Playhouse Video

Background

Playhouse Video was another sub-label of CBS/Fox Video for children and family releases on video.

(1983-90)

Nickname: "Multicolored Snow-Globe"

Logo: On a white background, we see a black dot sketching a round snow-globe outline. Then it draws another round outline, followed by outlines of a tree, neighborhood with house, a sun, apples on the tree, and a window on the house. The outlines fill with a rainbow color hue, and the words:

PLAYHOUSE
V I D E O

appear below via a “wiping” effect.

Variants:

• On Jim Henson's Muppet Video releases, the logo animates as normal, but after the words wiped in, the background turns red and blue, the logo flys away, bouncing in the process, afterward, serging in to the start of the Muppet Video logo.
• On films in black & white, the rainbow color fill is replaced with the grayscale fill. (Strangely, Curly Top uses the color logo.)
• Sometimes, at the top-left of the screen, the Chace Surround Sound logo fades in, after the words wiped in.

FX/SFX: The drawing, the black filling, the rainbow (or grayscaled) color dropping down, and the words wiping in.

Music/Sounds: A synthesized piano fanfare.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the 1988 VHS of Curly Top, a voiceover (Bill St. James) says "Watch the end of this videocassette for a special preview of Playhouse Video's Shirley Temple Collection."

Availability: Rare. It can be seen on all Playhouse Video releases, such as the 1970s Dr. Seuss TV specials aired on CBS and feature films such as Bad Medicine, Kid Colter, and Eliminators, among others.