Logo descriptions by Matt A., James Fabiano, Adam P., and Ben Masters Logo captures by Shadeed A. Kelly, Bob Fish, Eric S., Mr. Logo Lord, V of Doom, megamanj2004, and others Editions by Shadeed A. Kelly, Eric S., and V of Doom Video captures courtesy of Eric S., Phasicblu, JohnnyL80, Royger Short, Stephen Cezar, and TVLogoFan2
Background: Telepictures was formed initially as "Telepictures Corporation" in 1978 by Michael Garin. The company syndicated the Rankin-Bass library's holdings from post-1974 to 1988, as well numerous television programs such as My Favorite Martian, Here's Lucy, Love Connection, and The People's Court among others. In 1983, the company formed Telepictures Productions as the production arm of the corporation. Telepictures merged with Lorimar Productions, creating Lorimar-Telepictures Corporation (or just simply "Lorimar-Telepictures") on April 21, 1986. Under Telepictures' ownership, Rankin-Bass produced new and successful animated series; for example, ThunderCats and SilverHawks. In 1988, Lorimar-Telepictures split the television production divisions into their own separate names but keeping the Lorimar-Telepictures name as the distribution arm. In 1989, Warner Communications (now TimeWarner) purchased the company. Lorimar remained a separate production entity, which would be folded into Warner Bros. by 1993. Telepictures Productions later became a producer of syndicated programming that Warner Bros. Television would distribute starting in 1990 after a two year hiatus. The company produces the syndicated news magazine Extra and produced the now-defunct Jenny Jones syndicated talk show. It is also involved in online area, including operating the TMZ celebrity blog, amongst others.
1st Logo
(1978-1986)[]
Nicknames: "Drum Roll", "Flying Parallelograms", "Rollercoaster", "Shadows", "Telecoaster"
Logo: Here are the main versions of this logo:
- 1978-1983: On a black background, we see the word "Telepictures" in white in ITC Lubalin Graph Std Bold emerging from the bottom of the screen followed by many shadows blue in the color version, and moving up and curving down as if it was a roller coaster. When it stops in the middle, the "CORPORATION" in ITC Lubalin Graph Std Demi appears as always, sparkles appear on the word "CORPORATION".
- 1983-1986: Against a black background, numerous rectangles of different blue shades fly from the top and bottom of the screen and towards the middle, where they form a blue, horizontally segmented "Telepictures" logo. The word "CORPORATION" appears at the right below the logo, and all the words then turn white.
- On network television, the name appeared as "Telepictures PRODUCTIONS".
Variants:
- The "rollercoaster" was later updated with smoother animation, "Telepictures" emerging more rapidly, a more vivid blue color, and, instead of the shadows constantly trailing, a limited number appearing and then piling into the logo.
- Sped-up variants of this logo exist.
- The All-New Let's Make a Deal, 1981-1986 episodes of The People's Court, the 1985-1986 US version of Catch Phrase, and the 1st season (1983-84) of Love Connection superimpose this logo over the credits, animation and all.
- Some episodes of The All-New Let's Make a Deal combine this logo with a disclaimer stating "THIS PROGRAM WAS EDITED FOR BROADCAST WITHOUT AFFECTING THE OUTCOME OF THE DEALING."
- A B&W variant exists.
FX/SFX: The shapes piling and forming the logo depending on the variant; very excellent slit-Scanimate animation.
Music/Sounds: A timpani drum roll sound during the formation of the logo, and when it turns white, the theme ends with a "ding" from a triangle. Sometimes it is silent or has the end-theme playing.
Music/Sounds Variants:
- On the first season of ThunderCats, the Rankin-Bass logo music segues into a custom five-note horn fanfare (composed by Bernard Hoffer), which keeps the "ding" at the end. The "ding" sound is longer on earlier episodes of said show.
- On the animated special The Coneheads, (based on the SNL sketch), the 2nd half of the Rankin-Bass music plays, mixed with the drum roll, perfectly in sync with the "ding" noise from the Telepictures logo.
- On produced TV movies, this logo is silent, meanwhile on distributed, the logo has its normal music.
- On the first episode of The All New Let's Make a Deal, Brian Cummings (later Dean Goss on season 2) says "Telepictures!", but was not accompanied by the Telepictures drum roll and ding theme. The drum roll and ding sounds were used on the remaining of the episodes.
- On Catch Phrase, John Harlan announces "Catch Phrase is a Pasetta Production, in association with Telepictures!" The drum roll and ding are not heard.
- A low-tone variant exists.
Availability: Quite rare actually. It was last seen on Love Connection and the 1984 syndicated version of Let's Make a Deal (in-credit version) both on GSN. Most tapes of Telepictures' movies had the logo deleted, and most of the shows that Telepictures distributed have since been acquired by other companies. This also appeared on early seasons of The People's Court when it was last reran and appeared on AOL's In2TV site. Can also be found on ThunderCats DVD releases from the first season. This was also seen on the very short-lived 1985 U.S. version of Catch Phrase with Art James. The 1978 "rollercoaster" version can be found at the end of a sales promo from 1981 for the syndication release of Here's Lucy, available on disc 4 of Shout! Factory's "best of" DVD set.
2nd Logo
(1990-1993)[]
Nicknames: "The Flipping T", "The Spinning T"
Logo: On a white background, a square with a "T" in it (except the left tip of the "T" is separated from the rest of the letter in a little box) quickly changes colors in a blur, from yellow to orange to neon green, before it quickly flips around. When it stops, the "T" square turns black, and small black text appears underneath that says "TELEPICTURES PRODUCTIONS, INC." in spaced-out lettering. Then the separated part of the "T" (which is now on the right side) turns red.
Bylines: On 1992-1993 episodes of The Jenny Jones Show and The Jane Whitney Show, either the byline "A TIME WARNER COMPANY" on early episodes or "A TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY" (in the same font used in the Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Bros. Television logos) fades in after the separated part of the "T" on the right side turns red.
FX/SFX: The "T" square changing colors, flipping around.
Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the show.
Availability: Near extinction, though it was seen on the final season of Fun House, as well as the first two seasons of Jenny Jones, and the short-lived early '90s game show Trump Card, among other programs. This was also seen on the early episodes of the short-lived talk show The Jane Whitney Show.
3rd Logo
(Mid-Late 1993)[]
Nicknames: "The Circle T", "The T II", "Telepictures T II"
Logo: On a white background, we see a circular logo in gray. Its border is gray on the top half and white on the bottom, and the inside's left half is grey and the right white. Inside is a "T", the left of which is white and right gray. The black text "TELEPICTURES" (in a Futura font) and "p r o d u c t i o n s" (spaced out and in italics) zooms out and places itself on the circle T emblem. A-line and the black text "A TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY" fades in below.
Variant: Sometimes, "IN ASSOCIATION WITH" appears below when the logo moves up.
FX/SFX: The simple zoom-out of the text.
Music/Sounds: None, a 3-note theme with a twinkle ding, or the ending theme of the show.
Availability: Rare. It can be seen on mid-late 1993 episodes of The Jenny Jones Show and The Jane Whitney Show, as well as How'd They Do That?.
4th Logo
(1993-2009)[]
Nicknames: "The Circle T", "The T", “Seizure Circle T”, “Seizure T”
Logo: On a black background a circular logo is coming towards the screen. Its border is white on the top half and black on the bottom, and the inside's left half is white and the right black. Inside is a "T", the left of which is black and right white. In a flash, the logo appears much closer and with the word "TELEPICTURES" in the center. Another flash (which results in a white bar as if someone turned off a cathode ray tube television) brings the logo to a median distance, and under "TELEPICTURES" is "p r o d u c t i o n s" (spaced and in italics as seen in the example). Under all that is the Warner byline fading-in.
Bylines:
- 1993-2001, 2003-2005: "A Time Warner Entertainment Company"
- 2001-2003: "An AOL Time Warner Company"
- 2004-2009: "A Time Warner Company"
- September 8, 2008-2009: "A Warner Bros. Entertainment Company"
Later Variants:
- 2001-2003: A later version exists where the animation is the same, but the end product looks different. In this variation, the "Circle T" is zoomed-in much more (almost taking up the whole screen), and the "Telepictures Productions" text seems smaller in proportion than the original. This is done to create a new byline (in about the some position as the old logo) inside the "Circle T" stating the AOL Time Warner byline.
- 2008-2009: Another version, which was "enhanced" for HD, features the logo glowing blue with a fresh byline to boot. The word "Productions" now zooms in and spreads into position.
FX/SFX: The flashes and the logo "jumping".
Music/Sounds:
- 1993-2004: A thunderclap sound is heard, along with a "shout", with "tingles" and "wind" heard in the background. Sometimes, it'll just have the end of the show's theme or, on early episodes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, post-2003 episodes of Street Smarts, and post-1993 episodes of The Jane Whitney Show, the sound effect with the show's theme, ABC airings of The Bachelor from 2002-2006, The Bachelorette from 2003-2005, and Are You Hot? used the network's generic theme.
- 2004-2009: Same as before, but the "crash" sounds more percussive and the wind has been replaced with a synth drone.
Availability: Very rare.
- The AOL version is pretty much extinct, and the Time Warner/WBE variants are just as scarce. Most productions from this period either aren't rerun on TV nowadays or are talk shows, which typically aren't broadcast past their original airings. Your best bet is to search old video recordings of programs from this time for this logo.
- The AOL variant was seen on 2001-2003 episodes of The Jenny Jones Show, Judge Mathis, The US version of The Sharon Osborne Show, Street Smarts, and Elimidate, among others.
- The Time Warner variants can be found on all shows produced by the company from 1993-2009, such as The Jenny Jones Show from 1993-2001, The Tyra Banks Show, 1999-2001 and 2003-2009 episodes of Judge Mathis, all episodes of The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and pre-2009 episodes of TMZ on TV.
- The WBE version was seen only on episodes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show from September 8, 2008, up to the time their next logo was introduced in 2009.
4th Logo
(2009- )[]
Nicknames: "The Golden Circle T", "CGI Circle T", "The T II", "2010s T", "The Decade T", "The Decade Circle T"
Logo: On a brown background, a gold bar zooms out of view as lights move in different directions. The gold bar is rotated, revealing that it is the pieces of the Telepictures logo, with the "T" cut in half (the logo resembles the 1993 version, with amendments made to its design). The parts of the "T" then join to form the whole "T" as the black and white circle fades-in, and the text "TELEPICTURES" rotates and zoom-out (like before it is set in Futura, but here it's a thicker weight). The logo then zooms-out slowly to its usual distance, with the Warner Bros. Entertainment byline fading-in.
Variants:
- This logo was updated with the Warner Bros. byline in a serif font starting in 2010. However, some shows still use the 2009 byline variant, like Judge Mathis and Lopez Tonight (both with the 2010 music).
- On some shows starting in 2014, the logo's colors are brighter.
- Some shows such as TMZ and Extra have the logo fade out at the end and the following Warner Bros. Television logo would fade in. Other shows, such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Real, and Judge Mathis will have the logo cut straight to the WBTV logo.
- Starting in 2020 on some shows, like TMZ, The Real and Judge Mathis, the logo is part of the split-screen credits alongside the other logos in the show's logo combo, including the WBTV logo.
- A long version exists and was seen on the test-run show The Hustle. It can also be found on New Wave Entertainment's official Vimeo account.
FX/SFX: The combination of the Telepictures logo, the rotation, and zooming letters, done by Pembrook Creative and New Wave Entertainment.
Music/Sounds: A laser-like sound and a "clang" when the parts join together. The following music plays throughout:
- 2009-2010, 2021-present: Two mysterious-sounding synth notes. A longer version exists; the first 3 seconds would later be used for the 2014 theme.
- 2010-present: 3 synth piano chords. This version is still used on shows like The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
- 2014-present: A rearranged version of the 2009 music. Basically a short version of the long 2009 music. First heard on season 2 of The Real.
Music/Sounds Variants:
- Short versions of these themes exist.
- Reportedly, at least one episode of Judge Mathis that aired in 2009 used the 2004 sound on this logo.
Availability: Common. It's seen on post-2009 Telepictures shows currently in syndication such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Extra, TMZ, Judge Mathis, and The Real. Also appears on videos uploaded for the Tumblr blog DC All Access, which is produced by Telepictures, and on the 2016 revival of Mad TV. This, however, does not appear on The People's Court.