Lyrick Studios

Logo descriptions by McDonald's1

Background
Lyrick Studios, formerly known as "The Lyons Group", was founded in 1991, and was a video production and distributing company, best known for their production and distribution of Wishbone and Barney & Friends. They did not start using a logo until 1996. Later, the company was bought out and rendered defunct by HiT Entertainment.

=== 1st Logo (1996-1998, 2000) ===

Logo : We fade into a view of a lake, which is surrounded by a forest at twilight. The sun is setting. On that lake, a silhouette of an ugly duckling is seen swimming from right to left on the bottom of the screen. Once it is far enough on the bottom left of the screen, the camera then begins to pan into the night sky, which is filled with stars. A child's hand, which has the index finger extended, touches the sky, causing ripples to appear. As the ripples fade away, the word "Lyrick" (in the same font as before, but with fatter letters) slowly zooms in and settles in the middle of the screen. The word shines as the word "STUDIOS" and it's line, along with a Trademark symbol, fade in.

Variants :
 * Some VeggieTales tapes have the words "Distributed by" in a white and bold Arial Black font on a black background before the logo animates. This is regularly seen on the openings and closings to the tapes.
 * There's a rare, early variation with fewer stars in the night sky, rough animation at 23fps, longer panning up in the sky until the hand comes, a redder sunset, a different forest design, and the logo is off-center. Most of the releases of Barney's Great Adventure do not show the red sleeve on the child's arm due to their aspect ratio. This appeared on the film Barney's Great Adventure.
 * Another rare variation has the camera panning slightly upward to make room for the words "Distributed by" in italics, which are fading in above the logo while it is finishing it's animation.
 * There is a still version of this logo.
 * There is an extremely rare variant with the words "Distributed by" on a black background in white Arial font before the logo animates. This appeared on an alternate print of The Wiggles: Yummy Yummy. The proof can be seen here.

FX/SFX : The silhouette of the ugly duckling swimming from right to left, and the child's hand touching the sky. It appears that this was done with a mix of live-action and computer animation, which is quite beautiful.

Music/Sounds : A beautiful dramatic fanfare, which is accompanied by the sounds of an ugly duckling. It is soft when the silhouette of the ugly duckling is swimming, but then it gets louder as the camera starts panning upward. A crash cymbal is heard when the child's hand touches the sky. After that, the rest of the logo is fixed at the loudest volume that is reached.

Availability : Preserved on most VeggieTales tapes that were distributed by the company. It was also seen on some Barney and Wishbone tapes that were made after 1997, when they began distributing the videos, taking over from PolyGram Video. Most of The Wiggles tapes from the period also had it. The movie version was only seen on the 1998 Polygram film Barney's Great Adventure: The Movie. The last releases to use this logo would be the 2001 VHS print of VeggieTales: Lyle the Kindly Viking.

Scare Factor : None to low. The fanfare may cause some scares for some first-time viewers, but it is otherwise a very harmless and very well-liked logo.

Final Note : In 2001, HiT Entertainment acquired Lyrick Studios. HiT kept the Texas office of Lyrick open for production of Barney & Friends. as a result of the HiT buyout they released nothing up to its shutdown in 2002, due to arguments from PolyGram over Barney's Great Adventure being released theatrically instead of straight-to-video (and thus not part of PolyGram's picture deal). Some 2003 VHS copies of The Wiggles Magical Adventure feature the 2nd Lyrick logo on it, but it was widely released by HiT instead. Today, Lyrick Studios' properties belong to HiT Entertainment except for VeggieTales, which is currently owned by NBCUniversal on behalf of DreamWorks Animation.