Four Corners show openers 1961 - 2021 | Sixty years of Australia's longest-running TV series

This year marks Four Corners’ 60th anniversary.
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In August 1961, we made our debut on Australian TV with a staff of just six and a weekly budget of £480.
Copies of the program were flown around the country for broadcast.
To celebrate, we’ve dug through the archives to find our best show openers.
Let us know your favourite.
#FourCorners #4corners #investigativejournalism
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[@Choice_au]

1:49 this is the most 1980s thing I've ever seen. It's so campy and I love it.

[@maazkalim]

1:46* There! "Thank Me Later" 😊

[@whophd]

As a child of the 1980s, and born at just the right age to believe 1983 was the peak of musical power (especially if you're into electronica), everything before this just sounded silly and pointless. Those 1960s and 1970s versions sound like a joke. And sometime around 2000-2010 they started putting music under the story itself, but why? It's like every current affairs show was afraid of sounding too boring, and felt the pressure to make it dramatic like every other show. Fine if the commercials want to do it, but we're supposed to take Four Corners seriously for its journalism, so why the silliness?

[@zoekenny3619]

That turning four corners icon and soundtrack is so commanding and somehow mysterious. Really enjoyed this little look back in time, but wish it was much longer.

[@sneakyboxcutta]

Love 1983 opening. Real outrun aesthetic

[@NuGanjaTron]

It's absolutely gorgeous. Heard it then, never forgot it.

[@MrPnew1]

The music in the second and third intros really stick in my mind. Thank you 4 Corners and ABC

[@--Nath--]

Also the snippet of "they're disposable.. but how do you get rid of them" at 50 seconds in.. The answer we now know is they will fill the oceans with garbage patches, landfill and once plastic covers everything we'll be eating food with microplastics. Had we only paid attention to 4corners eh? Any chance you could upload that episode - would be interesting to see how the evolution of single use containers was reported back then.

[@Stefan-ox5sk]

Remember lying in bed as a kid hearing the 1988 one in the lounge room?

[@snowstrobe]

I was born in 63, but it's not till 78 that I recognize anything. Ah, the bliss of youthful disinterest. The graphics took a serious leap in the 90s.

[@jfwfreo]

4 Corners would have to be the most important TV program in Australian history. And its probably the last TV program in this country left doing deep level investigative journalism.

[@whophd]

I feel that kind of died by the time a filing cabinet full of government documents turned up at the ABC, and they weren't even allowed first dibs on it. Amazing to think that the people I'd really like to review government documents never got a look at even a summary or list of items in there.

[@jeffestrada6857]

Best current affairs program on the planet - bar none! Thank you ABC... I am nearly 60 and hearing all these introductions from years ago makes me think what a wonderful place Australia 🇦🇺 was to live.👍 Now though, its so different expensive, divided people, selfish attitudes are prominent, and probably lack of respect and inconsideration are the norm, generation me has arrived 👎

[@user-kj3ch3ke8m]

Jeff, I'm just the other side of 60 - I agree with every word you've written! Not just the best, 4 Corners is arguably the greatest program this country has produced. Week after week, year after year, it does the job of spineless, cynical state and federal government by exposing corruption, holding politicians, corporations and others to account. Its reward is funding cuts, attacks on its credibility by those seeking to undermine the democracy the program defends. 4 Corners is part of who I am as an Australian, a sine qua non of my civic identity. Long may it survive, and let us have a government that will supports its endeavours.

[@peecee1384]

4 Corners is part of my DNA. 1:23 and 1:44 Caroline Jones. What a woman. Beautiful and smart. Former Australian living treasure. RIP - she only passed recently. 😔 I loved her. 2:12 Andrew Olle was only 47 when he died in 1995 from an undiagnosed brain tumour 😔

[@andrewdmcgill1]

The 60s/70s theme was ridiculous. Thank goodness for the 80s!

[@NuGanjaTron]

The 80s intro is iconic. Lightyears from the cheery version of the 60s.

[@whophd]

Yeah what WERE they thinking … ?? I know the 1960s has a reputation … but why put it in THIS show? There were still people who wanted (and enjoyed making) old-fashioned serious stuff, and they were definitely around and in charge of things then.

[@robertkeays4639]

Soon as that song comes on you better be in bed. Needs to change

[@abrahamdecruz5128]

This program makes us feel old. But its good to see the former reportors and executive producers being recognised. Sadly some of them might have passed over? Here's to another 60 years. This is Australia's version of Panorama.

[@maazkalim]

passed away?* There! FTFY 😑

[@Andrew-fe1uk]

Even back in 1989 they were talking about China. Now, you cannot go a day or a week without hearing about them.

[@fari15draws45]

1:28 my favorite

[@Molejules]

Someone was having a go at the team for the Chinese translation of "four" in that 1962 open! While 肆 is a homophone for 四, that word actually means "wanton."

[@smolneso]

Nope, that's a legitimate use of the character: 壹貳叄肆 rather than 一二三四 is the correct way to write Chinese numbers in banking contexts or where you don't want numbers to be tampered

[@Molejules]

@@smolneso Oh! Learn something new every day. Thanks for that. I knew 壹 was used for one, but haven't seen the others in modern use.

[@MrSchimpf]

The 1983 theme really does seem like a partial inspiration for the Fox NFL music, as it's chairman was Australian and might have asked the composer to make it sound sort of like that.

[@bluejuiceist]

Love it

[@DaleHardiman]

Da da da da da da da da da…… da da da da da da da da da.

[@bbcrumbs]

They had it right in 1978, whoever made current variation needs a lesson in perspective. I find this mangled 44 a terrible distraction as a watermark•

[@saxongreen78]

It also seems there was a transition from the 1974 theme (gravitas!) music back to the twee 1960s tune. The 3D logo went away for a period in the early 1980s and a stylised & rerecorded version of the sixties music was used. A bit muddled...the analog 3D model and ominous soundtrack was cool.

[@maazkalim]

You meant the iconic composition is “omnious soundtrack,” no - Mr "@@saxongreen78"?

[@saxongreen78]

@@maazkalim Nah...I had meant the piece they used between 1974-1978, but now that you mention it, the _later_ (current) music is the best by far.

[@maazkalim]

Ahh.. That basic thudding sound-effect like music till '78.. ...After which they returned with that upbeat music *but* slightly including its motif?.! 'Coincidentally', if you listen very closely to this montage: You would notice that the “ominous” motif was sampled more clearly throughout the first-ever sound-recording of this current, longest-lasting composition - since the '83.

[@whophd]

It's like the show doesn't really start, or start to get taken seriously, until the all-business 1980s get going. Ah, play the scary theme and put on Andrew Olle to tell me how the worst thing ever has happened, with incredible diligence but in a gentle way. Now you're talking.

[@ralsharp6013]

Ahhh that music.... How quickly our English spoken influence has worn off during the last 50 years.

[@zenrising3314]

the spinning cube used to mean serious hard hitting investigative journalism coming up. Now the show is worse than a current affair. ABC has become the national shame.