Closing Credits - History

History

The use of closing credits in film to list complete production crew and cast was not firmly established in American film until the 1970s. Before this decade, most movies were released with no closing credits at all. Films generally had opening credits only, which consisted of just major cast and crew, although sometimes the names of the cast and the characters they played would be shown at the end, as in The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Oliver! and the 1964 Fail Safe. Two of the first major films to contain extensive closing credits – but almost no opening credits – were the blockbusters Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and West Side Story (1961). West Side Story showed only the title at the beginning of the film, and Around the World in 80 Days, like many films today, had no opening credits at all.

Around the World in 80 Days (1956) had one of the longest and most elaborate closing credit sequences of any film. The credits took around seven minutes to finish. It provided an animated recap of the movie's three-hour storyline, identifying the actors in the order in which they appeared. Superman also had a very long closing credits sequence. It took nearly eight minutes to end, and at the time of the film's release it was the longest end credits sequence ever. Although, some live action/animated films' end credits later ran from 7 to 8 minutes in length, such as Space Jam (1996), Scooby-Doo (2002) and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004). The British television series Spooks does not feature any credits, as a result of a decision made by the producers to add to the anonymity of the show's content (about the British Security Services). Instead, the credits appear as a special feature on the series DVDs, and also on the official website.

As in motion pictures, most television programs until relatively recently did not list the entire cast and crew.