We don’t much do credit sequences at all anymore, really. You tend to get credits playing over the beginning of the movie, I suppose on the grounds that they have to suck you in after playing four trailers and a bunch of commercials, in case you’ve forgotten why you’re there. Or maybe there’s an idea that they’re old-fashioned. I’m not sure. But certainly the idea that you’d get a little cartoon that kind of sums up the basics of the plot or something is not what we get anymore.

And that’s to say nothing of, say, The Pink Panther, a credit sequence that actually spawned a series of cartoons that had nothing to do with the movie. I’m talking more about things like The Parent Trap, where you get little stop-motion figures acting out a broken marriage. Or for a less-good movie, Catalina Caper and the diver-mermaid love affair. Films like Catch Me If You Can and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang have something of the feel, but not quite what I’m talking about. I’m talking about full-on cartoons.

It may be a silly thing to miss; I know plenty of people who are already annoyed at how long it takes to get into the movie, though those people are more annoyed at all the trailers, which don’t bother me. It’s I guess a touch of whimsy that we’re missing. Which of course means it’s not appropriate for every movie; I’m certainly not suggesting that what Schindler’s List was missing was a wacky animated credit sequence. I just feel as though there’s a certain amount of room for them still.

I mean, something something we used to take movies seriously something something? But I feel as though there’s room for taking part of it less seriously. There’s room for it in live-action children’s movies, in comedies, even in a certain kind of thriller. (This is where Catch Me If You Can comes in, I suppose, with that Saul Bass-ish animation.) Not in every movie of that type, but just enough to be pleasurable when it does appear. A pleasant surprise.

It especially bothers me because, let’s face it, animation is awfully cheap these days. Okay, this just opens the doors to bad animated opening credit sequences, I admit, which I do not miss. (See also the aforementioned Catalina Caper.) It just feels wrong to me that something so common in the past is just gone now, entirely gone unless you’re going for a deliberately nostalgic feel. Can you imagine the fun, though, if something like Ghostbusters had opened with little animated Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon and so forth chasing animated ghosts?