Vanity Plate: Difference between revisions
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** ''Shrek'' had the "s" at the end of "Dreamworks" grow Shrek ears/horns.
** ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]'' had a more elaborate fishline-swinging (to exploit the 3D), the moon set against a celestial sky, and a Night Fury flying around in the background. This variant, the the Night Fury axed, became the standard logo for Dreamworks Animation henceforth.
* '''Epitome Pictures''' Uses a flaming torch to form the "T" in "EpiTome. [https://web.archive.org/web/20111224184157/http://www.whosay.com/stephenstohn/videos/36137
* '''Filmways Inc.''': Most famous for producing ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]'', ''[[Petticoat Junction]]'', ''[[Green Acres]]'', ''[[Mr. Ed]]'', and ''[[The Addams Family]]'', Filmways (now a part of Orion Pictures Corporation) used several different signoffs. The best-known of these was used between 1961 and 1978, and features a horizontally-stretched globe against a starfield, with "A Filmways Television Presentation" paralleling the top and bottom of the globe. A voiceover stating "This has been a Filmways presentation" usually accompanied the logo, spoken by one of the stars of the show that preceded it. The most famous example came from ''[[Green Acres]]'', with Eva Gabor saying, "This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling."
** Filmways switched to a haunting bell toll around 1978, with the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03mfXfA6sM Filmways logo] and several shadow copies appearing from the bottom of the screen. This was most common on early Ruby-Spears cartoons, particularly ''[[Plastic Man]]'' and ''[[Thundarr the Barbarian]]''. Another, more obscure vanity plate showed an intense burst of light forming an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AYOVxbs2cU&NR=1 attractive blue logo].
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* '''John Charles Walters Company''': Founded by former MTM writers, this company's only product of note was the sitcom ''[[Taxi]]''. "Walters" didn't actually exist,<ref>The "Charles Walters" name was a [[Line-of-Sight Name]], with "John" tacked on because a Charles Walters existed in real life</ref> but the plate shows the back of a man (portrayed by series producer Eb. Weinberger) leaving his office for the night. His off-screen female secretary cheerfully says "Goodnight, Mr. Walters!" and he just grunts in reply.
* '''Klasky-Csupo:''' Animation studio best known for ''[[Rugrats]]'', actually had three plates. One in use from 1991-1998, which had various objects forming the letters in "KLASKY" and scribbles writing in "CSUPO". It was retired as of ''[[The Movie|The Rugrats Movie]]'' in favor of one considered scarier: it starts with purple static being overtaken by black ink, followed by a hand dropping magazine-clipping-looking facial features onto it. The mouth says (in a robotic voice) "Class-key-chew-poe" (the company name's proper pronunciation) while pieces of the company's logo come out of it. They arrange themselves to form the logo, and the logo is all that remains after the face disappears. Another one made its only appearance on ''Rugrats Go Wild'': a city skyline with a green sky has a rooster who wakes up, screaming "WAKE... UP!!!", before the Sun gets brighter and brings forth the Klasky-Csupo logo (it looks different than it does in the other logos; it's an off-kilter print version which dates to at least 1999).
* '''[[COPS (series)|Langley Productions]]''':
* '''[[Looney Tunes]]''': '''[[That's All Folks|Thaaathaathat's all folks!]]'''
* '''[[Mark VII Limited]]:''' [[Jack Webb]]'s company, made his [[Police Procedural]] shows such as ''[[Dragnet]], [[Adam-12]],'' and ''[[Emergency]]'' (which was actually a Fire Department Procedural). The logo consisted of a pair of hands holding a hammer and chisel; the hammer strikes the chisel producing roman numeral VII, with logo showing '''Mark VII Limited'''. The hands were actually those of Jack Webb himself.
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:Special versions were seen several times on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', listed on [[Logo Joke]] (again), and most of which are on [[YouTube]].
** ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' also parodied this once when, after the regular '''Vanity Plate''', the [[Mutant Enemy]] zombie starts attacking various people, and then it pulled out to show it was just [[Joss Whedon]] screwing around.
* '''[[NBC]]''': Originally just the letters NBC being lit up one-by-one to the network's three-tone jingle. When it switched to color, it switched to a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrHWmUpZFyI flamboyant, rainbow-tailed peacock] (which later became [http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uAcHndMkFf8 simplified] so it would be easier to draw.) During the 1960s, they experimented with what is referred to as the "NBC Snake"—the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqJv-VHf6zs letters "NBC"
** The three-note jingle, by the way, is "G-E-C" -- an [[
* '''[[Paramount]] Pictures''': A mountain surrounded by stars (usually 24, in reference to the number of big movie actors they had signed in the [[Silent Age of Hollywood]]), also known as "Majestic Mountain" or "Paramountain".
* '''[[Paramount]] Television:''' This company started out from the shadows of Desilu Productions, which had a reasonably pleasant vanity plate featuring several colored circles coming together to combine the studio logo. However, that all changed when Gulf & Western purchased Desilu in 1967 and turned it into a television branch of its film studio Paramount. The old Desilu logo was abandoned shortly thereafter and replaced with a simplified blue and white version of the classic Paramount "Majestic Mountain" signature. That placeholder lasted a good 9 months before being replaced with a segmented blue and white rectangle wrapped inside a yellow border. The camera then zooms toward the right side of the rectangle, which contains the simplified Paramount logo. In 1969, there was a slight tweak in the logo. The border became scarlet red and the logo frame blue over white. This variation was accompanied by a brief Dominic Frontiere theme known to some fans as "Closet Killer" (because of it sounding as if someone is leaping out of a closet to [[Monsters Versus Aliens|do something violent]]). Although not as publicized as the Screen Gems or Viacom logos, some individuals consider the Paramount logo to be among the most frightening of vanity plates due to its fast movement, stark colors, and a chilling orchestral accompaniment. Watch it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrvQ0FN0pZY here]. The version of the logo used in the 1970s and 1980s was only slightly less scary.
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* '''Ten Thirteen Productions''': Best known for ''[[The X-Files]]'', and ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]''. A young boy's voice declares proudly "I made this!" over the sound of an old-fashioned movie projector, while the logo appears on a black screen. (The boy is Nathan Couturier, son of ''X-Files'' supervising sound editor, Thierry Couturier. The company name itself refers to the birthday of producer [[Chris Carter]].)
** This was mercilessly mocked by Stewart Lee and Richard Herring in their [[BBC 2]] series ''This Morning With Richard Not Judy''
* '''THX''': The logo fades in, accompanied by the famous crescendo frequently called the Deep Note - which, if you were a kid in the 80s and 90s first hearing it, may have been more like a [[Brown Note]]. A lengthy but more pleasant variant, involving fantastic sounds and music created by plantlife in the shape of the logo, has been used for some
* '''UBU Productions''': Of ''[[Family Ties]]'' and ''[[Spin City]]'' fame. A photo of producer Gary David Goldberg's black Labrador Retriever, Ubu Roi, is shown holding a frisbee. Goldberg himself says the line, "Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog.", which is followed by a quick, single bark.
** ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' parodied this right beside their own vanity plates with a similar looking photo of a toy dog. Seth Green says, "Sit, Ubu, sit. Bad dog!", before the screen cuts to black, a shotgun sounds, and a dog whimpers.
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** Parodied with [http://www.youtube.com/user/AllieRX87 AllieRX87]'s closing logo (aka the "A of Doom")
* '''VID:''' A Russian TV studio best known for becoming [[Memetic Mutation]] with the Russians.
* '''Vin Di Bona Productions''': Best known for ''America's Funniest Home Videos.'' The plate, which endured many updates over 21 years of use, consists of the "Vin Di Bona" script spinning around and unfolding. "PRODUCTIONS" will appear afterwards, though
* '''[[Disney|Walt Disney Pictures]]''': Disney didn't really have a consistent one until 1985, when an animated, 2D, segmented (like many other logos of the era) [[Sleeping Beauty]] Castle made its debut in front of ''[[The Black Cauldron]]''. It was revised in 1990, when the purple gradient inside the castle was removed. This may be the only example of a theatrical film company to use a stylized logo that stuck, in part because they had no iconic logo ''until'' then. This logo was finally retired in 2006, when an elaborate computer animated sequence that switched out the Sleeping Beauty Castle for the [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]] Castle debuted in front of ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest'' (this version was done by visual effects company Weta Digital). [[Pixar]] movies prior to ''[[WALL-E]]'' use a (different) CGI variation of the castle. (Coincidentally, all three of these films are darker than your usual Disney flick, albeit for completely different reasons.)
** Disney Animation now has its own logo, perhaps [[Viewers are Morons|to differentiate from Pixar films]], featuring the opening clip from ''[[Steamboat Willie]]'', with Mickey whistling the tune and steering the boat, going from initial sketch to finished animation as it plays out.
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* '''[[Big Applesauce|WNET]]''': On a black screen, we see the New York skyline in a radar, with "From WNET New York" in the center.
* '''Where's Lunch?''': Best known for ''[[Everybody Loves Raymond]]'', this production company's plate has a placemat with the words "Where's Lunch?" on it, being covered up by... well, lunch: [[Couch Gag|a different meal each episode]].
* '''Williams Street''': Producer of much of [[Adult Swim]]'s original lineup. Their plate is a blurry picture of the Williams Street studio, with a low tympani roll and a few ominous gongs. (The audio is actually ripped off of Mark VII Limited's plate from the 1960s above.)
** The "Skull" card following the program ''[[Squidbillies]]'' customarily has the voice of a character from the series saying the word.
** At the end of ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' [[DVD Commentary|commentaries]], the commentators often wait and shout out "Skull!" along with the voice.
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* [[David Letterman]]'s '''Worldwide Pants''' logo is as simple as it gets. However, it's mostly remembered for the random funny non-sequitur phrase that is said while the logo is shown.
* '''Wolf Films''': Dick Wolf's production company for the ''[[Law and Order]]'' franchise. An illustration of a wolf howling at a full moon is shown, accompanied by the sound of the wolf howling and crickets chirping.
* '''[[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]]''': Front and back '''Vanity Plates'''. The '''Vanity Plate''' at the beginning of their programming is a 30-second montage of soundbites and [[blipvert]]s of moments throughout their history. The '''Vanity Plate''' at the end is a simple light panning over the WWE logo. Both '''Vanity Plates''' were notably absent from ''ECW [[Network Decay|on Sci-Fi]]'', a holdover from the early days of the [[Revival]] when WWE was trying to separate the new ECW from the other two "brands" as much as possible. WWE's front '''Vanity Plate''' has since been parodied in the form of [[Botchamania]]'s opening sequence.
== Anime ==
[[File:Ghibli
In [[Anime]] series, the '''Vanity Plate''' appears before the beginning of the program, not after the end. There are frequently several of them, each from a different production company that collaborated in making the series. It is rare for the actual animation studio to display a '''Vanity Plate'''—unlike in North America, the animation studios are separate companies from the production companies that put series together. Instead, the studio will have its logo discreetly included in the ending credits.
That said, anime films tend to have vanity plates, most ones being a static image featuring an iconic character from its production company. Films generally have a stronger association with its production company than series. Thus, [[Studio Ghibli]]—who focused exclusively on film production from 1985 until 2014—has a notable one featuring one of their best-known characters, [[My Neighbor Totoro|Totoro]].
* [[Gainax]]: The company does not have a standard vanity plate. Sometimes their name is written in plain text. Other times their name, along with others, appear with the rest of vanity plates. In ''[[The End of Evangelion]]'', their name is in the bottom right corner, being written in a sketchy white style redrawn every frame. The vanity plate quickly disappears after a few frames, giving way to the other companies.
* [[Kyoto Animation]]: Their vanity plate features Earth in the background. Blue ocean waves appear on the bottom half of the screen, fading out towards the top. In the bottom left, a circle inside a circle is surrounded by six teardrop like shapes, with the words "Kyoto Animation" and a link to their website (http://kyotoanimation.co.jp). It dissolves into the orange words "Kyoto Animation" against a plain white background. This Vanity Plate is rare, only appearing in their films.
* [[Studio Ghibli]]: The vanity plate features King [[My Neighbor Totoro|Totoro]], with Chibi Totoro perched on top. The vanity plate is set against a {{color|#109ceb|blue background}}, with Totoro outlined in black and text outlined in white. The text states "スタジオジブリ作品", "Studio Ghibli['s] work", with the corresponding English text "STUDIO GHIBLI" written underneath. The vanity plate is usually followed by a list of companies which helped produce and fund the film. It is always the first, and often only, vanity plate in their works.
* [[Studio Ponoc]]: Just like Ghibli, they're another company who tend to focus on film productions. Their vanity plate is on a white background, and features Mary Smith from their first production ''[[Mary and the Witch's Flower]]''. Under Mary is the words STUDIO PONOC, with a red clock face in the first "O" in PONOC—reflective of their "[[Start My Own|new start]]".
== Networks ==
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