The Simpsons opening sequence couch gag is shown, before the credits are displayed on a new widescreen flat panel television. Sometimes, the flat panel television falls to the floor and breaks, but unlike "Bart Gets a Z", the episode will begin then anyway. In the 500th episode, the opening sequence was a montage of all previous couch gags. Creator Matt Groening developed a lengthy opening sequence for the first season of "The Simpsons", in order to cut down on the animation necessary for each episode, but devised the two gags as compensation for the repeated material each week. In the first of the original
The Mary Tyler Moore Show opening sequence a young woman tossing her hat in the air. This unwitting "extra" was Hazel Frederick, a lifelong Minnesota resident who happened to be out shopping the day the sequence was shot. Mrs. Frederick finally met Moore in 1996 when she was on a book tour for her autobiography, "After All". Moore introduced Frederick as "my co-star". Even though many people thought that the scowling woman in the opening sequence was grumpy-looking, she actually had just been concerned for Mary's safety. In 2002, on Good Morning America, Mary said, "It was so cold, I couldn't protest. The words weren't forming," she