Classic TV Production Company IDs/Logos

When I was a kid I always, liked the short little IDs that ran at the end of TV shows and showed what production companies were involved with the creation of the show. I understood what these were from a very young age, but strangely enough, there were a lot of kids evidently, who found some of these logos frightening. I first found this out while checking out a webpage devoted to them. Now they are all over YouTube and it's amazing how many people thought the same thing.
The fist and foremost one is the famous 1966 Screen Gems logo. The folks who claim to have been traumatized by this logo call it the "S From Hell". I love this one and remember it fondly at the end of such shows as, The Monkees and Bewitched.



Another Screen Gems logo that fascinated me was the one that is know as the "Dancing Sticks" logo. This one is from 1964. There was also a black & white version. I liked the abstract nature of this one with it's colorful dots.


Next up, we have the logo for Rankin Bass Productions. This one was shown at the end of holiday specials like Frosty The Snowman and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. This one always gave me a warm feeling after watching those childhood Christmas shows.



Nice huh? Now in all fairness, there were a few logos that had music with a bit more of a frightening tone to them. One such ID is this 1969, Paramount Television logo. It's shrieking sound seems like something from a horror movie. You may remember this one from the end of The Brady Bunch episodes.

This next one from Viacom is sometimes called the "V Of Doom". The crescendoing tympani roll really accentuates the zooming effect.



Viacom also used this logo in the early 70s. This one is sometimes called the "Pinball Logo".



One of the cool things I like about some of these old logos was the early usage of synthesizers in them. Who can forget this great PBS logo?



I will end this post with a great old TV Guide commercial from 1978 that has a cool synthesizer arpeggiation in it.