 open with a shot of a globe with a scrolling marquee on it. The marquee displays a list of cities that changes each episode, often following a theme (such as ancient cities, cities with "Sioux" in the name, etc.).
  • "And here it is, your Moment of Zen." Every episode since the show's creation has had a "Moment of Zen" Stinger clip tagged on to the end — except the first episode after 9/11, when the Moment of Zen was Jon Stewart holding a puppy.
• Danger Man had a very brief opening credits sequence, and there were two types that would air randomly. The first consisted of the camera simply zooming out from a still image of the lead actor. The second was motion footage of the actor walking towards the camera, beginning with the image in "negative" before switching to normal with a closeup of his faces.
• The Day Today would end with a few.
  • Chris Morris would conclude all but one episode by reading tomorrow's tabloid headlines, i.e. "Lord Mayor's Pirouette in Fire Chief Wife Decapitation."
  • Episodes ended with the camera panning out on Chris and the studio lights dimming, Chris would use this opportunity to perform an assortment of bizarre activities during the credits, such as stealing all the pens around his news desk, shooting heroin, and removing a wig revealing long, blond hair. The last episode concluded with Chris lying on the ground in front of his news desk as if he were worshiping it.
  • On occasion, the music track playing over the credits would skip like a broken record near the end.
  • Episode 5, which featured Chris inciting a war between Australia and Hong Kong, concluded after the credits with a rather humorous advertisement for a home video series on the war covered during the episode.
• The Dick Van Dyke Show has different openings where he either tripped over the footrest, then later lampshaded it by stepping around it. And there's also a rarer third version that has him step around the footrest, only to trip slightly on the rug as he greets Buddy.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: In season one, each episode begins with a grid of televisions showing different things. Most are characters in the show doing cryptic things referencing the story. The images change in every episode.
• Doctor Who:
  • Series 7 (2012) introduced a couch gag by way of the series logo changing each episode, with the texture of the logo adjusted to match the episode: Dalek "bumps" for "Asylum of the Daleks", dinosaur scales for "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", weathered wood for "A Town Called Mercy", cubes for "The Power of Three", and the Statue of Liberty's green copper for "The Angels Take Manhattan".
  • It's very subtle, but Series 8 and 9 of the revival (2014-2015) never really had the same opening credits sequence repeated, as each episode had different timing for the appearance of elements such as the actor names and the image of the Doctor's face. Sometimes the episode title would appear within the credit sequence, other times it would appear immediately after.
  • The Series 8 episode "Death in Heaven" featured a Leaning on the Fourth Wall couch gag: after the pre-titles sequence ends with companion Clara Oswald proclaiming herself to be the Doctor, the subsequent opening credits replace the customary image of the Twelfth Doctor's eyes with that of Clara's, while also reversing the order of the lead actors' credits to put Jenna Coleman first.
• Dog with a Blog has an intro of Stan photobombing the family photos, with the middle two changing every episode. Only the first and last photos stay the same. This is actually lampshaded in one episode prior to the intro.
• The Eric Andre Show has the titular host going berserk and destroying everything in the area during every intro, with various bits of insanity in the middle of the rampage, and finally sitting down exhausted only for the set to be instantly rebuilt in a matter of seconds, and Hannibal walking in like nothing happened.
• The production company for Everybody Loves Raymond, Where's Lunch. In their vanity plate, the company logo is printed on a table, and then covered up as a waiter serves a plate of food, which is different every episode. For the last episode, the waiter delivers the check: "No Charge! Thank You."
• In the third season of Australian sketch show Fast Forward, a VHS disclaimer would scroll up really quickly, followed by "Ah good. You've paused the tape. Welcome now to FREEZEFRAME THEATRE." The script for a soap opera style scene would scroll quickly, followed by the rest of the disclaimer.
• Fawlty Towers includes a hotel sign in the opening credits. This usually either has letters missing or is rearranged into anagrams or partial anagrams of itself, like "Watery Fowls", "Flay Otters", "Fatty Owls" and "Flowery Twats".
• FlashForward (2009) has split-second shots of images from later in the episode on each title card — literally a flash-forward.
• Frasier just loves this trope.
  • The show's opening title is shown in a different color each season, the jazz track playing over it changes and the accompanying animation of the Seattle skyline ends with a number of different variants. Some of the various animations:
    • Fireworks shoot over Seattle.
    • A hot air balloon flies over Seattle.
    • The sun rises over Seattle.
    • The moon rises over Seattle.
    • A stylized raincloud is shown.
    • A stylized thundercloud is shown.
    • A shooting star streaks across the sky.
    • Lights come on in the building windows.
    • A plane towing a KACL advertising banner flies across.
    • An elevator travels up the Space Needle.
    • A helicopter appears from the back of a building near the Space Needle.
    • A rainbow appears over Seattle.
    • The Space Needle is strung with twinkling Christmas lights.
  • As Kelsey Grammer sings the closing theme, he throws in an interjection after the first line: "Mercy!", "Quite stylish!", or "Oh my!" He adds another one at the end: "Thank you!", "Good night!", "Good night, everybody!", "Good night, Seattle, we love you!", or "Frasier has left the building!" Sometimes the theme extends a little bit as he also throws in the line "Scrambled eggs all over my face! What is a boy to do?"
    • At the end of the episode where the station manager decides to switch KACL to "all Latino music, all the time!", the Theme Tune is changed to a Latino version, with lyrics in Spanish.
• The credits to each episode of Game of Thrones feature a pop-up book style map of the major areas of importance to the episode. These locations change gradually with each episode (though some remain common throughout). Occasionally results in a Spoiler Opening scenario as the sudden presence of an unfamiliar location in the credits serves to telegraph that the series is moving into a new region in the upcoming episode.
• Genseishin Justiriser has a different set of images for the end credits to each episode.
• The Grand Tour:
  • In each episode so far, a drone taking shots of the Grand Tour's tent is knocked out of the sky by some mishap related to the locale, such as hitting a giraffe's head in South Africa or being hit by a blast from the elaborate fountain in Dubai.
  • Starting with episode 3, the opening montage includes a shot of a sign welcoming and naming the presenters. The third name is always misspelled.
• In Green Acres, after the opening title it's usually Lisa Douglas who would notice "It's time to wake up and see the names!" or some other variation. Sometimes, they played with this gag by playing with the episode credits. One time, it moved around a character. Another time, they were printed on eggs, and (in a case of Breaking the Fourth Wall) the oddity was discussed afterwards.
• Grounded for Life contains a couch gag of a musical variety as the riff which closes the show's opening theme is slightly different in each episode.
• The first version of the Hangin' with Mr. Cooper opening has the title character saying something different before and after the theme song. This was also something that had several versions as opposed to being different every time. The second changes his set of after-song quips.
• Hardball: Every episode the closing credits ends with one of the cast telling a 'dad joke' direct to camera.
• The Australian version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! has hosts Julia Morris and Dr. Chris Brown introducing themselves, usually, with Julia saying something a little off-the-wall, as seen here.
  Dr. Chris Brown: Hi, I'm Dr. Chris Brown.
  Julia Morris: And I'm Spoonerism enthusiast Mulia Jorris.
• The opening to the British sketch show KYTV changed from episode to episode based on whatever "show" was being broadcast.
• The Title Sequence to the post-apocalyptic show Jericho (2006) always featured a telegraph beeping in the background. If one knew Morse code well enough, one could tell that each episode's plot was given away by the message ("There is a fire" the week half the town burns down, etc.).
• The last card of the opening credits montage on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has a reference to one of the previous week's events (for example, the card on the episode that aired after the 30th anniversary of Watergate was of President Richard Nixon.). The exception were the first episodes, which all had "Insanus Maxime" over Florida.
• The last segment to each episode of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson begins with the title card "What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig?" with a kitten. What happens next changes from show to show, and it's possible to see a full month of episodes without seeing the same thing twice.
• The Late Show with David Letterman:
  • Announcer Alan Kalter gives David Letterman a different intro on every episode. A carry-over from when Bill Wendel was the announcer when Letterman was on NBC.
  • The title sequence also used to begin with "From New York <gag describing the city here>, it's Late Night/The Late Show with David Letterman!" until around the 9/11 attacks. But it was revived towards the end of the run, with "From <random location>..." instead.
• LazyTown: Most episodes start with Sportacus doing something in his airship.
• Match Game: Host Gene Rayburn made a different entrance for each show. Once, this involved him breaking down the doors.
• The opening credits for the original Mission: Impossible includes a montage of short clips taken from the episode itself.
• The first season of Space: 1999 a montage of short clips taken from the episode itself during the opening credits.
• Episodes of the original The Mickey Mouse Club started with a cartoon Donald Duck trying to ring a gong, with humorous results.
• While not exactly a "gag", during the theme song of every episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Mr. Rogers would put on a different colored sweater. Obviously there were duplicates considering how long the show ran.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
  • Except for the short fourth season, the show use thematic gags to introduce the opening titles. In the first season, Michael Palin, dressed as a hermit, runs up to the camera and says, "It's..." In the second season, John Cleese appears seated at a desk and says, "And now for something completely different," followed by a shot of Palin saying "It's..." In the third season, a nude Terry Jones plays an organ chord, followed by Cleese's "And now..." and Palin's "It's..."
  • Subverted in the Second Season when, in one episode, Cleese does not appear before the opening titles. After the opening titles, Cleese appears sat at a desk and says, "You probably noticed that I didn't say 'And now for something completely different' this week. That's because I'm unable to appear in this week's show..." before looking in dismay at his script.
• Mr. Show: For the first two seasons, each episode would begin with Mary Lynn Rajskub addressing the live audience with, "Hey everyone! It's Bob and David!" In the third and fourth season, after Rajskub left the show, the announcer would be a different person in each episode, usually a character appearing in the episode. They would also each say a different preamble before "It's Bob and David!"
• The Muppet Show:
  • All opening credits opened with Kermit announcing that week's special guest star, and ended with Gonzo trying to blow his trumpet (or in the first season, striking a gong), but always failing in a new and different way.
  • The first season also had Fozzie telling a different joke each episode.
  • Seasons 2 to 4 had Statler and Waldorf snarking at the show, replaced by a couple of fixed sung lines in season 5.
• In the second season of Dawn French's Murder Most Horrid, the end credits would feature that episode's murder weapon lying on a table and the second-to-last line of the theme song would be different in every episode; they would all rhyme with "horrid" (more or less).
• Mystery Science Theater 3000
  • The show had a "stinger" — a five-second clip from that day's movie, usually something that would be bizarre even in context — after the ending credits. As well, some episodes had different music or spoken lines over the end credits.
  • For the Hamlet episode, the entire ending theme was replaced by the audio for part of the "to be or not to be" monologue (in keeping with the final scene, in which Tom and Crow present Mike with a talking Hamlet action figure).
  • Many episodes in the second half of season 5 (i.e. after Mike replaced Joel) had alternate Eye Catches showing something odd being thrown at a blackboard.
  • In the Netflix run, part of the opening sequence happens in the screening room and the episode's movie can be seen in the background.
  • The Gizmoplex continues the Netflix thing, showing clips of the upcoming movie while Kinga explains the premise of the show ("I'll send them cheesy movies: the worst motion-picture wrecks...").
• Nick Arcade: Season 2 introductions feature an animation of Mikey's enemy for that episode played over a montage of game board spaces.
• In each episode of NUMB3RS, the action is preceded by a four-quadrant grid, each quadrant of which contains a number of something — suspects, dollars, crimes committed per day, people, whatever — relevant to that episode's case.
• Odd Squad: Each episode begins with Agent Olive (later Olympia) introducing herself and Agent Otto (later Otis), followed by a picture of a random object, before Olive/Olympia explains the plot of the series.
• Once Upon a Time has a different fairytale character, creature or item appear in each episode's title card, related to the episode. Of particular note is that during the first half of the fourth season, all the titles had snow falling, since it was when the plot centered around the characters from Frozen (2013).
• All episodes of One Piece (2023) open with a different logo, themed after a particular major character.
• Only Murders in the Building: The intro sequence is a brief animation of the apartment building where the series takes place, and every episode's intro has some Easter Egg relating to that episode's plot. Some of these are obvious: in the episode where there's a blackout throughout the city, the building is obviously blacked out. Others, less so: in the episode where Sting is a guest star, there's a bee flying around. In one example that spans the entire season, in the season one intros there's an old lady walking her dog outside the building, but in season two, when the main characters inherit a pet parrot, the lady is walking a parrot instead and does so for the entire season...except for one episode where a restaurant's chicken logo is a plot point, so she's walking a chicken. A full list of the series' Easter eggs can be found here.
• Ozark: The title sequence of each episode has the "O" of "Ozark" filled with four symbols. The symbols are different for each episode and reference something in the episode.
• Pauline's Quirkes: A gag at the start of each episode features the Thames Television announcer introducing the show title. Each introduction is different and usually involves the announcer having it in for Pauline, not helped by the fact that Pauline legitimately has done something to annoy him.
• Person of Interest: Right at the end of Finch's narration during the full-length opening sequence ("Victim or perpetrator, if you're number's up, we'll find you"), the person of interest for that episode is shown, in a shot from later in the episode (like the FlashForward example above, but it lingers for a couple of seconds), usually with Reese following them as well.
• Please Like Me: every episode starts with the protagonist (or, in one case, his mother) preparing some kind of food — generally whatever is mentioned in the episode's title.
• Police Squad!
  • In the opening titles, the "special guest star" would be introduced ... and then killed off during the title sequence. It was supposed to be different for each guest and episode but one of the guests happened to be John Belushi...who ended up dying for real, forcing a last-minute rewrite.
  • The written episode title and the spoken episode title don't match.
  • Each episode ends with the characters frozen in mid-laugh in traditional style while the credits rolled, but rather than freeze the image, the actors would just remain still. Each episode played with this in a different way, such as having the recently-arrested perp notice that everyone else has frozen, and escape, or having one character in the middle of pouring coffee, resulting in it overflowing from the cup.
• Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers Lost Galaxy had several spots in its opening that had two or three different versions, making instances of seeing the exact same opening twice in a row fairly rare.
• Pretty Little Liars, starting with season 6B, which redid the final shots of the credits to show the main characters as they look post-Time Skip and include Alison, the camera zooms in on a different character to deliver the shhhh each week. (Previously, it had always been Aria.)
• It's very subtle, but almost every episode of The Prisoner (1967) uses a different mix of the opening Theme Tune: the section accompanying the scene where the future Number 6 confronts his boss is remixed to emphasize different instruments. Each episode is also supposed to begin with a version of the same dialogue between Number 6 and Number 2, with the voice of Number 2 changing in each episode. However, in some episodes the actor playing Number 2 did not record the lines, so a generic voice was used with a shot of that week's Number 2 dropped in at the end of the dialogue (in two episodes revealing the identity of Number 2 so early would have ruined the Twist Ending, so even this was not used).
• The first five seasons of Radio Enfer had a small sketch before the opening started, in which at least one member of the radio club (and sometimes the faculty) would make a different humorous report before signing off with "You're listening to Radio Enfer!"^note Vous écoutez Radio Enfer!.
• In the first two seasons of Red Dwarf, each episode would begin with a "Distress Call" in which Holly, the ship's computer, described the ship's situation (and the show's premise) and then finished off with a humorous remark (different each episode) about the situation, recent events, or the crew's hopes for the future. One of these was even used as a retroactive Reset Button: "The most important event that happened recently is that Lister pretended to pass a test to be a chef, when in fact he failed. That should tell you something about how interesting things are here." A selection of similar jokes were recorded for the third series, and can be seen on the DVD's deleted scenes, but were not used due to the writers' low opinion of the material.
• The Rockford Files: Each episode began with a message being left on Jim Rockford's answering machine. Most of the gags involved a creditor calling Rockford to collect a past-due payment, or deadbeat clients giving an excuse as to why they wouldn't be able to pay him.
• The original opening of Sabrina the Teenage Witch would have Sabrina changing into 4 different outfits in front of her mirror, the fourth always being different. She would then make a quick pun or observation.
• The Sarah Silverman Program always has an opening where Sarah gives a run down of the characters on the show while showing pictures (some completely random), but the pictures she shows and what she says is different for every episode.
• The Seinfeld logo is always a different color scheme every season. Likewise, every episode (sans Seasons 8 and 9) opened with Jerry doing a new stand-up routine.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events does this with its Expository Theme Tune. The middle of the theme is changed to describe the events of the book currently being adapted, and each "part 2" episode has this segment sung in the accent of Count Olaf's current disguise.
• The ending to the opening of Shake it Up has Rocky and CeCe in different outfits — this, however changes every season, not every episode.
• Each episode of Six Feet Under opens with someone else dying in some absurd way. It is a show about a funeral home, after all.
• The 2020 and onward Revival of UK puppet show Spitting Image has the opening credits as graffiti on a wall, with faces being sprayed in Stencil by Creator/Banksy. After the spraying is done, Banksy takes off their hood and is revealed to be a member of the cast. Like Greta Grunenberg, Queen Elisabeth or Dominic Cummings.
• Every episode of Season 1 of Staged ends with David Tennant and Michael Sheen discussing how their names should appear in the poster when their play finally opens. The opening of the next episode credits them the way they've currently agreed on.
• Not quite a proper Couch Gag, but perhaps something of a prototype: the "family photo" scene at the end of the opening credits to Soap alternated between several different versions.
• The Soup has its own literal Couch Gag: during the opening sequence Joel and the dog can be seen on a couch watching a clip from/relating to a big media event of the previous week.
• Spencer: The short-lived NBC teen sitcom featured the title character (Chad Lowe) pulling a different classroom prank — often, quite elaborate — before being sent to the principal's office. The opening credits then showed Spencer walking down the hallway to the principal's office.
• On USA Network's game show Strip Poker, hostess Jennifer Cole always had a different explanation for why the deuces through eights were omitted.
• Supernatural
  • A seasonal case: Each season, the font and manner of appearance of the logo would change in accordance with the season's theme.
  • Every end-of-season episode would start with a "The Road So Far..." montage, set to Kansas' "Carry On, My Wayward Son".
  • Whenever a parody episode happened, the entire title would change, be it to the Ghostfacers self-made program intro, or the "this is totally a family-friendly sitcom" style, etc.
• Super Sentai:
  • Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger gives a spot in the opening to each Monster of the Week, changing every episode. (A different shot of the same monster if one monster gets a two-parter.)
  • Ressha Sentai ToQger would have one of the Rangers tripping over as they run towards the screen because of an explosion in the background. When ToQ 6 joins the team, he gets his own sequence of taking a dive after the explosion, along with a sequence of everyone tripping over added separately. Then, in the Grand Finale movie, despite the series being over, ToQ 7 gets a sequence of his own.
  • The opening credits for every episode of Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger always feature little snippets of action scenes from that particular episode mixed in with the standard footage that appears in every episode's opening.
  • In Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, the episode title card has a different visual effect each episode. Some are more subtle than others.
    • The quick shots in the OP of all five Zenkaigers in combat, and then hanging out at the Colorful candy shop, are done differently each week - there's even a Brick Joke of sorts when one shot in episode 4 shows Colorful completely empty, only for later episodes to reveal that it's because they're all playing hide and seek. Starting from episode 9, a shot with Zocks's siblings is added to the mix.
• The opening for Series 3 of Terry and June onwards features Terry and June relaxing outside with juice. Sometimes, things would go wrong (such as the chair that Terry is on collapsing under him) which varies from episode to episode. There are even some cases where nothing goes wrong at all. There is even a lost Couch Gag where nothing goes wrong - apart from it being a slightly windy day, and the shade umbrella spins around slowly. It was supposed to be a "nothing goes wrong" opening and was binned, but June Whitfield had a clip of it and considered it a lost classic of their Couch Gags.
• This Hour Has 22 Minutes has a fake disclaimer after a regular one. For example:
  • Warning! To France: If you don't go to war now, you won't be able to surrender later!
  • Warning! To the Prime Minister: It's Flag Day, not Flog Day!
  • (For the hour-long 200th episode) Warning! This hour has 44 minutes! We are drunk with power!
• The closing shot of Tosh.0 changed from "season" to "season". Originally, it was just a wide shot of Daniel, the green screen, and the audience. Later, various actions were added in, such as the audience pelting dodgeballs at Daniel. They currently have the same basis per "season", archived for posterity:
  • Winter 2011: Daniel walks across a catwalk.
  • Summer 2012: A random audience member stands up and shouts something random at Daniel (such as "I took a s*** in your cereal!").
  • Fall 2012: A close up of a body part flashes on screen for half a second.
  • Winter 2013: Waldo appears somewhere in the shot.
  • Fall 2013 ("Season of Subtle Differences"): A brainteaser is superimposed on the green screen.
  • Winter 2014 ("Season of Brad"): The camera pans to an audience member.
  • Fall 2014 ("Fifteen Shades of Grey"): A "Would You Rather" question appears on the green screen.
  • Winter 2015 ("Prints Charming"): An old picture of Daniel tagged #tbT ("Throwback Tuesday") appears on the green screen.
  • Fall 2015 ("The Season That Was Mutha***in' Tucked"): A grill recipe appears on the green screen.
  • Winter 2016 ("Cabin Couture"): A question appears on the green screen, about surviving the wilderness.
  • Summer 2016 ("The Summer 2016 Tropical Resort Wear Collection For Tosh By Tosh"): Every audience member gets some random item.
  • Fall 2016 ("Danim in Denim"): A QR code appears on the green screen.
  • Spring 2017 ("The White Season"): Daniel sticks his hands out.
  • Summer 2017 ("The Summer Of Short Pants Featuring Dan's Gams"): A plaque showing the show's Worst Employee Of The Week appears on the green screen.
  • Fall 2017 ("Autumn Hues Every Tues"): A word jumble is on the green screen, but at least one of the words is dirty.
  • Spring 2018 ("Athleisure For Your Pleasure"): Daniel does a workout, with instructions appearing on the green screen behind him.
  • Fall 2018 ("The Season Of Tosh.Flow"): A fortune cookie opens on the green screen.
  • Spring 2019 ("Eating Out-Fits"): A crossword puzzle containing two clues appears on the green screen.
  • Fall 2019 ("Monochromosexual"): The entire text of a book appears on the green screen.
  • Also in the Spring 2014 season, the opening disclaimer also got its own Couch Gag:
    • Spring 2014: The disclaimer is said in a different language (but it's shown onscreen in English).
    • Fall 2014-Fall 2016: The voice of the disclaimer is an edited series of soundbites from Barack Obama's speeches.
    • Winter 2017-present: The voice is now Tom Arnold.
• Each title sequence of Undateable has a unique voice-over featuring banter between Danny and Justin.
• Each episode of The Vicar of Dibley ends with a post-credit scene in which the vicar tells Alice a joke, which the latter misunderstands humorously. Each episode also begins with a different bizarre thing happening in the village.
• WandaVision has a different opening/ending for each episode.
• Web Soup
  • The show changes their Operators Are Standing By introduction clip each episode, where the operator woman and her headset do something stupid like try to answer a phone upside down, or nearly choke to death on the headset cord.
  • Starting in season 3 following the format change, after the opening Chris Hardwick (the host) would run down the hall to the studio and encounter or do something different. Such as being chased by a mob (who would back off when they realize they were entering a area where they're taping) or using the Portal gun. Likewise the "Firsties" segment the announcer would often change the way how he shouted it.
• Weeds
  • Each episode of the second, third, fourth and final season opens with someone different singing the Malvina Reynolds song "Little Boxes" as a Theme Tune.
  • Also, in season 5, the Weeds title card (plus "Created by Jenji Kohan") somehow fashioned itself onto an object that was featured prominently in the episode.
• Wellington Paranormal: The opening credits sequence includes images of newspaper headlines, such as "Vampire gains access via Zoom invite", which vary with each episode.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong? made their Don't Try This at Home warning into a couch gag.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both the British and American versions.
  • At the beginning host Clive Anderson started out introducing the players and their showbiz origins, then got bored with that and switched to more original, thematic introductions, with a theme and usually a sting for the fourth one.
    Clive: The greatest thing from America since sliced hamburgers, Mike McShane; and the most interesting Canadian after the maple leaf, Colin Mochrie; and the biggest thing in show business since Barnum and Bailey's tent pole, Ryan Stiles; and finally the most interesting thing to come out of Gunnersbury since the North Circular Road, Tony Slattery.
  • Drew introduced each episode's contestants by using slogans, figures of speech, or other popular phrases while replacing the last words of the phrase with the contestant's name.
    Drew: If at first you don't succeed, try Greg Proops! If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Wayne Brady! If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say Colin Mochrie! And if you think you have problems, Ryan Stiles!
  • Ryan's habit of making a funny expression into the camera during the intro can be traced back to the last UK season. In the US version, all four of them will be making an odd face for their introduction.
  • Drew: "Welcome to Whose Line is it Anyway?, the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right, the points don't matter, just like [humorously irrelevant thing]."
  • The final game of the British series, probably counts as a Couch Gag: The Winner or Winners of the show read the credits in the style of Clive's Choosing.
  • The American version started without this aspect, then eventually added it after a few seasons.
• Wipeout: The closing line of the opening narration is "One champion will emerge, but all will wipe out" (insert random hilarious contestant shout from the qualifier).
• Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys have a bit right near the end of the credits that riffed on the standard No Animals Were Harmed disclaimer, usually a comedic bit referring to the events of the episode. For instance, during the "Hope" arc which set Xena and Gabrielle against each other, one of the episodes made the comment that "Xena and Gabrielle's relationship was harmed during the filming of this episode."
• You, Me and the Apocalypse - every episode begins the same way, with Jamie narrating from the bunker. However, different characters are revealed to also be with him in each episode.
• Young Sheldon: Starting in the third season, the title sequence includes the whole Cooper family, while Sheldon is in a different costume each episode.
• Grimm: Every episode would have a quotation before the Cold Open that related in some way to the episode.

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