The 1960s
Crossroads, like many programmes of the decade, didn’t actually have any regular opening titles as such. For the first year or so the Crossroads lettering would zoom in from the centre of the screen to the bottom middle of the screen as if to be 'a car pulling up'. This would happen over the first studio scene or overlaid on a shot of a Kings Oak location, usually the outside of them motel.
Later the zoom was dropped from the opening and commercial break bumpers, replaced with the less dramatic Crossroads text simply fading on and off.
The main opening and closing text used between 1964 and 1969 is believed to have been created by graphics expert for ATV Rex Spencer at the time of the programme's launch. The font therefore is a unique hand drawn piece of artwork only seen on Crossroads. The font used on the longest serving Crossroads Motel sign (the red and white one) is known as Profil. There is also a version named 'Decorated'.
Opening Sequences
Crossroads was one of the few soap operas to mainly concentrate its action on one location - a motel - and in so doing it had a chance to provide a more consistent form of branding across the whole programme, which wasn’t so easy to do in the other serials. From the opening titles down to the name badges over the years Crossroads branded not only the programme the same, but also the motel too. A case of fact blurring into fiction.
The 1970s
With the advent of colour television the typeface was replaced, however the format of opening the episode remained unchanged.
It was around 1969 that a bit of dual branding worked its way into the series. The male uniforms had an oval badge, which used a version of the opening titles font for "Crossroads Motel." The same font was also used on the motel beer mats and embossed into the menu covers of this era.
The main opening and closing font as seen between 1969 and 1980 is called 'Grotesque'. It is often mistaken to be a version of a similar typeface known as Impact, it isn't however from the same family of fonts at all.
© Crossroads Appreciation Society 1987-2011
The 1980s - Part One
This is the decade when universal branding seemed to become far more important to ATV, and later Central. There was much more of an efford to have the same logos that appeared as the serial's branding also being part of the actual fictional motel's identification too.
The exterior of the motel was in 1982 became used far more regularly to open the series, this comprised of a number of live action shots of the motel driveway with the 'feather' logo on display taken from differing angles. There were even a couple of daytime /nighttime aerial views of the motel complex.
The opening format and theme tune however once again remained unchanged. The font continued to fade on and off over these fancy new shots or over the first in-studio scene. The typeface was updated at the same time, the producers opting for a more traditional text style with Boulevard (also a version of it is known as Souvenir.) This font was also used on Emmerdale Farm's title sequence in the 1970s.
The 1980s - Part Two
1985 saw Crossroads gain its first full length 'proper' opening titles, a full 45 seconds long! It was also the first time the motel and programme had fully been branded alike. The Crossroads Motel logo for the building was exactly the same as the one featured in the opening titles. Again this was a hand drawn logo.
The title sequence saw a red MG Maestro on its journey from Birmingham to Kings Oak. Local dealer PJ Evans provided the car to Central TV. The country lane shots were filmed on a minor road between Hockley Heath and Tanworth and the estate entrance can be found at Umberslade Hall and Park's East Lodge, although the road has now been diverted further north, away from the gatehouse, to go over the new M40 motorway.
Other locations seen in these titles are in and around Sutton Coldfield, also Birmingham City Centre features right at the start of this sequence with the Aston expressway. With the titles Johnny Patrick introduced a new version of the theme tune. The end of the titles were reworked, along with tweaks to the theme music, in 1987 to say Crossroads Kings Oak.
The major change, the biggest in the shows history came in September of the year when a whole new set of titles were introduced - with a brand new theme tune. The Tony Hatch mainstay music was ditched. These titles were filmed mainly from above the village of Tanworth-in-Arden, which had doubled as Kings Oak since 1970, and its surrounding area and countryside scenes. Most people describe them as "very Emmerdale Farm" - although actually these pre-date the similar Emmerdale style titles. The idea was to rename the series 'Kings Oak' in 1989. It never got further than the 'Crossroads: Kings Oak, phase 2' of the development.
The typeface used for Crossroads Kings Oak was Poor Richard.
The 1980s - Part Three
As noted above 1987 saw two changes to Crossroads titles. First the 1985 version has the theme reworked, and also the end title changed. The same blinds backdrop remained, but the Crossroads Motel lettering (which remained on the building) was replaced with Crossroads Kings Oak.
The 2000s - Part One
In 2000 the company, which had bought up Central Television -Carlton -, decided to re-launch a new version of Crossroads to fill the slot left by Home and Away which moved from ITV to Channel 5. The revamped Crossroads Hotel was a corporate complex from building to titles. The entire lot was branded together, with glossy orange effect titles showing random parts of the hotel and its staff.
The production also saw the return of the Tony Hatch theme, all be it a re-recording by Tony Flynn, which proved popular with fans. The type font was similar to Gill Sans which Carlton used for its own logo, however Crossroads' font is actually Humanst521.
The 2000s - Part Two
While a lot of people in television circles lampoon Carlton Television for being of little substance the new 2001-2002 Crossroads looked glossy, promoted a strong brand and had a sophisticated image. Unfortunately according to some Carlton staff Crossroads didn't sit well with Granada bosses, who were pulling the strings at ITV. Some suggest a long grudge against Crossroads by Granada (from the days when the ATV soap was battering Granada's Coronation Street in the ratings) may be to blame. Others find a more realistic answer - the closure of Central Television and Carlton Productions was behind the 'sabotage'.
In 2003 Crossroads underwent an un-needed re-brand, which managed to take it from the most watched ITV daytime programme to the worst rating programme on the network. If it was to close Central's network production centre then it worked. All the good work done to give Crossroads a successful image and status by Carlton over the previous two years was undone within 20 seconds of the new titles airing. The Tony Hatch theme was once more reworked while the graphics looked like something more suitable for Children's BBC. Crossroads finally had every right to be a television joke, unlike never before. The logo was a hand drawn design. The graphic theme to the sequence was hearts.
Break Stings
For most of the 1960s, 70s and early 1980s the End Of Part One and Part Two text was simply overlaid onto the last or first scene of that part of the show. In the first year or so of Crossroads this text would zoom into the centre of the screen as if it was a car arriving at the motel. By the mid-1980s regular, more artistic, break bumpers were devised. The new version of Crossroads isn't included here as that production re-used segments of the main opening titles into and from the commercial breaks.
