King Features Entertainment

Logo descriptions by James Fabiano, Nicholas Aczel, Matt Williams, Argus Sventon and Stephen Cezar

Logo captures by Eric S., Bob Fish, snelfu, V of Doom, Mr. Logo Lord, and others

Editions by V of Doom, Eric S., and Bob Fish

Videos courtesy of Phasicblu, Eric S., Stephen Cezar, KeenRich, and Guy Who Knows Too Much

1st Logo

(1960-1963, 1978)

Nicknames: "The KFS Pegasus", "The Pegasus Logo", "The Popeye Logo"

Logo: In the center of a blue background is an image reminiscent of the mythical Bellorophon riding Pegasus or a man riding some winged beast. He is holding a quill pen. On both sides of the image are ribbons with the company's name. "KING FEATURES" is on the left ribbon and "SYNDICATE" is on the right. Below the eagle is a monitor-shaped box that says "TV". The word "Presents" appears under the opening logo in white script. Then a star spins towards the screen from the center of the logo. When it stops, Popeye appears in it and toots his pipe, followed by the title screen and credits.

Closing Title: At the end, the white quill pen writes out "The End" in script, then flips to the right to rejoin the logo.

FX/SFX: The spinning star, the quill pen "writing".

Music/Sounds:
 * Opening: An abridged version of the generic cartoon sailor song "The Sailor's Hornpipe" (played on what sounds like a flute), leading into Popeye the Sailor Man which plays over the credits.
 * Closing: The end to "The Sailor's Hornpipe".

Availability: Rare, considering that most people say they haven't seen the made-for-TV KFS Popeye cartoons of the 1960s. This logo may be preserved on the DVD release of said show. The logo also made a surprise return at the end of some reruns of some 1st season episodes of The All-New Popeye Hour, following the 1974 H-B "Rainbow" logo, although when it was last reran on the old Family Channel, this logo was also played in sped-up mode due to time compressing.

2nd Logo

(1962-1964)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown", "The Zooming/Spinning Crown", “The Beetle Bailey Logo”

Logo: On a specific color background (gray, teal, lavender, pistachio, light gray, or sky blue), a small yellow or gold rectangle in the center of the screen zooms in in a spinning manner. The three spikes in the crown pop up one by one from left to right. The word “King” appears on the crown in an old-world font, the “K” is colored a bold red. The “King” spins and settles on the below left of the screen, and the words “Features” and “Syndicate” (the first letter in each also colored bold red) appear to the right of it and “PRESENTS” below. This logo leads into the title screen and opening credits for the cartoon that follows.

Closing Titles:
 * Different color background (blue, lavender, gray, light gray, or pistachio) background, but the crown is in the upper left corner, and below it are written the stacked words “A KING FEATURES SYNDICATE PRODUCTION”, with the bold red word “TV” written behind it to hence "A KING FEATURES SYNDICATE TV PRODUCTION".
 * On 1963 Beetle Bailey and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith cartoons, the text “Produced by Paramount Pictures Corporation” is seen below in the Paramount corporate font.

FX/SFX: The zooming/spinning crown, the word animations. None for the closing variant.

Music/Sounds:
 * Opening: A horn and xylophone fanfare, leading into the cartoon short theme music.
 * Closing: The closing theme of the cartoon.

Availability: Rare. Appeared on the animated cartoon series Beetle Bailey and His Friends on network TV. If you really want to see it, some cartoon shorts that originally appeared on the series have been released on three VHS volumes of Rhino Home Video’s “Sunday Morning Funnies”: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Beetle Bailey, and Krazy Kat. DVD releases of these shows may preserve the logos, as well.

Editor's Note: The animation is rather simple.

3rd Logo

(1963-1970)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown II", "The Blondie Logo", "Jumping Shapes"

Logo: Against a white (gray in B&W) background, we first see a rectangle with a equilateral triangle in the center, along with two triangles on either side with one curved side each. On the lower left hand corner and upper right hand corner of the rectangle, there are two dots. The dot on the lower left drops and explodes into 8 small dots and 5 larger dots. The triangle on the left side drops along with the other dot. The triangle blossoms like a fan into a flower shape, while the other two triangles drop and form an hexagon shaped by six triangles, except the upper triangle is missing. Then at one point, we see the four "pieces" of the KFS logo on the screen, before they suddenly "multiply" and jump all over the screen, finally forming the KFS crown logo, which shrinks and moves to the upper left of the screen above the words "KING FEATURES PRESENTS" (It is ID'ed as "A KING FEATURES PRESENTATION" at the end of some TV shows).

FX/SFX: The moving shapes jumping across the screen.

Music/Sounds: The theme begin with the sound notes hearing similar to the Universal theme from the late '70s. These occur during the dropping phase. Then big band music is heard while all of the shapes jump all over the screen and during the formation of the KFS crown. This music could be easily heard on The Beatles cartoon.

Availability: Very rare. This logo appeared on the animated cartoon series The Beatles and Cool McCool on network TV. It was also seen on television prints of Columbia Pictures' Blondie movies. This logo may be vanishing since it was last seen on the KFS-owned Blondie movies with original Columbia credits when aired on AMC. However, if your station has been showing Blondie for a long time or if you owned a video of the Blondie movies from KFS Home Entertainment, you may see this logo. This logo can be found on the DVD release of Cool McCool from BCI/Eclipse, and may also turn up on a few public domain DVDs of Blondie and Beetle Bailey.

4th Logo

(October 7, 1972)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown III", "'70s KFS Logo", "KFS Radar Globe"

Logo: On a blue background, we see on the right a crudely-drawn crown encapsulated inside a Worldvision-like radar globe, with a large quill behind it. Below, we see the words “King Features” in a bold font aligned to the left.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Extinct. The only known record of its existence is on the original broadcast of the 1972 ABC Saturday Superstar Movie Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter.

5th Logo

(1978-1981)

Nickname: "King Features of Boredom"

Logo: On a blue background is the Futura typeface, reading "A King Features Syndicate Presentation" with "King Features Syndicate" in bigger words.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: A catchy funky theme which is sampled from KPM Music Library's "Good Times".

Availability: Seen on international prints of Flash Gordon and possibly Hanna-Barbera's Popeye cartoon.

6th Logo

(1981-1985, 1988)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown IV", "Crown Trail"

Logo: On a cerulean blue background, the words "King Features Entertainment" slowly zoom out. When the words get to a suitable distance, a "trail" of stylized outlined crowns come from the left and right side above the logo, consolidating into one stylized outlined shield. The words "Produced by" or "Distributed by" may appear in an arc above it.

Variant: Some shows contain a King Features copyright notice below.

FX/SFX: The crown trail.

Music/Sounds: An early '80s synthesizer theme, which as stock music library DeWolfe Music Corona Connection.

Music/Sounds Variants: On a VHS of Rehearsal for Murder, the logo is almost inaudible.


 * There's is a silent variant exists.

Availability: Very rare, but may appear at the end of some movie telecasts, such as The Cartier Affair. Also appears on some prints of An American Werewolf in London, although other prints of that film use the Hearst Entertainment logo. Also seen at the end on the Odyssey (now Hallmark Channel) airing The Day the Loving Stopped and The People vs Jean Harris on VHS and Between Two Brothers. This can also be found on DVDs of The Toughest Man in the World and High School USA. This make a surprise appearance of this logo a 1988 TV movie Going to the Chapel. The Produced by variant was seen at the end a Rehearsal for Murder and Happy Endings. Also seen at the end a 1988 late-night WVIA-TV airings The Five of Me, (but the Amazon Prime Video print use the PolyGram Television logo) and Movies! airing Leave It to Blondie, after the 1963 logo and The Shadow Box.

6th Logo

(1985-1990)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown V", "Rolling Crown"

Logo: On a black/blue gradient background, a blue 3D crown spins onto the screen. It moves towards the top, as the black background begins to become lavender (the color moves up from the bottom). The crown, when it gets near the top and comfortably small, flashes and becomes a 2D stylized crown like in logo 2. Below it the words "King Features Entertainment" appear in the same font as the 2nd logo. The words "A Subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation" appear below it. Sometimes, "Distributed By" may appear above the crown. The warp speed version has no animation.

FX/SFX: The rolling crown. None for the sped-up variant.

Music/Sounds: A generic synth theme that was played on a Yamaha DX-7. There were two slightly different versions of it. May also have the show's ending theme playing over it. The warp speed version has the last few seconds of the logo's theme playing.

Music/Sound Variant: On The Woman of Brewster Place, has a low-pitched version of this music playing.

Availability: Can be seen on old videocassettes of Popeye and Krazy Kat as well as the 1970s cartoon of Flash Gordon among other KFS classic cartoons. This logo was seen without music on G-Force on Cartoon Network. When The All-New Popeye Hour and the short-lived Popeye and Son (1987-88) aired on the Family Channel (now Freeform), this logo followed after the H-B '74 Rainbow and H-B '79 Swirling Star for the former, and the H-B '86 CGI Swirling Star for the latter version. For the former, this logo was played in sped-up mode due to time compression. Also appears on the DVDs of Get Smart, Again and God Bless the Child. It's also at the end of the Sandy Frank dub of Gamera (1965), which was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Editor's Note: Rather poor CGI. Also, copies of this logo sourced from official DVDs seems to be ripped from low-quality tape sources, so that makes the logo a bit blurry.

7th Logo

(1987)

Nicknames: "The KFS Crown VI", "Chromed Crown", "Still Crown"

Logo: On a shaded blue background, a 2D stylized crown like in logo 2, and the words "King Features Entertainment" are seen in the same font as the previous logo. Under King Features Entertainment (1987) it, the byline "A Subsidiary of The Hearst Corporation" is also there.

Variant: Some shows contain one or two King Features copyright stamps below.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None or the closing theme of the show.

Availability: Very rare. Appears on Blondie & Dagwood episodes from the era.

Editor's Note: Very cheap chrome-in logo!

8th logo

(November 9, 2004)

Nickname: "The CGI Pegasus"

Logo: A big flash appears which reveals the planet earth, which is spinning. A ribbon is pulling out behind from the earth (with the words "King Features" on the left ribbon, and the word "Syndicate" appearing on the right ribbon), and the symbol from the first logo appears on top of the earth. The flash dies down and the finished product ends up on a dark teal background, which looks similar to the first logo, with a few exceptions (see below).

Trivia: This is a reinterpretation of the first logo, only this time the TV is changed to an earth globe.

FX/SFX: Everything.

Music/Sounds: Silent.

Availability: Seen only on the direct to video movie Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.

Editor's Note: Unconvincing and outdated CGI animation, very plastic-like.