DIC Entertainment/Summary

Logo descriptions by Jason Jones, James Fabiano, Matt Williams, Kris Starring, and Nicholas Aczel Logo captures by AsdfTheRevival, Wisp2007, Hoa, mcy919, V of Doom, Eric S., and snelfu Editions by V of Doom, WileE2005, Shadeed A. Kelly, and BenderRoblox Video captures courtesy of mcydodge919, JohnnyL80, DrClaw77, and Brandondorf Raguz

Background: DiC Entertainment (formerly "DiC Audiovisual", "DiC Enterprises", "DiC Animation City", and "DiC Productions", and pronounced as "deek" as in "decaffeinated") was founded by Jean Chalopin as "OGAP (Office de Gestion et d'Action Publicitaire)", an advertising company. In 1971, with an investment from the tabloid newspaper La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest, it was incorporated as "Diffusion Information Commercial". It developed into a full production company during the following decade, soon being renamed "Diffusion Information Communication", and becoming specialized in animation. In 1982, the American arm debuted and Andy Heyward, Jean Chalopin, and Bruno Bianchi were in charge of the company. Heyward bought DiC in 1987 when Chalopin and Bianchi left, moving all operations to America. Chalopin turned what was left of the French arm into a new animation company, C&D. DiC was turned into a partnership with Capital Cities/ABC (now "ABC, Inc.") in 1993 and The Walt Disney Company in 1996, until Andy Heyward reacquired the company from Disney in 2000 with an investment by Bain Capital. On July 23, 2008, DiC was acquired by Cookie Jar Entertainment, Inc. and became a wholly-owned subsidiary. Months later, Cookie Jar decided to take over and DiC Entertainment was folded into Cookie Jar (now an in-name-only unit of DHX Media).

1st Logo (1983-1986) DiC Audiovisuel (1983, Inspector Gadget)DIC (1983, The Littles)

Nickname: "D.i.C."

Logo: A certain character appears across a background with a green "D.i.C.": Inspector Gadget (1983-1984): Inspector Gadget passes over on a blue background while on his skates. Halfway through, his Gadget mallet involuntarily comes out and hits the space above the "I", dotting it. Gadget exits out of control. The Littles (1983-1986): The character Dinky runs on an orange background (red in France) and places a green button onto the space above the "I", dotting the letter, and then clumsily exiting.

FX/SFX: Both variants were animated by TMS Entertainment.

Cheesy Factor: The logo looks like it says "Die". Also, while both variants have good animation, the button on the second variant jerks choppily as it dots the "I".

Music/Sounds: Inspector Gadget: A 6-note trumpet outro, then a "twoing" sound as Gadget's mallet "dots" the "I", and 3 more trumpet notes. The Littles: The end-title theme of the show.

Availability: Very rare. Originally seen on many first-season episodes of Inspector Gadget during the 1980s (early episodes had the Vortex). Though it was replaced with newer logos on reruns and North American DVD releases, usually the "Kid in Bed" or the "IWoD Globe", or a Cookie Jar logo, it is retained on the Australian DVD releases of the series. This was last seen on American television during the late 90s airings on Nickelodeon. It was also found on early VHS releases of the show from Family Home Entertainment (with the 1985 logo). As for The Littles variant, although it was retained during all reruns since its premiere, this logo wasn't saved when The Littles made the rounds as part of a syndicated package of DiC shows appearing on local stations syndicated by Tribune Entertainment between 2003 and the summer of 2008 (nicknamed as the “DiC Kids Network” and later the "Cookie Jar Network"). To make it less obvious, the end credit animation is slowed down except for the audio to run at the allotted time so they could plaster this logo with the 2001 logo. However, the logo is still intact on the DVD set of The Littles: The Complete Series, and was also seen on the prints of the show used on the now-defunct Jaroo.com (ironically on that site, Inspector Gadget uses the "Incredible World of DiC" logo).

Scare Factor: None to low, depending on what you think of the music and the DiC logo’s look.

2nd Logo (1983-1988) DIC (1984)DiC ProductionsDiC Entertainment (1986)Dic/Saban Productions (1984, Pilot) DiC/SabanDiC AudiovisuelDiC (1986)

Nicknames: "The (Green/Yellow) Vortex", "Cheesy Vortex"

Logo: The background is a vortex of blue concentric boxes in which purple colors streak down as a stylized "DiC" comes up, seemingly sideways, then turns forward as it comes closer. When it is all the way up, the logo shines and sparkles.

Variants: There are filmed and videotaped variants. The filmed variant has a brighter blue vortex and the "DiC" is more of a green-yellow color; the videotaped variant has a dark purplish-blue vortex and "DiC" is in green. On some episodes of Pole Position, a still shot of the beginning of the logo zoomed in, and then the regular animation played. Early episodes of The Real Ghostbusters had the phrase "Produced in Association With" below the logo. The original Japanese airing of Ulysses 31 had this logo as an in-credit version in white. On Kidd Video, the DiC logo is seen in a box in the bottom right of the screen, and the Saban logo in the upper left corner. The corner of the Saban logo overlaps the DiC logo, and this is up against an orange background with a streak in the middle. One variant has the vortex fade to a greenish color after the logo zooms in. This was most likely because of quality issues with some prints of the logo. It was often seen on early episodes of Inspector Gadget.

FX/SFX: The blue vortex with purple streaking down it, and the zooming logo.

Cheesy Factor: Same as above, though it's more apparent in this logo. The color of the filmed variant is just a terrible eyesore.

Music/Sounds: An ascending 8-note synthesized theme, introduced in 1984.

Music/Sounds Variants: Originally, the logo had no music when it was first used, as seen on early first-season episodes of Inspector Gadget (1983). On the original theatrical and VHS release of Here Come the Littles, a new variant of this logo's music was introduced at the beginning of the film (using the filmed version), utilizing a very different 5-note keyboard tune. It may or may not have been heard on other theatrical DiC movies of the time. This music was also used on the 2nd season of Inspector Gadget (1985-86). On this show, it was used with the videotaped variant (sometimes sped-up). Rainbow Brite once used a variation in which the keyboard music was played slightly faster and was in a different pitch. Sometimes the ending of the show's theme would play over the logo instead of having its own music.

Availability: Rare. Most of the shows that had this logo (Inspector Gadget, Zoobilee Zoo, Dennis the Menace and Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats to name a few) are not currently rerunning on American TV, so it’s pretty much gone outside of tapes (and some DVDs). But if the shows are rerun, expect the "IWoD Globe" or a Cookie Jar logo to to replace it. If they are rerun on a channel like pre-2015 Boomerang, the logo might be intact. The DVD set of Heathcliff has this logo. Also seen when Boomerang reran Dennis The Menace. The variant with the closing theme can be seen on some shows, such as The Real Ghostbusters (1st season and syndicated episodes), Kissyfur, The Get-Along Gang, and the Liberty and the Littles movie, among others. (The Liberty and the Littles variant can also be found in the "Visual History of the DiC Logo" special feature on The Littles: The Complete Series DVD set as the second logo in the montage (appearing after the Littles custom variant and preceding the 1991 variant of the next logo). It was also left intact on Comcast On Demand's prints of The Real Ghostbusters (followed by the 2002 SPT logo) and is also retained on DVD releases. The videotaped variant hasn't been seen in years though, but left intact on reruns of certain shows. The color-changing vortex variant was spotted on Maier Group VHS releases and the Australian DVD releases of Inspector Gadget.

Scare Factor: Low for both filmed and videotaped variants, but the filmed variant's colors look uglier than the videotaped one. None to minimal for the closing theme variant. This logo, however is probably more cheesy than scary, but that's nothing compared to the follow-up...

3rd Logo (1987-2001, 2003-2005) DiC Entertainment (1987)DiC Entertainment (1987)DiC (1993)DiC PresentsDiC (1987, IAW) DiC EntertainmentDiC ( 1987 )Dic (1990)DiC Entertainment (with Bagdasarian byline, 1990)DiC/Reteitalia/Telecinco DiC PresentsDiC Entertainment (2003)

Nicknames: "Kid in Bed", "Sleeping Kid", "DiC!", "Deek!", "Spiked Star of Doom", "Chorus from Hell", "Room of Hell", "Sad Kid in Bed"

Logo: We see a boy sleeping in bed with a dog sleeping on top of him, with a window above. The camera pans through the bedroom to a "spiked" star outside the window (the spikes are intended to represent shining). The spiked star morphs into a ball, and the silver, 3D word "DiC" zooms-in and rotates 90º right angle below to face us. The ball is the dot on the "I" in “DiC”.

Trivia: This logo was designed and animated by Homer & Associates.

Variants: On the earliest variants, a trademark symbol "TM" is strangely used instead of the standard registered trademark symbol "®". In late 1990, the logo got an update with a spiffier starfield. The glow effect on the white ball is gone on this variant. The position of the sleeping boy and dog are also different (as if it were an alternate take). A bumper seen on early DiC Video releases had a video freeze at the end with "PRESENTS" quickly appearing below letter by letter, in Helvetica. This version is also poorly sped up, making it very choppy. There is a variation where the "Kid in Bed" is completely deleted and the word "PRESENTS" in blue fades in below. There is also no "DiC" sound byte heard. On Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters, "In association with" is shown below at the end of this logo,typeset in optima.Sometimes it fades in midway, sometimes it stays throughout the entire duration, and sometimes the phrase is completely capitalized. Around 1991-1994, the byline “COPRODUCED BY RETEITALIA, s.p.a. IN ASSOCIATION WITH TELECINCO” appeared below at the end. Later, this was rephrased to "IN ASSOCIATION WITH RETETITALIA s.p.a & TELECINCO". In 2003, this logo was strangely resurrected. This time, instead of the regular DIC logo, it has the "Incredible World Of DiC" globe from the 4th logo zoom up outside the window, with light rays shining behind it. When the globe stops, the light rays flash. The logo also has a different starfield that appears to be a cheap rotating 2D image. On The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, the 1990 starfield appeared, but this logo had the end credits music, along with a byline saying:

Produced By DiC Enterprises Inc. For Bagdasarian Productions

On DiC's English-dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon (known as Bishoujo Senshi [Pretty Soldier] Sailor Moon in Japan), this copyright stamp appears after the logo (the 1st 1990 variant):

English Language Adaption Copyright [YEAR] DiC Productions L.P.

On ALF: The Animated Series, the "Kid in Bed" animation is deleted, and it cuts straight to a warp speed version of the starfield sequence. The end theme plays over this. One Inspector Gadget tape features the 1987 logo in warp speed, but the music is not speed up to compensate, thus resulting in several seconds of the DiC being freeze-framed.

FX/SFX: The pan from the bed to the star, along with the chroma key effects used to place the CGI animations in the window. Actually, this was pretty high-tech for it's time, but...

Cheesy Factor: ...the camera’s pan is very choppy. The 1987-1990 version of this logo had a low-budget starfield that was mostly empty, as well as a cheesy glow effect on the star/ball and the fact that the kid in bed is really just a still image being zoomed in. Even though the logo got an update with a spiffier starfield, less choppy zooming and better CGI in 1990, the still picture remained cheap throughout the logo's run--and the 1990 version only makes it clearer, at least on DVD versions of it. Then again, this was from a company that was often jokingly called "Do It Cheap". Also, the "Deek"voice sounds like they are saying a certain cuss word in a vague accent.

Music/Sounds: 3 different sets of music were used: 1987-1990: A brief gust of wind, followed by an echoing series of 2 keyboard synth notes. 1990-1998: A 7-note synth chime theme, then 2 harp glissandos and a held-out orchestral note. 1998-2001, 2003-2005: A cartoonish and dreamy theme (sounds familiar to the Video Collection/Strand Home Video music) with females singing "Doo, doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!". A child says "DiC" near the end on all 3 versions, in most cases. The first voiceover was rather sad-sounding, while the next two ones featured much perkier voiceovers.

Music/Sounds Variants: Throughout its 14 year run, this logo had many different audio variations: 1987 (TM bug variant): The first music variant sometimes featured a whispering synthesized choir singing “Deeeeeek..." This variant earned the nickname "Chorus from Hell" for its unintentionally creepy nature and was only used in early fall 1987. 1987 (TM bug variant 2): Same as above, but the logo continues over the Coca-Cola Telecommunications jingle as an attempt to plaster it on video releases. There were many sped-up versions of each music variant. On the 1999 video of Madeline: Lost in Paris, an extended version of the 1998 jingle is played. The last five notes of the original jingle are replayed at a higher (and more playful) pitch and is extended (the original five notes are preceded by two additional notes). This is on the Disney release only, as the Shout! Factory release plasters it with the Cookie Jar logo. It was also featured on the 1999 CBS/Fox VHS of Our Friend Martin, but with a weird echo effect on the "DIC!" voiceover. On Sabrina: the Animated Series, it's the final notes of the theme. In exceptional cases, it used only the closing theme of the show (e.g., later reruns of Rainbow Brite, Alvin and the Chipmunks), making it less scary than all the other variants. Sometimes, the "DiC" voice-over still plays after the logo appears, for example on The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. A warp speed variant exists where the 1990 logo plays as normal, except it uses the 1987 "DiC!" soundbite instead.

Availability: Uncommon. Most airings and releases of DiC shows today have the Cookie Jar Entertainment logo annoyingly plastering it over, but older DVD and VHS releases of DiC shows keep this logo intact. You can currently find the 1990 version on VHS releases of Captain Planet and the Planeteers and Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?, older DVD releases of these series, the Sterling DVD and VHS of Inspector Gadget: The Gadget Files, and the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Genius. It also appeared when the first series aired on Boomerang (prior to the 2015 rebrand) and when the latter appeared on Hub Network (now Discovery Family) and Qubo. The Reteitalia/Telecinco byline variant was also seen on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog until early 2002, but is plastered with the 1990-1997 warp speed variant on all the DVD releases from Shout! Factory, though it is included as part of the "Visual History of the DiC Logo" special feature on The Littles: The Complete Series DVD set. Seen on DVDs of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 from Shout! Factory. Preserved on ALF: The Animated Series and ALF Tales DVDs. The 1990-1997 variant with the "English Language Adaption" copyright can found on all English-dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon from September 1995 to early 2001. The rare variant with the choir singing “DiC” was occasionally featured on syndicated programmes that switched from CPT to Coca-Cola Telecommunications at the last minute. This includes some syndicated episodes of The Real Ghostbusters (plastering the Vortex logo - the syndicated episodes were produced during the Vortex era), and some episodes of Starcom: The U.S. Space Force. This variant is intact on some of the episodes on the recent DVD release of The Real Ghostbusters from Time-Life. The version that continues over the Coca-Cola music can be seen on older VHS prints of these two shows. The 1990 version was spotted on a couple of episodes on the Inspector Gadget: The Original Series DVD set by Shout! Factory. The 1998 version is extremely rare in the USA, but can be seen on some international VHS releases of DiC shows. The variants with the show's closing theme are available only on some shows, such as Alvin & The Chipmunks and Rainbow Brite, among others. The variant of the 1998-2001 logo can still be found at the end of the 1999 movie Our Friend Martin on VHS and DVD). The 1987 version could be seen on season 2 of Dennis the Menace on pre-2015 Boomerang.

Scare Factor: Medium to high for the 1st music variant, high to nightmare for the choir variant, low to medium for the 2nd and 3rd music variations, and minimal to low for the other variants. The darkness of the logo, the spiked star, and sudden appearance of “DiC” weren’t easy to look at for most kids. The choir is also very, very creepy. But the scare factor varies for those who are used to seeing it. It's a favorite of those who aren't scared of it.

4th Logo (2001-2008) DIC (2001)DiC (2001)DiC (2002)

Nicknames: "The IWoD Globe", "The Incredible World of DiC"

Logo: We see a background with red, green, yellow and blue (the areas are filled with patterns such as a DiC logo outline, and planets). The red and green wipe away until we are left with a yellow background with a blue oval. A purplish globe pops out of the blue oval, then bounces to the center before zooming to fill the screen and backing up again, at which point the planets in the background disappear and are replaced with stars, and stars pop up from behind the globe. On the upper-half of the globe, some sparkles fly across and write the words:

The- Incredible World ---of

in yellow script, and on the lower-half, the word:

DiC

(in the same-font as the “Kid in Bed” logo, in yellow) zooms out to the logo; also like the previous logo, a kid is often heard saying the company name (the third kid voice-over from the Kid in Bed logo).

Variants: Opening: On the DiC Kids Network, the logo is shown at the beginning followed by the DiC effects that shows the title card logo and the cartoon character(s) with it such as Sabrina The Animated Series, Sabrina's Secret Life, Archie's Weird Mysteries, Inspector Gadget's Field Trip, The Littles, and Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, among others just to name a few. This logo was found still on GBA games. On Inspector Gadget: Advance Mission, it appeared on a black background, while in Gadget Racing, the background was white with the logo outlined. The white background with no outline was seen on Horseland for NDS. The normal logo appeared on Strawberry Shortcake games on NDS and the PC game Madeline Rainy Day Activities. A extremely condensed variant exists, starting where the "DiC" caption zooms out to the completed logo.

FX/SFX: Just DiC-quality animation.

Music/Sounds: A light techno-pop tune with bells and other cartoon-like sounds. Sometimes the theme is extended, with a few extra bells heard at the end. In other cases, it's edited/warp speed.

Availability: Uncommon to rare. At one point, it was very common on newer DiC-produced shows such as Sabrina's Secret Life, Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!, and Liberty’s Kids and also plastered older DiC logos in some cases. Due to the fact that Cookie Jar (and now DHX) is now deleting DiC logos on television programming and occasionally for DVD releases, it's becoming rarer, but it's preserved on DVD and VHS releases of Strawberry Shortcake and other DiC shows from the period from Sterling and Archie's Weird Mysteries on Qubo. Strangely, This TV's airings of Sonic Underground preserved both this logo and the opening variant of said series.

Scare Factor: None. The logo may be cute for children, but you'll probably be annoyed by its childish and formerly-overused appearance (a la Columbia TriStar Television logo).