Klasky-Csupo, Inc./Summary

Background : In 1981, Klasky-Csupo (pronounced "CLASS-key CHEW-po") or (CLASS-KYY PSU-po) was formed in a bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, California. The name of the company derives from the last names of the two producers Arlene Klasky and Hungarian-born animator Gábor Csupó. During The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-1990) days, Klasky-Csupo produced the animated Simpsons shorts, consisting of 48, before The Simpsons became a full-time network series in 1989. After those initial skits, Klasky-Csupo worked with 20th Century Fox Television and Matt Groening to produce the first three seasons of the animated sitcom until 1992, when Film Roman took over production. In 1990, the duo cut a production deal with Nickelodeon, and there they made the cable network's most successful animated series, Rugrats (1991-2004). After that, Klasky-Csupo made other successful animated shows such as The Wild Thornberrys (1998-2004), ''Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (1994-1997), Rocket Power (1999-2004), As Told By Ginger (2000-2006), All Grown Up (2003-2008), Duckman (for USA Network and Paramount Television), and The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald'' (a promoted cartoon available exclusively at McDonald's restaurants; 1998-early 2001). The company also produced Spy vs. Spy cartoons for Cartoon Network's MAD (a resurrection of MADtv).

1st Logo (October 30, 1989-August 7, 1999, May 4, 2001-2002)
Nicknames : "The Graffiti", "Scribbles", "The Personification of All That is Cheesy", "Weird Stuff", "Weird Klasky-Csupo", "That Strange Logo After Rugrats".

Logo : On a white background with shapes that change frequently (In the style of the title cards from the TV show Rugrats), we pan past a row of box outlines. Each box has a drawing of an object turning into a letter:


 * 1st Box: Blue cubic shapes forming a green "K" in Arial Bold, which is not centered.


 * 2nd Box: A dark blue hat that stretches into an boot, which then turns into an "L" in a Baskerville-like font that is centered correctly.


 * 3rd Box: An orange pattern that shrinks and turns into a choppy, lowercase "a" in Glass Houses font that is positioned in the upper right corner of the box.


 * 4th Box: A light blue cone with rings surround it that turns into a crayon with a layer on it, and then turns into a silhouette of a lizard, which turns into an "S" in a Gill Sans-like font that sits in the bottom-left of the box.


 * 5th Box: A pink silhouette of a cow that turns into a butterfly and then quickly turns back into a cow, but from a different point of view, before it turns into an alligator, and finally into a circle-jagged, grungy, half-toned "K". It is centered like the dark blue "L" in the 2nd box.


 * 6th Box: An acrobatic performer forming a tan "Y" in a Arial Bold, which hangs a little off the bottom-right corner of the box.

The next five squares have a blue scribble writing the stenciled "CSUPO" on them (in Helvetica), which the first few letters are blue, but the P is teal when it is being drawn, but then it turns to orange once it's finished, and the O is purple. Everything described up to this point happens in a VERY FAST pace. After this, we zoom out, and while we zoom out, "I N C.", in red, appears letter-by letter. Then we see the complete boxes arranged with "K <span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:Times,TimesNewRoman,serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">L <span style="color:rgb(255,166,0);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">a <span style="font-weight:400;color:rgb(0,179,255);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;">S <span style="color:rgb(247,20,240);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">K <span style="color:rgb(255,166,0);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">Y " on top of "CSUPO". In "CSUPO", the "C" is <span style="font-weight:normal;color:rgb(255,0,0);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;">red , the "S" is <span style="font-weight:normal;color:rgb(255,255,0);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;">yellow , and the "U" is <span style="font-weight:normal;color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;">blue. Then the logo turns black and white while the "Y" turns purple a second later.

Variants:
 * When this logo debuted on HBO's animated special Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, the logo is red & black and is in a in-credit.
 * On the first four seasons of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters the logo fades to black earlier and the music/sounds trails off into the Nickelodeon "Scribble" logo.
 * On Stressed Eric, the logo is already-formed with the background kept changing.
 * A still version with the white background along with more clear lettering was spotted on the PS1 version of the Rugrats in Paris: The Movie.

FX/SFX : The objects forming the letters in the logo...

Music/Sounds : A bit complicated, but here it goes: Throughout the entire logo, a 24-note synth-cello line (sounding much like an old portable Casio keyboard) plays that adds vibrato to its last two notes. A catchy drum-machine loop (time signature possibly 5/4) and a strange film projector-like sound (sounding much like a bingo machine) play as well; the former stops once the logo zooms out, while the latter stops when the transition to B&W starts. As the letters pan, there are also corresponding sound effects with the actions of said letters:
 * First K: No effect since the music hasn’t started yet.
 * L: A rather abrupt “blocky” sound (possibly meant for the first letter).
 * a: Two notes of a rock guitar.
 * s: A fast paced “twirling” sound.
 * Second K: A rising, choppy cowbell sound.
 * Y: A boing sound which fits with the acrobat jumping.

During the formation of “CSUPO”, a scribbling sound is heard (which was later omitted in 1992) along with two old-timey car honks (abridged to one in 1992), soon followed by a dog “yipping” six times in a high-pitched fashion, similar to a Chihuahua’s barking. As the logo zooms out, a warm synth gradually glissandos to G-5 (on a piano scale) along with a bass note playing in the same key, albeit four octaves lower, the latter of which sustains for the remaining time. An elephant trumpets twice as the logo nearly finishes its transformation to B&W.

It is rumored that Mark Mothersbaugh (the frontman of Devo and composer for Rugrats) did this logo's music.

Music/Sounds Variants:
 * On Duckman, the music is high-pitched and slightly abridged.
 * On the pilot episode of The Wild Thornberrys, the next's logo music is heard.
 * In exceptional cases, it used only the closing theme on some shows, like the Rugrats episode "I Remember Meville/No More Cookies".
 * On "Bird in the Window", it is silent.

Availability: Uncommon. Can be seen Rugrats episodes from the era on DVD and VHS. However, some episodes of Rugrats had this logo even after 1999; "The Magic Baby/Dil We Meet Again" (aired May 4, 2001) is one example. This is most likely because the episode was intended to air with the first part of season 6 (the last batch of episodes to use this logo), but it got pushed back. Another strange case is that 2002 VHS releases of Rugrats, Halloween for one example, also used this logo in place of the next one. It's also seen on home media releases of Duckman, Santo Bugito, and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters. The in-credit variant appears on reruns of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on HBO Family, as part of HBO Storybook Musicals, and the music video for the song "Shadrach" by the Beastie Boys, which was actually where this logo premiered. Also seen on early episodes of The Wild Thornberrys. The "Boxes from Hell" variant is extinct, as the pilot hasn't been released or aired since its original airing in 1998. Don't expect to see this on the first three seasons of The Simpsons as the studio only did the animation for the show and didn't produce it. Split-screen credits airings of their shows usually plasters this logo with the next one, but it did appear on some episodes of Rugrats after Nickelodeon USA's split-screen credits when it made reruns from 2010-2013.

Editor’s Note : This logo is well-known inside and outside the community from its constant airplay on Nickelodeon, mostly from the off-the-wall music, animation, and design.

2nd Logo (October 8, 1998-October 20, 2008; July 13, 2012, November 30, 2012)
Nicknames: "The Face"

Logo: Over a <span style="color:rgb(227,170,242);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">static purple background, a black ink stain on a <span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">blue background with a liquid effect appears by splattering all over the screen. A hand passes by and drops magazine clippings of eyes and a mouth in <span style="color:rgb(255,222,102);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">yellow-orange bars onto the liquid background (the eyes seem to wiggle like Jell-O) to make a face. The face then says the company name as white blocks fly out from his mouth. The blocks arrange themselves to form the K-C logo (like before, but refined to match the print logo). During the face's screen time, there are holes in the liquid background which reveal some of the purple background that emerge from the center and slide off screen from many different directions. After that, the background and the face disappear like a CRT television turning off, and the "Y" in "KLaSKY" turns purple and flashes faintly.

Trivia:
 * Strangely, this logo appeared on early airings of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Wet Painters/Krusty Krab Training Video". It was an editing mistake made by Nickelodeon when they first started doing the split-screen credits. (How? Well, normally, Nick makes custom split-screen credits for each toon and it's producers. K-C was the only one that produced multiple Nicktoons, and Nick created a generic one for these shows [which mentioned Klasky and Csupo as producers and included the face]. But on the said episode of SpongeBob, Nick flubbed and used the K-C split screen credits for that episode, and that's why the SSF was used.) As of 2006, the logo is plastered by the United Plankton Pictures logo on later reruns (which was in the original credits to begin with). Still, it is one of the oddest editing mistakes ever made.
 * As part of the 2012 re-launch of Klasky-Csupo, RoboSplaat was given arms and legs, and stars in his own web series, which premiered in his Facebook page on December 21st, 2016.

Variants:
 * Video games from the company have a still, slightly bigger logo which completely skips RoboSplaat. All of the boxes and letters in "KLaSKY" (except for the "Y", which is smaller) are medium gray, the letters in "CSUPO" are white, and "INC." (like in the first logo) is on the right of "CSUPO". The background can be either black or white.
 * There was a different variant where the animation was cheaper (e.g. the liquid just waves like a flag, there's no static purple background [which explains very few holes emerging from the center once the liquid background has splattered onto the screen], the eyes of RoboSplaat are flipped vertically instead of being animated to look down/up). There is a black background instead of a static purple background (since the logo transitions from the end of the credits); the logo blurs and cross-fades to the KC logo rather than disappearing like the TV turning off (along with the the purple "Y" in "KLaSKY" zooming in over the regular "Y") and, to top it all off, RoboSplaat constantly looks at the viewer (in the normal logo, RoboSplaat stares at the blocks, but the blocks are placed directly in the center of the screen, so it appears that Splaat is looking at the viewer) throughout his screen time and smiles as if he accomplished something before the logo wipes to black
 * On the studio's reopening video, it is in 16:9 full screen at 1080p HD, it is starts at where the hand drops the magazine clippings, and after the we hear the duck quacking twice, the logo flies off to the right of the screen.
 * This logo comes in 3 versions:
 * a standard 4:3 version (for TV shows and full frame versions of their film output)
 * a 1.78:1 widescreen version (used for theatrical features and the final season of All Grown Up)
 * a 2.35:1 scope version (seen at the end of The Wild Thornberrys Movie).

FX/SFX: The animated paper-clippings that form RoboSplaat, the static background, the ink, and the print logo. All CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A splattering sound when the ink appears, and a bouncy beeping version of the 15-note bass jingle from the 1991 logo plays during RoboSplaat's screen time. The company name is stated in a robotic voice (hence the "Robot" nickname. The voice was supplied by the "Boing" novelty voice in the the text-to-speech program on Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X). After the company logo appears, we hear a couple of cartoon sound effects: a lip-flapping sound, a duck quacking, and a boing sound. None for the video game variant.

Music/Sounds Variants: Some 2010-2013 Nickelodeon USA airings of Rugrats with the split-screen credits omit the boing sound at the end. From September 2000 until sometime in 2001, on some split-screen credit airings of their shows, the audio of the promo from the split-screen credits sometimes played over this logo's audio (including Splaat's voiceover).
 * Sometimes the music is in warp speed (most likely on PAL television or media due to speedup).
 * On the still video game variants, it's silent.
 * On early television airings of Rugrats episodes with this logo, the logo theme is low-pitched.
 * On Rocket Power, the last note of the end theme of said show trails off into the logo (a rock chord before the jingle plays). Some Rugrats episodes also had the last note of the end theme echo into the logo.
 * On 2000-2009 airings of the K-C shows, the boing sound trails off and cuts off into the kids laughing sound (or before mid-2001, an airplane-like sound with 7 xylophone notes heard over it) in the Nickelodeon logo of the time.
 * When CBS aired The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, a generic theme played over this logo.
 * On the pilot episode of As Told by Ginger, the ending sound effects have a reverb trailing into the Nickelodeon "haypile"."haypile". This can also be found on the VHS of The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald: The Visitors From Outer Space.
 * There is a bizarre audio variant found on Russian airings of As Told by Ginger which has a grouchy-sounding male voiceover speaking over the logo's music: "Klasky-Csupo (pronounced like "zupa"). Blblbllblblblbllblbl." The timing varies depending on the episode, as does the tone, as different voiceovers were seemingly recorded for every episode this version appeared on. On later episodes, the voiceover has a weird echo/reverb effect.

Availability: Fairly common. It can be found on episodes such as those of later Rugrats seasons (starting with the episode "Runaway Reptar"), Rocket Power, The Wild Thornberrys (earlier episodes had the "Graffiti" logo), As Told By Ginger, and on All Grown Up, all of which are currently airing on TeenNick's NickRewind; it is also shown in place of the previous logo on airings with split-screen credits. Debuted on the rather obscure cartoon The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald. This logo was used on K-C films from The Rugrats Movie to Immigrants (which used this logo at the end; not counting Rugrats Go Wild!, which used the next logo below). It's also at the company's website too, and can be found on the main page when first being browsed. The alternate variant only appears at the end of The Wild Thornberrys Movie. The still variant appears on Rugrats in Paris: The Movie for PS1, Rugrats: Royal Ransom for PS2 and GameCube (both with the white background) and Rocket Power: Beach Bandits, also for PS2 and GameCube (with the black background), among others. The alternate variant reappeared on the video of the studio's reopening. Recently appeared on Psyko Ferret. This logo also appeared on the obscure Rugrats spin-off Rugrats Pre-School Daze. This did not appear on Klasky-Csupo's first live-action series, What's Inside Heidi's Head?, because it was a series of interstitials as opposed to a series.

Editor's Note : This logo appears to be a metaphor for Klasky-Csupo's rather inspirational rise to fame from humble beginnings as an animation studio. Just like 'Graffiti', this logo is famous inside and outside the community thanks to its constant airplay on Nick, again from the unique animation and SFX, as well as Splaat's unnerving design. It's not unusual to call this probably the most infamous "scary" logo of all time, thanks to Splaat's design as well as the "in-your-face" nature of the animation; there is a staggering amount of logo remix videos and other (usually, quite low in production quality) videos related to this logo.

3rd Logo (June 13, 2003; 2007; October 20, 2008; October 24, 2018)
Nicknames: "The Rooster", "Crazy Rooster", "The Collision of Pathé and Klasky-Csupo"

Logo: On a <span style="color:rgb(0,255,0);font-family:Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:400;">green city skyline, we see a rooster's silhouette on one of the buildings (depending on the aspect ratio used, the rooster will be either in the left side of the screen, or the center). The sun rises, and the rooster wakes up and opens its eyes. It crows loudly as the blocks in the K-C logo float around. When the rooster is finished screaming, the sun flashes and brightens, as the rooster mysteriously disappears, and the K-C logo appears in the center. It looks "grungier" than the one in the past two logos.

Variant: The logo comes in two formats, A 4:3 fullscreen version and a 2.35:1 scope version

FX/SFX: All CGI animation. The animation is much better than the previous logo, but...

Music/Sounds: A very loud techno theme that appears to be yet another remix of the 1989 logo's music. Before the rooster wakes up, a voice says "Wake up", before there is a camera flash sound effect. Also, there's a, "POP!" sound when the rooster opens its eyes. A faint robotic whisper of the company name can be heard at the end.

Music/Sounds Variant: On a special "sizzle reel" Klasky-Csupo made for their 25th anniversary, the 2.35:1 scope version is used at the beginning, however we do not hear the faint robotic whisper. Instead, we hear techno-like music that starts the video.

Availability: Rare. Seen on the 2003 film Rugrats Go Wild (both start and end) and the start of the 2008 film Immigrants (the second logo is seen at the end). Most recently appeared on Gabor Csupo's 2018 demo reel.

Editor's Note : While not as famous as the previous two logos, it's still a quite creative and nice logo.

4th Logo (December 21, 2016- )
Nicknames: "The Face II", "Super Scary Face II", "(The) SSF II", "Splaat II", "Splaat's Return", "Splaat Is Back", "The Return Of The SSF", "Super Cheesy Face"

Logo: On a white background, we see the Klasky Csupo logo in the same grungy font as the previous logo. Suddenly, Splaat comes in from the left side of the screen, and pushes the logo off the screen.

FX/SFX: Splaat pushing the logo.

Cheesy Factor: The animation looks more tacky and cheaper-looking than the 2nd logo, though this is intentional as this is the animation style of what it comes from.

Music/Sounds: The same cartoon sound effects from the end of the 2nd logo, as well as some different sound effects when Splaat appears, such as a bonk sound, and a crash sound.

Availability: It's a special logo created for the web series RoboSplaat. It is unknown if it will be used on the company's other projects.

Editor's Note : One of the reasons RoboSplaat was created as a response towards the logo editors who edited them, so this logo is more like a combination of the 2nd and 3rd logos.