Hellas Kosmos International (Greece)

Background: Hellas Kosmos (Greek: Ελλασ Κοσμοσ) was a Greek video company that made videos from 1980's to 1996.

EK Video
(1987-1996) Nicknames: "Ε<", "ΕK", "The Ε</ΕK of Doom", "Ελλασ Κοσμοσ Video", "The Personification of All That is Funky", "That Technoriffic Logo Before Greek Ninja Turtles Tapes", "ΕK of Doom", "ΕK of Death", "Olympic Video's More Intense Brother"

Logo: Against a dark space background with stars and planets that slowly zooms in, a red rectangle zooms out, leaving a residue trail behind it. A red and blue chevron shape pointing to the left comes in from the right and morphs into an "arrow" shape as it passes through the rectangle. Soon after, two blue lines zoom out from the left leaving a residue trail like the rectangle did, arranging themselves onto the left of the "arrow", forming a segmented blue "EK" that is red in the middle. Then, the words "ΕΛΛΑΣ KOΣMOΣ" (written in Greek) are wiped in by a ball of light from left to right and the words zoom in for a second. Then, the word "VIDEO" (which is half light-blue, half dark-blue) appears piece-by-piece (since it is segmented). The rectangle then fills with white.

FX/SFX: The zooming, sliding < (as in the K), the text apearing and zooming and the word "VIDEO" appearing.

Cheesy Factor: The effects look primitive, even for its time.

Music/Sounds: A loud "whoosh" is heard as the rectangle zooms out, followed by a dark, creepy synth-line that turns into a cool techno theme, accompanied by the synthesized windchime sound.

Availability: Rare. Can be seen on old Greek videos from the 80s and 90s, including Blood Nasty, The Dark Side, Deadly Embrace, Slaughter of the Innocents, Operation Golden Phoenix, Ski School 2, Relative Fear, Aenigma, and The Paper Boy, among others. Also spotted on some Greek VHS tapes of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Scare Factor: Medium to high. The jarringly loud "whoosh" at the beginning can catch one or more off-guard. The synth tune and dark background don't help either, but the techno riff sort of turns the setting from dark and creepy to upbeat and futuristic, in a loose definition of the word.

Hellas Kosmos International
(1990-????) Nicknames : "Calmer EK/E<", "EK II", "E< II", "PowerPoint EK", "The PowerPoint Logo of Greece"

Logo : We begin with colored bars. After a few seconds, the bars sweep down (with a glowing blue outline of the screen the bars were on) to reveal a black background. On the background, two maroon scalene triangles flip down to the left center of the screen. Each triangle flips down from the opposite side. Next, a blue scalene triangle flips in and places itself to the right of the two triangles. The name  ΕΛΛΑΣ KOΣMOΣ  in blue flips in and places itself to the right of the logo. The word "INTERNATIONAL" in red flips up and places itself under the above text. After a few seconds, the logo rotates and flies away to the right of the screen with a glowing blue outline. FBI Warning information begins to scroll as the logo flips away.

FX/SFX/Cheesy Factor : The pieces of the logo flipping in and out. Like the last logo, it looks rather primitive.

Music/Sounds : A calm acoustic tune. Most likely a piece of stock music. Actually, it kind of sounds like a John Coltrane cover.

Availability : Ultra Rare. Probably appeared on VHS releases from the company at the time. The only known release to use the logo is the Greek dubbed release of Mad Jake.

Scare Factor : None to low. The colored bars suddenly flipping away followed by the darkness could catch some off guard, but it's much tamer than the previous logo.