20th Television (original)/Summary

Background: Previously under Fox Television Stations, 20th Television (spelled as "Twentieth Television") was the television syndication arm of The Walt Disney Company's 20th Century Fox Television that was launched in 1989 originally as an in-name-only brand of TCFTV known as "Twentieth Television Corporation" (and structurally officialized in 1995). 20th Television also produces their own programs and distributes them across the nation. On August 10, 2020, it and TCFTV were merged into one entity as part of a corporate restructuring, continuing to use the 20th Television name.

Background Trivia: The name was inspired by a visual play on words stemming from the word "TELEVISION" covering the "CENTURY" row of the 20th Century Fox tower for their television logo renditions from 1960 to 1992, ultimately reading "20th TELEVISION FOX".

(July?, 1992- )[]

Nicknames: "The Searchlights", "CGI Searchlights", "Zooming Tower", "The Tower of Tepidity", "The 20th Tower", "Tower of Annoyance", "Tower of Justice"

Logo: We see a close-up of the familiar Fox structure, but now it's in CGI and reads "20th TELEVISION". A steel line appears below and the area that would normally be reserved for "FOX" is replaced by a simple golden rectangle. The logo zooms out to the familiar Fox logo distance.

Trivia:

This logo was also used to represent 20th Century Fox Television from September 18, 1992-April 16, 1995, replacing the 1981-1993 "20th Television Fox" logo.
The zoom out animation in the logo is a throwback of the 1960 20th Century Fox Television logo.

Byline: Starting on September 4, 1994, the byline "A NEWS CORPORATION COMPANY" faded in below the logo. Most programs used the bylineless version after late August 2013.

Variants:

In the logo's early years (before the use of the byline), the zoom out appeared slower and the opening shot was much closer to the structure.
Strangely, FOX airings of America's Most Wanted used the bylineless variant until March 2003. The News Corporation byline was added in the same year in April, onwards until the series' cancellation in 2012.
In 2008, the 20th TV logo was given a more "enhanced" look with more realistic effects, just like its network television counterpart. However, on Adult Swim airings of Family Guy S7 episodes, it still uses the 1992 logo with the byline and the 1995 fanfare. DVD prints of The Simpsons started using the logo on episodes starting 2009 (The Blu-Ray version started using the logo on episodes starting in 2007 instead).
A slightly longer version of the 1994 logo, where the two searchlights to the right (behind the structure) touch each other and the front right searchlight leans toward the left, exists.
Four variants of the 2008 logo exist: a short version where the byline fades in during the zoom out and the first few notes of the jingle are heard; a normal version; a slightly longer version (as described of the 1994 logo above); and a long version where the two searchlights to the right (behind the structure) touch each other, but the second searchlight goes much farther to the right, while the front right searchlight leans farther to the left. A still of the 1994 20th Television logo (for promotional use) also show the searchlights in the same position as the long version of the 2008 logo.
There is an opening variant of this logo. It's exactly the same, except the zoom out is very slow and choppy, and it's also silent and bylineless.
On local reruns of South Park, TBS's airings of Yes, Dear and the split-screen credits on Spike's airings of Cops, the logo appears as usual without animation during the TBS "(Name of Series) Starts Right Now!" bumper, even with vanity cards.
There is also a B&W variant of this logo for classic Fox shows and movies in B&W. A B&W variant of the 2008 logo was spotted on the film It Happens Every Spring on TCM, as well as, inexplicably, some early episodes of Family Guy, such as "Love Thy Trophy", "If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'," and "Death is a Bitch" on Adult Swim.
An in-credit variant seen on Sherman Oaks shows the bylineless logo inside a box and animating with "DISTRIBUTED BY" appearing above. The closing theme of the show is heard.
On the ultra short-lived sitcom Dudley, the text "in association with" fades in and fades out below.
On season 11 of Family Feud (with Steve Harvey), season 3 of The Wendy Williams Show, and some episodes of the syndicated Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, the byline fades in early while the logo zooms out.
A still version is seen on some syndicated reruns of South Park.
On some shows in 2008, the 4:3 version of the 2008 20th Television logo was stretched to fill a 16:9 TV or preserved with sidebars.
On season 3 of The Wendy Williams Show, the widescreen version was squashed to fill a 4:3 TV.
On syndicated airings of Rising Sun and Speed, the animation is fast-paced.
Since late August 2013, the logo doesn't have a byline once again. This can be seen on Dish Nation, Divorce Court, and syndicated prints of The Cleveland Show, Modern Family, and King of the Hill (plastering the 1994 20th Television logo). Strangely, the 2013-14 seasons of Family Feud and The Wendy Williams Show continue to use the byline.
At the end of an X-Files ad on the 1995 Hong Kong Laserdiscs of the Star Wars Trilogy, the slightly longer 1994 20th Television logo (after the zoom out) fades in and out. This version appears on the front of the same ad on the French VHS of Highlander III: The Sorcerer.
On syndicated reruns of Futurama, the logo is changed into "30th TELEVISION". This is also seen in the episode "Simpsorama" from The Simpsons.
A letterbox (2.2:1 or 2.35:1) version of the 2008 logo appears at the end of some widescreen movies on TCM, including The Agony and the Ecstasy.
A warp-speed version also exists.
On Spike's print of The Transporter 2 and syndie prints of Tosh-O, the 2008 logo fades in as well as out.
The 1994 logo is cropped to matted 1.78:1 in rare cases.

FX/SFX: The logo zooming out and the clouds and searchlights moving. On local reruns of South Park and TBS' reruns of Yes, Dear with split-screen credits, it's a still logo.

Music/Sounds: Here are the main versions:

1992-1999: The 1989 TCFTV logo theme.
1992-1995: A revamped version of the 1989 theme, without the reverberation of the 1989 theme. Would be used for the 1995 TCFTV logo.
1993-1995: The remastered TCFTV 1989 jingle. It is similar to the above variation, but slightly slower in tempo.
1995-2008: A re-arranged and re-recorded variant of the 1989 TCFTV jingle by Bruce Broughton. This one is more reverberant than the original, but it's slightly different from the 1995 TCFTV theme.
1997-2008: The 1997 TCFTV logo theme.
2008-: The 2007 TCFTV logo theme.
2008-: The short version of the 1997 20th Century Fox fanfare. It sounds like an extended version of the 1995 fanfare. Seen on King of the Hill on Adult Swim.
2009-: Shortened version of above. Sounds like a re-arranged version of the 1995 jingle, but not quite the 2007 TCFTV logo theme. Seen on TV broadcasts of Die Hard 2: Die Harder on AMC, as well as the King of the Hill S4 episode "Peggy's Fun Fair" on Adult Swim.
September 2009-: There is a shortened version that plays the first 4 notes of the theme and the rest fades out. This version can be seen on syndicated prints of Revolution Studios movies, Family Feud since season 12, The Wendy Williams Show, and Modern Family.

Music/Sounds Variants:

In some cases, it uses the closing theme of the show or is silent, such as on Alien Nation: Body and Soul.
There was a low tone variant of the remastered 1989 theme from 1992-1995 on reruns of Dynasty.
A low tone version of the 1995 theme exists. This was spotted on a later French print of the pilot episode of Manimal.
Same as before, on some co-produced shows, a generic theme was used (such as on CBS airings of The 5 Mrs. Buchanans and Fox airings of America's Most Wanted and The Simpsons Movie).
- Trivia: America's Most Wanted is the only program among FOX primetime programming that uses their generic theme on the 20th Television logo (this is because this is a program produced by 20th Television). Almost all programming use the 20th Century Fox Television logo.
A version exists on 2007-08 episodes of Family Guy that is the present day jingle, but sounds like it is played on a xylophone.
Syndie prints of Family Guy using the '92 logo have a loud, pronounced version of the 1995 TCFTV jingle. When syndie/network prints of Cops and other shows use this jingle, its sounds normal.
On older syndicated prints of Revolution Studios movies, the Bruce Broughton version of the TCFTV jingle sounds rather loud and is slightly cut off at the beginning. One example is a January 2010 syndicated airing of 13 Going on 30.
Since sometime in 2012, on syndicated prints of Revolution Studios movies, the sound quality of the 2008 jingle (variants of the 1997 20th Century Fox jingle) -- whether short, normal, or long -- sounds a little less crisp. One example is the 2013 syndicated print of Perfect Stranger.
On some Fox Television Studios shows like The Hughleys, the 20th Television logo plasters the Fox Television Studios logo, but the Fox Television Studios jingle/sounds remain intact.
On airings of the M*A*S*H S1 episodes "Love Story" on Hallmark Channel and "Cowboy" on DVD, Centric's airing of In Living Color S2 episode "Anton at the Recruiter," the 1995 Fox Video VHS release of The Making of Star Wars, a later print of The Paper Chase S1 episode "The Man Who Would Be King," and a CBS Drama (UK) airing of the Dynasty season 7 episode "The Affair," the 1965 TCFTV theme is heard. One episode of M*A*S*H used the 1995 TCFTV fanfare on the 1992 logo.
A variant with the 1965 TCFTV theme in low tone exists. This was spotted on a later French print of the second episode of Manimal, "Illusion."
On Me-TV's print of the Batman S2 episode "That Darn Catwoman", the 1961 TCFTV theme is heard.
On 2008-10 episodes of Family Feud and local syndicated reruns of Futurama, the 1995 and 2008 themes were edited a bit, with the second half only.
On syndicated prints of shows like King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Family Guy and Cops, the original 20th Television jingles from 1995 and 1997 may be heard during the 2008 logo, or even the 20th Century Fox Television jingles from 1995 and 1999.
In exceptional cases, a soundbite of the show is used.
The syndie print of the How I Met Your Mother episode "w/Bro Code 107" shows the short version of the '08 logo but the normal-length fanfare plays during the other half of the Bays-Thomas logo. The fanfare has a [subtle] choir too.
On airings of the Family Guy episode "He's Bla-ack!" on Adult Swim, the 2013 20th Television logo is used, yet the 1995 fanfare is heard. Usually, the 2013 TCFTV logo is used on newer episodes, with the correct fanfare.
On the syndie print of the Family Guy episode "Chris Cross", a portion of the '08 20th Television fanfare used on the 2007 TCFTV logo can be heard when cutting to black before the SAP cast.
On Channel 4 broadcasts of a small number of episodes of The Simpsons (noticeable on the episode "Last Exit to Springfield"), the audio for the 1992 fanfare fades out very quickly as the last note plays.
Current syndie prints of The Simpsons from 2010 use the 1997 TCFTV fanfare on the 2008 logo. The fanfare was also used when the byline was removed starting in 2013. This is seen from episodes originally aired on 1999 to 2003, and then from 2010 to 2012.
Some syndicated prints of The X-Files from 2013 use the 1997 TCFTV fanfare. On its 2016 revival, the 1989 and 1995 TCFT fanfares were used on the bylineless variant.

Availability: Extremely common.

Plastered onto most shows that Fox distributes, even classic shows they own, with the exception of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (the 1960s TCFTV logo is integrated into the closing credits with the closing theme). It even shows up on DVDs of Fox shows (such as The Simpsons).
The opening variant is only seen on some TV airings of the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, though AMC's print of the film shows the 1994 20th Television logo at the beginning of the film.
On the Christmas with the Simpsons DVD, it plasters over the 6th 20th Century Fox Television logo on the first episode on the disc, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." Most episodes of The Simpsons on DVD up until towards the end of season 6 have this logo (though a few episodes on the season 1 and 3 DVD sets use the original 1989-1993 TCFTV logo instead), although it did make an appearance at the end of the season 9 episode "The Principal and the Pauper".
Strangely, it is seen after the TCFTV logo on many episodes of Family Guy and Futurama on Adult Swim and TBS. This is also seen in Angel, where the 1999-2007 20th Century Fox Television logo and the 2008 20th Television logo are in a combo.
The enhanced version is just as common, and currently can be seen on Family Feud, Judge Alex, Divorce Court, and The Wendy Williams Show, among other current series, as well as reruns of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? on GSN, and streaming prints and the StarVista/Time Life DVDs of The Wonder Years (plastering the New World Television logo). One early sighting of the enhanced variant was a Cartoon Network airing of Garfield Gets Real.
This logo also plasters the original 1981 TCFTV logo on Shout! Factory's season 1 (1986-87) DVD release of L.A. Law; it also plasters 17 of 20 episodes on the season 2 (1987-88) release (3 of them have the original TCFTV logo intact).
Strangely, this has plastered the original 20th Century Fox logo on the trailer of Project X on recent home releases of the film.
The enhanced logo, with News Corporation byline appears on various episodes from season 1 and 2 of the 2014 Shout! Factory complete series release of The Bob Newhart Show. This plasters the 2007 TCFTV logo on Family Guy episode "Lois Comes Out of Her Shell" on Adult Swim.
The earliest sighting of the extended bylineless logo was on the syndie print of Family Guy's season 11 finale, "No Country Club for Old Men."
The bylineless logo plasters the one with the byline that used to appear on syndie prints of Family Guy Season 10 & 11 episodes.
The 1995 variant makes a surprise appearance at the end of the VHS release of Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask and French airings of some seasons 1-4 episodes of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Editor's Note: A marvelous CGI re-imagining of the classic Fox logo, which predated the actual 20th Century Fox CGI logo by two years. However, until its rename from 20th Century Fox Television in 2020, this also garnered a lot of resentment by many due to this consistently plastering over old logos; making this one of the most hated closing logos of all time (along with the 2002 Sony Pictures Television and 2007 CBS Television Distribution logos), eventually getting better praise in the end.

20th Television (original)/Summary

(July?, 1992- )[]

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