TV theme songs usually get all the attention, but where would they be without the indelible images they conjure? Try listening to the theme from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" without imagining Mary tossing her beret in the air. Or the theme from "The Flintstones" without seeing a mental cartoon reel of Fred and family at the drive-in, their car listing to one side under an order of bronto ribs. Or the "Dick Van Dyke Show" theme without thinking about Rob tripping over the footstool right when the orchestra makes that "whoops!" sound.

The main title is the part of the TV show that people see first, and most. And creating the main title is one of the toughest jobs in the industry; you've got to pique people's curiosity, introduce characters, help producers tell a backstory and create a mood without wearing out a show's welcome through season after season and into syndication.

Says Carol Johnsen of Castle/Bryant/Johnsen, one of TV's hottest and most prolific main title design teams, "A successful main title sequence is a strong signature for the show."

Castle/Bryant/Johnsen is responsible for a few openers that are permanently lodged in the mind's eye. Let's put it this way -- they did "Cheers." And "Family Ties," "Cagney & Lacey," "Frasier" and a little show called "The X-Files," for which they won their third Emmy award in 1994.

So, Jim Castle, Bruce Bryant and Johnsen must be living large, right? Not exactly. The field of main title design is so small (Bryant estimates 70 to 100 designers working on prime-time shows), it doesn't have its own trade union. So, while a main title's musical composer, for instance, gets a nice royalty every time the show airs, the main title designers get zip. Main title design is a labor of love.

With "The X-Files" in particular, Bryant and Johnsen, who have been together professionally for 17 years and as husband and wife for 10, have literally given of themselves to get the look they wanted -- both appear in the show's main title sequence. (If you want to know where, click here.)

But "The X-Files" is near and dear to Bryant and Johnsen for another reason -- it neatly dovetails with their interest in the paranormal. This led to a symbiotic working relationship with the show's creator Chris Carter; it also got some of their own personal Polaroids from a documentary they did on cattle mutilations into an episode of the show. While most of their associations with a show end before the premiere date, Bryant and Johnsen maintain close ties to "The X-Files." They're frequently called upon to fine-tune the legend that appears in the sky in the main title's last frame; it reads, variously, "The Truth Is Out There," "Trust No One" and, once, "Apology Is Policy."

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