A "Foof" or a "phoof" is the unofficial name for the black and white "preview" at the beginning of each act of an NCIS episode. It has appeared in every single episode of NCIS so far except for Season One and the first three episodes, See No Evil (episode), The Good Wives Club (episode) and Vanished (episode) of Season Two.
As such, each episode starting with Lt. Jane Doe (episode) has had a total of four or five foofs with the majority of the foofs including the main characters.
The first ever foof as seen in the Season 2 episode, "Lt. Jane Doe".
The "foof" made its debut appearance in Season 2's Lt. Jane Doe (episode) and has aired in every single episode of the NCIS show since then, giving the show something of a very unique quality and separating it from other shows including NCIS's own spin-off series, NCIS: Los Angeles.
NCIS's creator and Executive Producer Donald P. Bellisario creates the noise by hitting a mircophone with his hand although it sounds like a light-bulb exploding.
The first-ever freeze frame foof of Gibbs searching for Ari just seconds after Kate has been shot dead as seen in the Season 3 premiere episode, "Kill Ari Part 1".
In the Season 3 debut episode, Kill Ari Part 1 (episode), and unlike in previous episodes which had the characters moving to some degree even after the foof itself happened, the foofs from "Kill Ari Part 1" began using freeze-frames which has continued to be used to this day which means that every time a foof happens, then the foof itself will end with the people standing still like a photograph of some sort.
The original foof preview as seen in the Season 5 episode, "Family".
The real foof as seen in the Season 5 episode, "Family".
When the Season 5 premiere episode, Bury Your Dead (episode) aired, the foof was again changed so that it would end on a different one compared to the one originally shown in the first "preview".
In the Season 5 episode, Leap of Faith (episode), the three-second teaser being shown at the beginning was changed so that it was NOT for the end scene before the intro (like in past episodes) but it was actually for the scene after the intro leading into the first commercial break.
Tony gets his comeuppance post-foof, "Code of Conduct".
Foofs are mostly in black and white - but not always completely so. At the end of the Season 7 episode Code of Conduct (episode), Anthony DiNozzo inadvertently displayed a flash of color. Having taken a sip of 'coffee' that Ziva David had bought him, he smiled, revealing that she'd played a Hallowe'en prank on him - his mouth had been stained blue. When the foof occurred, Tony's teeth remained blue while everything else in shot turned monochrome.