I’m a compulsive credits watcher, for both movies and TV shows. (Just like I read the acknowledgements and dedications in books.) As part of an obsessive TV generation, the compulsive credits watchers among us were able to see, over and over, the credits for shows and we’d notice anytime something had been changed.

I don’t hold it against many modern-day and recent TV shows that their credits are brief. Maybe it’s a common belief that viewers don’t want to sit through credits. Every streaming service gives us the option to skip the credits. Let me just say, if you hit the remote to skip the credits, I don’t want to know you.

In the history of TV and in some relatively recent TV, there have been a tremendous number of great credits sequences, including those that are mesmerizing for their visuals, like “Counterpart,” “Silo” and “True Detective.”

As a compulsive credits watcher, I love when credits changed to reflect a change in the cast or setting.

“Star Trek.” My love of little tweaks to TV credits goes way back to the original “Star Trek” series. In the first season, only William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were listed in the opening credits. This changed with, I’m pretty sure, the second season, when DeForest Kelley, who contributed so much to the series as grumpy Dr. Leonard McCoy, was added to the opening credits. Today, the entire recurring cast would be listed up front, and rightfully so.

The “Superstar” episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” In the fourth season of “Buffy,” from 2000, the episode “Superstar” took place in an alternate reality in which Jonathan, a geek played by Danny Strong, was the most-admired pop star, author and action hero in the world.

“Buffy” had multiple other credits changes over the years, as characters like Angel left the show. Probably the sneakiest and possibly the cruelest change to the credits came when Amber Benson, who played Tara, was prominently featured in the series but not added to the opening credits until the sixth season episode “Seeing Red” – and then for only episode, as the character was killed.

It’s possible there’s no TV series that has so many credits variations as “Fringe,” a sci-fi series that ran for five seasons beginning in 2008. I’m in the middle of a “Fringe” rewatch right now and it was fascinating to be reminded how the credits changed to reflect the alternate universes in which episodes took place.

The worst credits change? When Mike Farrell joined the cast of “MASH” at the beginning of the fourth season, in 1975. What was so bad about how the credits handled the change? Remember how the opening credits had Hawkeye and Trapper John rush out to a helicopter landing pad and there were shots of the actors and characters? Well, when Farrell joined as BJ, they shot a closeup of him, naturally, to sub in for an action shot of Wayne Rogers. But they didn’t shoot a new shot, from overhead, of the Jeeps and medical transports heading to triage at the mobile army surgical hospital. Instead, the overhead shot is cropped so that when the camera pans back to include the Jeep – in which Rogers is clearly visible – the former star isn’t on screen.

Yes, we all had a lot of time on our hands back in our TV-watching days.