Logo Joke - TV Tropes

Baz Luhrmann’s film company Bazmark Films uses a logo based on the Australian coat of arms. It features the name "Iona" from Baz Luhrmann's record label company House of Iona, and the slogan "A life lived in fear is a life half lived" from Lurhmann's previous film Strictly Ballroom.

The Blumhouse Productions logo is of the interior of a haunted house, featuring ghostly activity (poltergeist activity, a ghost girl).

• When the studio expanded into non-horror features, the logo was toned down to simply a lightbulb going on.
• Black Christmas (2019): The trailer had the logo lined with Christmas lights.
• Freaky: The ghost girl is holding the LaDola Dagger.
• The Gallows: The logo is tinted red.
• Insidious: Chapter 2 has the logo be smaller than usual.
• The Black Phone debuted a new logo that features a pan through the house and its rooms, containing all sorts of horror movie homages, seen here.

• Back to Black (2024): The trailer has the logo appear on a spinning turntable.
• Eileen: The logo gets a 60s Retraux style to fit the story's setting.
• The Holdovers had a new Retraux logo in the form of a double F (FF) developed for the film's 70s setting.
• Nosferatu (2024) featured another Retraux logo, this time harkening to the original film's 1920s release period.
• Taking Woodstock: The logo gets a psychedelic look, and the music is played in a rock style.

Each IMAX presentation has a pre-movie logo countdown sequence. Sometimes it has different themed versions.

• Blade Runner 2049 has its own version, which shows off the expanded frame size. The text has a digital look throughout and the camera travels down the city.
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps has an IMAX logo animated in the film's retro aesthetic, seen [1] here.
• Furious 7 variant here. It begins with the sound of somebody starting an engine, then the sound of a racing car skidding down the track plays over the rest of the countdown, which is blinking with neon lights.
• L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties: As China's first motion-capture film, the statements are in Chinese and the logo features the powers/heroes of the film, as seen here.
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation variant here, where a lit fuse burns its way down to the IMAX logo and explodes. The countdown is scored with the franchise's theme song.
• The Chinese kung fu comedy Monk Comes Down the Mountain features a Chinese IMAX intro involving a trip across and over a moonlit mountain range, seen here. Someone laughs during the flash of light at the end.
• MonsterVerse:
• Suicide Squad (2016) received a custom countdown that travels through Arkham Asylum down the streets of Gotham and ends with the Joker's laugh over the IMAX logo.
• Sully is the first to feature a "filmed with IMAX cameras" version. It has a dark starfield background and shows off the expanded film frame size.
• Spider-Man: Homecoming got a variant shown here, where the scenery is themed in red and blue and web is being shot everywhere.
• For the 2013 IMAX 3-D release of The Wizard of Oz, the countdown sequence was in a sepia tone instead of the regular blue. Seen here.

The Jerry Bruckheimer production company had lightning striking a tree as its logo. The original logo was two lightning bolts striking in the same place from different parts of the screen — being the logo for Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer's company. After Don Simpson's death, Bruckheimer altered the logo to the single bolt of lightning it presently is, though sequels to films Bruckheimer co-produced with Simpson would still use the two lightning strikes logo out of respect to him.

Mary Tyler Moore's film company, MTM, uses a logo that is a parody of the MGM logo, using a meowing kitten (acquired from an animal shelter and nicknamed "Mimsie") instead of a roaring lion. MTM has used variations of its own logo for various shows produced by them over the years. They had a tendency to kill off Mimsie whenever a show ended.

• For Christmas Episodes, such as those on The Bob Newhart Show, Mimsie was shown encircled by a Christmas wreath in place of the usual gold ribbon. Although the original ribbon appears for a split-second, possibly due to an editing error.
• At the end of the "Put on a Happy Face" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary Tyler Moore herself appeared in place of Mimsie and mouthed the words "Th-th-th-that's all folks!"
• At the end of the 1991 Mary Tyler Moore Reunion Show, Mimsie does not meow, instead saying "Bye!" in Mary Tyler Moore's voice.
  • Similarly, a blooper reel for the final season ends with an audio swap of Mary saying "Bye!" and the cat.
• On videos produced by MTM Home Video, the kitten holds a remote control. After meowing, the kitten hits "rewind". The picture winds backwards (and loses color), and the kitten meows again.
• The Duck Factory: Before the logo starts, a voiceover asks "Where's the cat?" or "Here's the cat!" The cat then quacks.
• Eisenhower and Lutz: Mimsie's "meow" is sung by a group.
• The Graham Kerr Show: As befits a Cooking Show, the kitten wore a chef's hat. Also, her head does not move as much.
• Similarly, on Hill Street Blues, the kitten wore a policeman's hat.
• Two unique variants each appeared in a different episode of The Bob Newhart Show.
  • In the third season premiere "Big Brother Is Watching", the cat growls.
  • In the fourth season episode "No Sale", Mimsie is replaced with a shot of an actual cat named Abogast.
• Newhart: Bob Newhart's voice says "Meow".
  • The first episode has her meow normally.
  • In the season 5 episode "Dick The Kid", Bob's meow is in a duller tone than usual.
  • In the last episode, Darryl and Darryl scream "QUIET!"
• On the short-lived series Texas Wheelers an extremely rare variant features a cute black & white kitty outside looking around.
• The New WKRP in Cincinnati: Instead of a meow, you hear Les Nessman saying "Ooooh!"
• For Remington Steele the cat wears a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap and has a meerschaum pipe in her mouth; when she meows, the pipe falls and lands in front of the word "Productions".
  • Also, there is a mockup on YouTube, but the letters move slowly, and Mimsie drops a gun, firing a hole into an "M".
• St. Elsewhere: The kitten is dressed for surgery in mask and smock. In the final episode, the kitten appeared above the closing credits, hooked up to life support machinery, and flatlined at the end of the credits, with the normal, rather upbeat show theme playing^note . (This variant doesn't always appear when shown in syndication.)
  • By a sad coincidence, the real-life Mimsie would die later that same year (1988).
• The Steve Allen Show: The kitten wears heavy black eyeglasses and declares "Schmock!" in the voice of Steve Allen.
• The White Shadow: A different kitten from the usual Mimsie bounces a basketball off the MTM logo. The meow isn't heard in this variant.
  • An extended version appeared in the pilot, where the kitten throws the ball off-camera.
• Xuxa: The kitten uses the voice of Xuxa saying "Ciao!"
• The feature film A Little Sex has an animated cartoon version of Mimsie meowing, followed by a second kitten appearing; the two then rub heads affectionately and purr.
• Bay City Blues has a cartoon Mimsie catching a baseball.
• Lou Grant, Paris, the theatrical release Just Between Friends, and the pilot for Three for the Road all feature a silent, still image of Mimsie in lieu of the meowing. In Just Between Friends, Mimsie's head is facing away from the camera.
• Speaking of Three for the Road, that short-lived show's final episode had an unusual variation: after Mimsie meowed, the gold ribbon and the shot of Mimsie within turned upside down for no apparent reason. This was also used in the last episode of the 1970s series Friends And Lovers.
• Carlton Your Doorman, MTM's only animated production — a TV special/pilot for a spinoff from Rhoda (itself a spinoff from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) — ends with a very annoyed looking white cartoon cat (not a kitten) glaring at the camera (“C'mon, say ‘meow’… damn cat”, grumbles Carlton).
• Most startling of all, the TV movie/Poorly Disguised Pilot Vampire has "AN MTM ENTERPRISES INC. PRODUCTION" in blood-red against a black background — and no kitten at all!
• In the unsold 1987 pilot In The Lion's Den, the cat says "Belrooney" or something similar to it.
• Not really a MTM program, but Minneapolis PBS affiliate KTCA did their own version at the end of a documentary on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Note that the variants are all exclusive to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and so the entries refer to episodes of that show.

• "Becoming, Part 2": The zombie says "Ohhh, I need a hug." (This was the episode where Buffy killed Angel and left Sunnydale.)
• "Amends" puts the zombie in a Santa Claus hat.
• "Graduation Day, Part 2" puts the zombie in a graduation cap.
• At the end of "Storyteller", the zombie sings, "We are as gods!"
• "Once More With Feeling": the zombie sings "Grrr… argh."
• "Bargaining, Part 1": the signoff is actually included in the episode itself, with Tara putting on a zombie finger puppet and going "grrr… argh."
• "Chosen", the final episode of the series: the zombie looks at the camera, growls, then keeps walking.
• Parodied in an episode of Robot Chicken, with the zombie doing the normal "Grrr… argh." before going on a rampage and killing people. The scene then cuts to show that it's Joss Whedon messing around, as an executive walks in and says, "Come on, Joss. That's why you got kicked off Wonder Woman."

NBC plays around with their "in living color" peacock logo on a few occasions. Some of them can be seen here.

• Sid and Marty Krofft created a puppet version of the logo for a 1974 NBC special, seen here. The announcer complains it's not the actual peacock, and the puppet is pulled off.
• The peacock was parodied on the NBC show Laugh In where it sneezed its feathers off.
• In the first episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, which debuted on NBC as Disney's first foray into color television, Ludwig von Drake sings "The Spectrum Song" playing a piano keyboard that shoots out rainbow rays. These rays form the tailfeathers of the NBC Peacock, who walks in front of von Drake. An annoyed Von Drake tells the peacock off.

  Ludwig von Drake: Ooh, what a showoff! How do you like that guy? I'm gonna let you in on something: confidentially, he dyes his feathers.

• The 2024 broadcasts of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman began with a shortened, narrator-free version of the Peacock intro, the full version of which preceded Rudolph's premiere broadcast 60 years earlier.
• Bumpers
  • Ads for some NBC shows will sometimes play with the logo at the end of the ad. At the end of commercials for Revolution, the logo has a glowing yellow outline, and at the end of the commercials for Hannibal, the logo is blood red.
  • On the week of Earth Day, it is totally green.
  • One bumper which aired at Thanksgiving showed the peacock get attacked and turned into a turkey dinner, seen here.
  • When NBC Kids used to play on Saturday mornings, a child's hand would peel off the logo in the corner every so often as if it were a sticker and then later glue it back in place.
  • In the months following the 9/11 attacks, the peacock logo had the image of an American flag waving inside it.
  • During the months prior to the Olympic Games (start of the year for Summer, and the start of the preceding TV season for Winter), NBC will usually put the Olympic rings under its bug during its entertainment programming. Since a 2015 graphics refresh (when the network began to use a persistent bug in the top-corner of the screen during all sports broadcasts — a practice for NBC that itself originated from the Olympics), NBC also uses this bug during broadcasts of Olympic sports outside of the Games.
  • A bumper for NBC Europe involved a painting of a real peacock turning into the logo, seen here.
  • One bumper had the peacock yawn and walk off after a hard day, seen here.
  • John Kricfalusi animated two bumpers in the 90s, seen here and here. One has the peacock notice a rubber nipple stuck to its rump, so it shoots the nipple off its behind to show its feathers. The other the peacock play the NBC theme on a xylophone (which resembles the mid-1950s NBC logo), exploding when it hits the last note.
  • When The Beatles' black-and-white movie A Hard Day's Night premiered on NBC in 1967, the network's "In Living Color" peacock intro was replaced with a "lively black and white" animated penguin.
  • On a rare marketing reel for "Nightmare: The Host and Rodney", an otherwise standard Horror Host show, a still image of the peacock appears, looking a lot more vulture-like and undead. The announcer then proclaims that the program is presented "in livid color" before a wolf howl is heard.
  • A rather funny variation appears on a NBC blooper reel from 1963, in which the announcer forgets which network he's working for.

    Announcer: This is the CBS Television… oh, goddamnit.

  • When M&M's was sponsoring the channel in the 2000’s, Red and Yellow would appear in a few bumpers promoting the channel's shows, mainly during Thanksgiving week due to the spokescandies having a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade at the time. Some bumpers had Yellow burst out peacock feathers behind him, due to him tapping an actual peacock on his backside.
• Tributes in other media:
  • The cartoon Cool McCool had an episode where the NBC peacock (in Saturday morning cartoon design) leaves the studio so he can join the Owl (the episode's Big Bad) in avian solidarity.
  • The Futurama episode "Anthology of Interest II" has Leela undergo a Wizard of Oz fantasy. The fantasy starts out in sepia, then becomes color: at the point that happens a peacock is seen spreading its rainbow wings, to reference their "In Living Color" trademark.
  • The Family Guy episode "Peter's Sister" parodied the opening to The Cosby Show, seen here. "Knowing what we know now", the peacock appears, doped up like Cosby's female co-stars.
  • In the Marsupilami episode "Toucan Always Get What You Want", Maurice grabs the NBC Peacock, to which Eduardo says "I don't want no stinky bird today, my stomach is craving for the little spotty guy with the tail", seen here.
  • An 1981 episode of Saturday Night Live had Sesame Street's Big Bird act as the logo. Unusually, this was not a Muppet example.

The Canadian studio Nelvana has a polar bear staring at the North Star as its logo.

• For the failed TV show Formula RC, the logo had the bear wear shades, the stars shine like traffic lights (red/orange/green), and driving sounds are heard.
• Grossology has the logo get drenched in goop.
• Star Wars features the planet Nelvaan, populated by the Nelvaanians, canine humanoids who resemble those from Nelvana's first feature Rock and Rule. Nelvaan itself was created thanks to Nelvana having animated The Star Wars Holiday Special.

• Altered Carbon:
• Glass Onion's trailers consist of gold lines on the left and right the logo, seen here.
• Both teasers for the Guillermo del Toro adaptation of Pinocchio have the Netflix logo be briefly made of wood, seen here.
• Rainbow has neon green lines in the logo that revert back to the original colors, seen here.
• The School for Good and Evil (2022): At the end of the second trailer, the lines around the Netflix “N” are gold colored.
• Slumberland:
  • The teaser has the lines coloured brown, which surround the full logo.
  • As for the trailer, it's the same as above, but the lines are amber instead.
• Stranger Things: The Season 4 premiere has red stormclouds, the Upside Down dimension's hallmark, in the background of the Netflix logo, as seen here.
• The main trailer of The Sandman (2022) has the logo surrounded by grey lines.
• The Umbrella Academy (2019): The Season 3 trailer has the logo turn black and white, while sparrows fly through it, as seen here.
• Wednesday's trailer changes the line color to purple, surrounding the logo afterwards.
• Wendell & Wild's trailer contains light purple and spectral green lines around the logo.
• The Witcher (2019): The logo briefly consists of blue-grey lines that change back to the usual colors, seen here.
• WWE Raw: Ads promoting the show’s move to the service replaces the original Netflix chimes with the sounds of the timekeeper’s bell.

There are three types of logos for Nippon TV. Firstly, there was the Nippon Television Network Corporation, consisting of a glowing circle rising in the first kanji, turning the space background into a blue cloudy sky. Then, the second made one alteration to this, with the logo flipping to the golden Nippon TV logo on a white background. The third and final one was re-branded to Nippon TV Movies, set in a blue and red tunnel that turns the background white. The logo alterations usually employs a Match Cut or has its audio changed.

• Burlesque: The logo is lit up with limelights.
• D.E.B.S.: The logo takes on the plaid print worn by the schoolgirls.
• Easy A: The logo is set in the sky. Unusually, this applies to the logo at the start and the end of the film.
• Friends with Benefits: The logo appears on Dylan‘s screen during a meeting with his staff.
• This Christmas: The logo is red and covered in Christmas lights.
• Ultraviolet (2006): The logo appears as a corner-box image on several of the comic books in the Animated Credits Opening. Its style changes with the artwork on the covers.
• The logo itself was the subject of a documentary, The S From Hell.

• Dragon Ball:
  • A firefighting special has the Toei logo as gold against a black background.
  • The logo is parodied in DBZ as part of the In-Universe studio ZTV, and is seen at the front of a cheesy low-budget film about the Cell Games. The Funimation dub adds a "Waves and Rocks!" title to it, seen here.
  • In the trailers for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the Toei logo glows green, replicating Broly's green Saiyan aura.
  • In the trailer for the sequel Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, the Toei logo is shaded red, pointing at the Red Ribbon Army's involvement in the film.
• Rebuild of Evangelion: The third entry Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, had the old Toei Logo from 1950-2001.
• The 1958 anime film Hakujyaden, which was Toei's first animated venture, had the logo in gold against a blue background with fireworks.
• Kamen Rider:
  • The third part of the Kamen Rider Decade and Double Movie Wars begins on a split screen, representing how Double's chasing of the Dummy Dopant will involuntarily converge with Decade's final battle against Super Shocker. Of course, both screens show the Toei logo twice.
  • In the Double and OOO Movie Wars, the Toei logo is shown in red, yellow, green and purple, mirroring the color schemes of both Riders' basic forms (green and purple for Double and red, yellow and green for OOO).
• Kamen Rider Saber + Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger Super Hero Senki: The Toei logo plays the sound effects from both the 1971 Kamen Rider series and Himitsu Sentai Gorenger before the ocean freezes into ice and pans left to Agastya Base, where the main villain of the movie is imprisoned and is about to escape.
• Mechanical Violator Hakaider: The Toei logo pans to the left to the prison in the opening scene.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Sailor Moon Eternal: The feature was divided into two films. The first film's trailer had the Toei logo given a sparkly pink appearance, while the second film's trailer has the logo shaded moonlight silver.
  • The teaser trailer for the sequel Sailor Moon Cosmos has the logo in crystal (with a star-filled sky seen through it) against a black background.
• Super Sentai:
  • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger vs. Go-Onger: GinmakuBANG!!: The background for the Toei logo changes into a vertical three-striped flag, with the left side being green, the right side being orange and the middle remaining unchanged. This is followed by the screen quickly rotating 360 degrees before zooming out to reveal that this is only a portion of a bigger flag, with a repeating green-black-orange striped pattern. A Kuroko then pushes the flag away to start the movie.
  • Tensou Sentai Goseiger vs. Shinkenger: Epic on Ginmaku: After the Toei logo is shown, Gosei Red jumps into the waves, turns around and fires a Dragon Bullet at the screen.
  • Gokaiger Goseiger Super Sentai 199 Hero Great Battle: The Toei logo is unchanged, but the Super Sentai 35th Anniversary logo is directly integrated into the opening as Gosei Red is sent flying through it by the enemy, breaking it to reveal the Legend War.
    • A second one occurs later in the movie when Yogoshimacritein mentions that the movie he was making in his dimension is a "Goei" production (complete with his own Vanity Plate) — which Agri smashes with his FIST.
  • Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: The 2004 movie has the Toei logo pan to the left, leading into the opening scene on the beach.
• One Piece:
  • One Piece Film: Gold: The trailer has the Toei logo in gold.
  • One Piece Film: Red: The trailer has the Toei logo in Uta's colors of red and white.

• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: The United Artists logo is written in a messy Roman font, making it look like "VNITED ARTISTS".
• Sleeper, Manhattan, Stardust Memories and Raging Bull featured a black-and-white Transamerica/UA logo. Three of those films were shot in black-and-white.
• Fiddler on the Roof originally began with a timpani piece playing over the United Artists logo.
• A Bridge Too Far originally began with a sepia-toned United Artists hexagon.
• Some prints of Heaven's Gate had the words "A Transamerica Company" fading underneath the hexagon.
• The James Bond film For Your Eyes Only originally began with a UA logo similar to the 1975 logo, but with the "Entertainment from Transamerica Corporation" byline from 1968 fading underneath. Given the year this film came out (1981), and the situation UA was going through at the time, this could be interpreted as UA saying "Farewell" to Transamerica, after 14 years.
• The indie film Undertow used the early 1980's version of the United Artists logo rather than the current United Artists logo as the film's director wanted the logo to tie in with the film's setting.

• In Zen Studios' The Avengers, Iron Man is on the right side of the playfield fiddling with various computer screens, one of which displays the Marvel Comics logo.
• Not exactly a joke, but in Creature from the Black Lagoon, the old Universal-International logo pops up when you start the game's multiball.
• The Munsters: The Attract Mode displays a version of the Stern Pinball logo that appears to be dripping with slime, somewhat like the original series' logo.
• The logo card at the bottom of Avengers: Infinity Quest's playfield replaces the pinball in Stern's logo with the Power Gem, surrounded by the other five Infinity Gems.

• Fox
  • To promote the release of The Simpsons Movie, the logo was colored yellow, with the "O" replaced by a pink donut.
• Cartoon Network
  • For April Fools' Day 2011, the logo was flipped upside-down.
  • In October 2019, the logo was given bat wings for Halloween.
  • In December 2019, the logo was decked with Christmas lights.
• Nickelodeon
  • For the days leading up to the premiere of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the logo gained a green turtle shell design.
  • To promote the release of the film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, there were several animations of Jimmy Neutron experimenting with and altering the logo.
  • To promote the launch of Paramount+, the logos for all Nick-branded networks were colored blue.
• Nicktoons
  • The rotating 3D logo was colored slime green during the "Nicktoons Scare-a-Thon" in 2004.
  • Similarly in 2007, the splat globe was changed into an eyeball for Halloween.
• FXX
  • During the network's first 12-day marathon of The Simpsons, the FXX logo was colored yellow.
• USA Network:
  • During the Harry Potter marathon for the 2019 Thanksgiving weekend, the USA logo was placed on the left side of the screen (instead of the right), was colored gold, and had a drawing of the Golden Snitch next to it.
• Boomerang: During Late Night Black and White, the Boomerang "B" logo was grayscaled.