Closing logos question (1 Viewer)

[Mark Y]

I read with interest frequent discussions about closing logos on TV shows -- variations, cases where they've been partially or entirely cut off, "plastered," etc.

I always find it very cool to see the original logos at the end of vintage shows, I guess because it seems so rare, i.e. more often than not, they get replaced with a more contemporary version. (There are various reasons for this which have been discussed here in various threads.)

Anyway...I think it's cool that there's a lot of "logo history" posts on You Tube which provide a convenient place to see them. But I have watched a handful of these, and something I don't quite get is...why all the duplication and repetition I typically see in these videos? I appreciate seeing all the minor variations, with or without a copyright line, different music, different font or whatever...but unless I'm missing something, a lot of the ones I've seen will have THE EXACT SAME ONES repeated over and over -- granted they might be from different sources, some might be time-compressed or have faded colors or whatever, but if they're the same version as the seven previous ones I've just seen...why?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I read with interest frequent discussions about closing logos on TV shows -- variations, cases where they've been partially or entirely cut off, "plastered," etc.

I always find it very cool to see the original logos at the end of vintage shows, I guess because it seems so rare, i.e. more often than not, they get replaced with a more contemporary version. (There are various reasons for this which have been discussed here in various threads.)

Anyway...I think it's cool that there's a lot of "logo history" posts on You Tube which provide a convenient place to see them. But I have watched a handful of these, and something I don't quite get is...why all the duplication and repetition I typically see in these videos? I appreciate seeing all the minor variations, with or without a copyright line, different music, different font or whatever...but unless I'm missing something, a lot of the ones I've seen will have THE EXACT SAME ONES repeated over and over -- granted they might be from different sources, some might be time-compressed or have faded colors or whatever, but if they're the same version as the seven previous ones I've just seen...why?

I always figured it's because the people who put them together are extremely anal and count a slightly sped or distorted or faded version a "variant", even though it's just the same exact standard logo just from a faded film print or with distorted music because the film print is old or slightly sped up from time compression.

 

[moviebuff75]

At this point, I am more interested in bumpers and promos.

 

[ScottRE]

I read with interest frequent discussions about closing logos on TV shows -- variations, cases where they've been partially or entirely cut off, "plastered," etc.

I always find it very cool to see the original logos at the end of vintage shows, I guess because it seems so rare, i.e. more often than not, they get replaced with a more contemporary version. (There are various reasons for this which have been discussed here in various threads.)

Anyway...I think it's cool that there's a lot of "logo history" posts on You Tube which provide a convenient place to see them. But I have watched a handful of these, and something I don't quite get is...why all the duplication and repetition I typically see in these videos? I appreciate seeing all the minor variations, with or without a copyright line, different music, different font or whatever...but unless I'm missing something, a lot of the ones I've seen will have THE EXACT SAME ONES repeated over and over -- granted they might be from different sources, some might be time-compressed or have faded colors or whatever, but if they're the same version as the seven previous ones I've just seen...why?

Are you thinking of the Viacom log history? That one goes on and on and on. But you know, I still sit there and watch them to the point where my wife is like "oh my GOD! I'm hearing that in my sleep!"

At this point, I am more interested in bumpers and promos.

I'll take all three!

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Are you thinking of the Viacom log history? That one goes on and on and on. But you know, I still sit there and watch them to the point where my wife is like "oh my GOD! I'm hearing that in my sleep!"

I'll take all three!

What you're saying is the flying V of Doom haunts your wife's nightmares?

 

[ScottRE]

It was actually the "1-2-3-4" sliding version with the changing colors. Is there a name for that? Like the "pinball" version of something?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

It was actually the "1-2-3-4" sliding version with the changing colors. Is there a name for that? Like the "pinball" version of something?

I believe it is the pinball version because the music sounds like an old pinball machine.

 

[MatthewA]

That had mostly been scrubbed from TV by the time I started watching, so things like these are useful for tracing the visual evolution of these companies and also for keeping track of media consolidation in general. Without the Internet, I would not know about that logo and others that had disappeared from TV before or around the time I was born. But I do get the sense that there is a lot of misconception about what constitutes a separate variation of a logo simply because the uploaders often do not understand the mechanics of how film stock fades and gets worn and how slightly different speeds in now-antiquated film chains could create what they perceive as variations on an existing logo, but isn't. A 24p logo played back at 25p is not a variation either. They cannot come to a consensus on what is a variation and what is just a technical error or the result of the ravages of age.

There's also the fact that some of those logos were uploaded so long ago, they do not represent the best technical quality that YouTube has to offer now, and what is making it worse is the fact that some of these compilations don't represent first-generation uploads but re-uploads. As a result, some of the uploaders have had to go back and re-upload them in higher resolutions. But it is interesting to see the farther back you go, the older the practice of logo replacement is, and there isn't a studio that hasn't done it at some point in time. Cartoons in particular are rife with altered logos and credits, even to this day*.

*This means you, Garfield and Friends, whose "remastered" credits look nothing like what was originally broadcast. I hold out little hope that ViacomCBS, the IP's new owners, knows the difference.

 

[ScottRE]

Now you can all suffer as my wife has...

 

[Mark Y]

Now you can all suffer as my wife has...

Interesting how there are a couple with the "V of doom" visuals but the "pinball" audio. Possibly a result of the picture and sound being sourced from mismatched elements?

 

[bmasters9]

At this point, I am more interested in bumpers and promos.

You bet-- there are plenty of those to go around (IINM)!

 

[Wiseguy]

What gets me is the inconsistencies of the replacements. Current logos are put on some episodes/series while other retain their original logos or a new logo that was used in the past. The Lost in Space episodes currently aired on MeTV have the original 1960s 20th logo while the other three Irwin Allen series (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants) have the newer 20th logo.
CBS/Paramount/Viacom logos are all over the map. While the 1968-75 Paramount logo is mostly gone, some series still retain the original 1975-87 logo. Other series still have the original 1987-1990s logo. Hogan's Heroes still has a silent 1990s Paramount logo at the end while older Our Miss Brooks episodes have the new CBS logo. On Decades broadcasts of Dark Shadows some have the original syndicated WorldVision logo while others have the new CBS logo. Some 11th and 12th season episodes of My Three Sons have both the new CBS logo AND the pinball Viacom logo. Many series seem to retain whatever logo was included on the DVDs whenever those DVDs were released.

 

[Wiseguy]

What you're saying is the flying V of Doom haunts your wife's nightmares?

Never could understand how some people find some logos scary or disturbing particularly the Screen Gems logo of the late 1960s. Always liked that one even as a kid when it was current and was somewhat disappointed when they shortened it in the early 1970s.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

What gets me is the inconsistencies of the replacements. Current logos are put on some episodes/series while other retain their original logos or a new logo that was used in the past. The Lost in Space episodes currently aired on MeTV have the original 1960s 20th logo while the other three Irwin Allen series (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants) have the newer 20th logo.
CBS/Paramount/Viacom logos are all over the map. While the 1968-75 Paramount logo is mostly gone, some series still retain the original 1975-87 logo. Other series still have the original 1987-1990s logo. Hogan's Heroes still has a silent 1990s Paramount logo at the end while older Our Miss Brooks episodes have the new CBS logo. On Decades broadcasts of Dark Shadows some have the original syndicated WorldVision logo while others have the new CBS logo. Some 11th and 12th season episodes of My Three Sons have both the new CBS logo AND the pinball Viacom logo. Many series seem to retain whatever logo was included on the DVDs whenever those DVDs were released.

Sometimes it varies by something as small as when or what platform a show was released to.

Cheers seasons 9-11 on DVD have one of those ugly stupid "CBS/Paramount Television" logos plastered at the end. The streaming versions use the circa 2001 Mountain, itself a plaster but correct for the era when the show was reassembled and remastered for HD.

Never could understand how some people find some logos scary or disturbing particularly the Screen Gems logo of the late 1960s. Always liked that one even as a kid when it was current and was somewhat disappointed when they shortened it in the early 1970s.

Eh, people are weird. Also, kids are scared by stupid stuff and that carries through to adulthood.

 

[bmasters9]

Cheers seasons 9-11 on DVD have one of those ugly stupid "CBS/Paramount Television" logos plastered at the end. The streaming versions use the circa 2001 Mountain, itself a plaster but correct for the era when the show was reassembled and remastered for HD.

And speaking of such, the closing credits also have that remastered look, such that even a first-season episode (1982-83) could look like it was made in the 2000s.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

This is my history of the Desilu and Paramount Television logos (Paramount through before the Viacom era).

Whenever I see a new interesting version of these logos, be they from DVDs or old TV broadcasts, I add them to my existing edits.

Same thing with my Hanna-Barbera logo history, which I end at before the Turner era:


~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

Whenever I see a new interesting version of these logos, be they from DVDs or old TV broadcasts, I add them to my existing edits.

~Ben

So, basically, you captured these from your copies of the releases of Petrocelli, The Powers of Matthew Star, Longstreet, The Magician, et al.?

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

So, basically, you captured these from your copies of the releases of Petrocelli, The Powers of Matthew Star, Longstreet, The Magician, et al.?

That's right.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

That's right.

~Ben

What program(s) did you use to capture the examples in your Paramount Television tribute?

 

[B-ROLL]

What gets me is the inconsistencies of the replacements. Current logos are put on some episodes/series while other retain their original logos or a new logo that was used in the past. The Lost in Space episodes currently aired on MeTV have the original 1960s 20th logo while the other three Irwin Allen series (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants) have the newer 20th logo.
CBS/Paramount/Viacom logos are all over the map. While the 1968-75 Paramount logo is mostly gone, some series still retain the original 1975-87 logo. Other series still have the original 1987-1990s logo. Hogan's Heroes still has a silent 1990s Paramount logo at the end while older Our Miss Brooks episodes have the new CBS logo. On Decades broadcasts of Dark Shadows some have the original syndicated WorldVision logo while others have the new CBS logo. Some 11th and 12th season episodes of My Three Sons have both the new CBS logo AND the pinball Viacom logo. Many series seem to retain whatever logo was included on the DVDs whenever those DVDs were released.

Lost in Space is technically owned by Space Productions et al and released by Fox. The new masters were created (apparently pre-sold) with MeTV in mind. The blu-rays released by Fox were another product of those masters and MeTv likes to use the original opening and closing logos where possible (eg the Iris CBS logo for Perry Mason -Original Recipe). The other Irwin Allen shows are older masters and have the new Fox logos in place of the original because that's what' on those masters.