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:
“His leanings were strictly lyrical, descriptions of nature and emotions came to him with surprising facility, but on the other hand he had a lot of trouble with routine items, such as, for instance, the opening and closing of doors, or shaking hands when there were numerous characters in a room, and one person or two persons saluted many people.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
““Who are you,” said the caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Although sleep pressed upon my closing eyelids, and the moon, on her horses, blushed in the middle of the sky, nevertheless I could not leave off watching your play; there was too much fire in your two voices.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)