Background: Videoman Internacional was formed on July 12, 1985 by Hector Emilio Olivera and Fernando Ayala, who owned Aries Cinematografia Argentina. Its primary purpose was to distribute MGM/UA Home Video titles for the Argentinian market, and for a short time, it also had offices in Chile and Spain. In 1987, due to Aries' financial problems, both Videoman Internacional and Oliver and Ayla's other label, Legal Video, became part of a new company, Gativideo, with Videoman still being used for MGM/UA titles. It was dissolved in 1989.
1st Logo
(1986-88)[]
Nicknames: "Road to the Future", "Running Grid"
Logo: On a black background with a yellow haze, a grid emerges from the haze and the Videoman Internacional logo ("Videoman Internacional") with the words stacked on top of each other in a Times New Roman font in white inside a white rectangle appears and flips around before finally settling in the middle.
FX/SFX: The grid, the flipping.
Music/Sounds: A Seventies-esque disco theme.
Availability: Presumably seen on older releases from the label, such as original Argentinian video releases of Ben-Hur, Fame, Poltergeist and The Wizard of Oz. The logo is not shown at all on Chilean releases.
2nd Logo
(1988-89)[]
Nicknames: "Thunderbolts of the Sun", "Trip to the Sun and Hell", "Cheesy Triangle"
Logo: On a black background, a black sun with an orange outline appears with a yellow glow (it looks similar to the Schick Sun, as mentioned in one of the nicknames). As the sun appears, a white, glowing "ray" of sunlight fades in after it that later changes to a green-black striped color. Two copies of the "Videoman Internacional" logo, from the previous logo (although the text is larger), from a tilted angle, zoom in from the top of the ray of sunlight to the bottom of the screen at a very slow pace; with the second logo tilting forward to a comfortable viewing position and the first logo staying tilted, to give the appearance of a "shadow effect" to the first logo. As the second copy of "Videoman Internacional" stops at a comfortable distance from the screen, (the first copy of the logo continues scrolling off-screen), a prototype version of the Gativideo print logo appears at the bottom. During the second half of the logo's duration, several strikes of lightning appear through.
FX/SFX: The glowing sun and animated ray of sunlight, as well as the scrolling/fading print logos and lightning strikes.
Music/Sounds: A futuristic new-age theme ("Message From The Cosmos" by Kitaro) with the sounds of three thunderclaps in sync with animation.
Availability: Ultra rare. It appears on Argentinian releases of Munchies, Spaceballs, Poltergeist III, and Moonstruck.
Editor's Note: The lightning and thunderclaps may startle some, but the logo is generally pretty cheap and also strange.