Opening and Closing Credits
The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's Head of Comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC 1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the now familiar animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain. In Series 6 they were updated – in all previous versions one of the Nazi arrows passes over the tail of another but then appears under.
The closing credits of the show are a homage to the end credits of the 1944 film The Way Ahead which had covered the training of an everyman platoon during the war and was originally released as a propaganda film in 1943. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lt. Jim Perry.
Read more about this topic: Dad's Army
Famous quotes containing the words opening and, opening and/or closing:
“They are as neat as a wallet,
opening and closing on their coins,
the quarters, the nickels,
straight into the crapper.
Why shouldn’t I pull down my pants
and moon the executioner....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I’ve been practising it for years.”
—Prince Philip (b. 1921)
“And if the stage-dark head rehearse
The fifth act of the closing night,
Why, cut it off, piece after piece,
And throw the tough cortex away....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)