What Really Grinds My Gears: Logo Plastering

Welcome to The Chronicles of Trevor, the blog that's the fire in the Columbia Torch Lady's torch.

Wanna know what really grinds my gears? Logo plastering.

According to the glossary of AVID, the Audiovisual Identity Database, plastering is "when a company deletes and/or replaces an older logo with either a newer logo from the same company, or a different company's logo". This practice has made preservation of older production logos harder to do.

If you don't know about AVID, it is a wiki that catalogues over 16,000 logos, television idents, VHS/DVD bumpers, test patterns, and other forms of audiovisual identities. This site has a large community of enthusiasts dedicated to the preservation and documentation of production logos and other forms of motion graphics. This group is known on the internet as the "logo community". You should check out the site in the link above!

But I digress. This blog post will cover some examples of the biggest offenders in logo plastering. 

The most omnipresent logo in ALL of television has to be the 2002 Sony Pictures Television logo, known to many in the logo community as the "Bars of Boredom". This is because of its extremely common availability on programming, mostly due to it plastering older Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures related logos. Say, you were watching a modern print of a late 1980s episode of The Bold & The Beautiful. You would expect the 1988 Columbia Pictures Television logo to play, alongside its triumphant fanfare.

But the Sigil Splicers at Sony want to scrub any signs of seasoned symbols. And BEHOLD!!!!!! The Bars of Boredom are the bane of the existance of many logo enthusiasts since its debut in 2002.

This logo is like a raisin cookie disguised as a chocolate chip cookie, since logo enthusiasts have been looking for a logo for a TAT Communications Company, which is said to have been seen on the original One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, and The Facts of Life. Below is a screencap from a 1980s aircheck of a rerun of One Day containing the logo in a partial form. The logo was unfortunately cut off by a CBS network ident, with a voiceover boasting that "This is CBS". Even though it's a partial find, it's still important, since it proves that the logo is out there and can be found.

Sony also ruined a joke with logo plastering. In the Mad About You episode "That's A Wrap", Paul, while on the phone, tells a director to show the logos, resulting in a great use of biting-the-hand-that-feeds humor.

Sadly, Sony's Sigil Swipers Struck this Show's Syndicated Stock. The Pegasus was removed, and as a result, they changed it to the über-bland joke-cracker that is:

...the "-s" being the cut off word "Wings"

With Sony's 2015 revival of TriStar Television, I'd want to see them bring back the "stupid horse with the wings" joke, since their revival just begs for that joke to make a comeback.

Other plaster kings are 20th Television, with their 2008 logo, and MGM with their 2000s logo that has the studio's website underneath the ribbon.

Say you're watching Dr. No, the first 007 film, and you see Leo the Lion proudly roaring, and the URL "www.mgm.com" underneath him. That movie is from 1967, and "www.mgm.com" wasn't registered as a web address until 1997. It is extremely confusing. And let's not forget the fact that United Artists, the distributor of 007 films, was owned by Transamerica Corporation at the time, NOT MGM.

Other than that, 20th Television is a logo I don't mind, since I've always liked 20th Century Fox logos. (except for 20th Century Studios)

That has been "What Really Grinds My Gears", and the first post of September! Thank you so much for reading!

What Really Grinds My Gears: 20th Century Studios (updated)

This is The Chronicles of Trevor, the blog that will upgrade your searchlights to LEDs at no additional cost!

Family Guy ©20th Century FOX Television

Wanna know what grinds my gears? The 2020 rebrand of 20th Century Fox to 20th Century Studios.

This rebrand is the New Coke of the film industry. 

I think that because it disrespects the legacy of William Fox, and since it is so unconventional compared to other acquisitions.

A little backstory about this company. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation was founded in 1935, as a result of a merger between Fox Film Corporation and 20th Century Pictures, Inc. 

Fox Film was founded in 1915 by William Fox, a successful businessman who owned a handful of nickelodeons (5¢ theaters, also the origin of the name of the network that brought you SpongeBob SquarePants). Those nickelodeons were all in the New York area, and was owned by a company called the Fox Office Attractions Company, a play on words (Box Office; Fox rhymes with Box). This company would later on become Fox Film, as a company merged with another company owned by Fox, a film distributor, Greater New York Film Rental.

This is the first logo of Fox Film, circa 1915.

20th Century Pictures, Inc was founded by ex-United Artists president Joseph Schenck and ex-Warner exec Darryl F. Zanuck in 1933. This company used a logo that may seem familiar to some.

From: The Call Of The Wild (1935), the last film released by 20th Century Pictures before its merger with Fox.

In 1935, these companies would merge, forming the 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. The 20th Century Pictures logo would be altered to reflect this merger.

This is the 1935 logo. Notice that the name FOX is now on the structure.

In the 50s, 20th Century-Fox, alongside William Fox-founded Deluxe Laboratories, created the CinemaScope ratio, still used today in the film industry. With this innovation, a new logo was created, with a tilted 0.

This was the logo for CinemaScope releases, which added another section with strings to the famous fanfare, composed by Alfred Newman. Everyone knows the fanfare, so I won't link it here.

In the 1980s, the designer of the previous logo, Rocky Longo, designed a new logo, which is the basis for the later computer generated logos following it.

Around this time, Rupert Murdoch acquired the studio, renaming it to "20th Century Fox Film Corporation", dropping the hyphen, and started a network named after the recently-acquired company, alongside the acquisition of the TV stations owned by Metromedia Inc. Other than that, in 1994, Studio Productions, now known as Flip Your Lid Animation, created the most iconic logo for 20th Century Fox, the 1st computer generated logo of TCF. That's right, I'm talking about this legendary logo:

Alongside the release of Fox's highest-grossing movie, and the highest-grossing movie of all time, James Cameron's Avatar, Blue Sky Studios, the animation studio of TCF, introduced this masterclass of a remastered logo:

But unfortunately, Disney did the unthinkable, and defaced the logo, and in 2020 of all years, by rebranding this award-winning studio as the soulless, bland:

And Disney has been turning them into a laughingstock, by making a TERRIBLE Home Alone reboot, and some shawty films with no rewatch value. AND Avatar: The Way Of Water.

Speaking of which, the 4K Blu-Ray and the theatrical re-release of the first Avatar film replaced (plastered) the original 20th Century Fox logo with the 20th Century Studios logo, even though Disney said that films prior to 2020 would keep the original Fox logos. Heck, they even plastered the Fox logo on international prints of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Titanic (1997), another James Cameron film. I guess Disney has been screwing him and fans of his work for 20th Century Fox over.

Thanks for reading!

My takes on the Banana Splits Movie (2019)

So on June 5th, I started my summer bowling league. I named my team, with unanimous support, "The Banana Splits", since split is a bowling term, and as a reference to the 1960s series.

Tonight, I'm going to share my takes on the 2019 horror movie.

But first, a little history lesson. The 1968 "Banana Splits Adventure Hour" series was a variety program produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with Sid & Marty Krofft. It originally aired on NBC from 1968 to 1970, and re-ran in syndication from late 1970 to the late 90s as "The Banana Splits Show". The series revolved around a Monkees-esque bubblegum rock band consisting of Fleagle the Beagle, Bingo the Orangutan, Drooper the Lion, and Snorky the Elephant, who would present various Hanna-Barbera cartoons to viewers, and would contain interstitial segments featuring the band "making up a mess of fun".

But in 2019, Warner Bros., and SyFy made up a mess of garbage with "The Banana Splits Movie", an R-rated slasher film that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the G-rated fare from the 60s, except for the fact that the Splits are in it. 

The movie was produced by a WB subsidiary called "Blue Ribbon Content". *scoffs* That name is ironic, considering what follows afterwards.

Legend says that this movie was originally a script for a Five Nights at Freddy's film (say that 10 times fast), but the series creator Scott Cawthon disapproved of it, so they went with the Banana Splits. This is what I think happened at WB at that moment.

Joe: How's that FNAF movie going, John

John: I just got a message from Scott, he said that he isn't satisfied with the scripts we've produced, and is going to Blumhouse.

Joe: What should we do here? We have a bunch of scripts here, and no characters! Hey George, Patrick, what characters do we have in our library that we can use?

George: Uh, couldn't we just make up new characters?

Joe: We don't have the budget for that

Pat: WhAt iF wE UsE tHe BaNAnA SpLItS?

Joe: Patrick, you're a GENIUS!

(Yup, I put in a SpongeBob reference!)

    The story takes place in the 2010s, involves a man named Mitch, his wife, and his son, who is a fan of the Banana Splits. It is the son's birthday, and he got tickets to a taping of the Banana Splits show, which was... apparently not cancelled.

    Some other people are revealed, like a group of young influencers and another kid who isn't a fan of the show, but is coming with Mitch's family.

The network hired a new executive, and he wanted the show cancelled because it's just boring now. The Splits, who are now animatronics for some reason, hear about said cancellation and go on a killing spree.

    There are some inconsistencies with this movie and the 1968 series. In the movie version of the show, there are messy Nickelodeon-game-show-like minigames and the main focus is the Banana Splits themselves. In the 1968 series, the interstitial Banana Splits sections are just 3 minute long wacky sequences filmed at Six Flags Over Texas, with uber-catchy music. These segments punctuate the cartoons being showcased.

    You know what really grinds my gears about this movie? The fact that a movie with the title of "The Banana Splits Movie" could be rated R and have blood, gore, horror violence, and mild language.

Way to ruin childhoods, WB, SyFy, and """"Blue Ribbon Content""""

If you want to watch an ACTUAL Banana Splits movie, Watch the made-for-ABC special "The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park". That one is so much better. I give this movie a ♪ Tra-La-La, La-La-La-Nah ♪.

Edited August 31, 2023 11:52 pm.

Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

 You might not know this, but I am a huge Super Mario fan. When I heard that Nintendo and Illumination were working on a Mario movie, I was a bit skeptical at first, since Illumination is known for being cheap when it comes to animation. But did Illumination produce a cheap marketable movie with toilet humor and cheesy jokes, or did they make a redeeming masterpiece, as Sony Pictures Animation did with "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse"? Read my review and find out!

But first, a history of Nintendo movies. 1986 saw the release of a Japan-exclusive anime movie called "Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!" which was a moderate success. 7 years later, Disney's Hollywood Pictures division, alongside Lightmotive and Allied Filmmakers, released a sci-fi adventure flick called "Super Mario Bros." which was SO LOOSELY based on the games, and the only mention of Nintendo or Shigeru Miyamoto was at the very end of the credits in extremely small mice-type. It's an insult to the most popular gaming franchise ever, just like how Star Trek: Discovery is an insult to Gene Roddenberry's ideals from the original 1966 series.

Forget what the critics on Rotten Tomatoes say. This movie is the freshest tomato of the 2023 movie bunch! The movie opens with a shortened Universal logo, an Illumination logo with a minion in a go-kart failing to get a rocket boost, and a pixel animation of Mario and Luigi hitting a "?" Block that contains a large Nintendo logo. That trio of logos were an excellent way to show who made the film.

This film contains visual and musical references galore. My favorite reference was the Toad at the antique store with the NES cartridge. That was a great little visual gag alongside the elder Toad saying "have you tried blowing into it?". Even though the recommended way to clean an NES cartridge is to use a damp cotton swab to clean its contacts that connect to the pins in the system.

Peach is more of a good girl gone bad instead of the usual damsel in distress, which is awesome, and a welcomed change, and Luigi is the one that needs to be rescued.

The movie's message is important as well, You can get through tough times if you stick together. After all the struggles brought to us by 2020, it's more important than ever.

Chris Pratt did an okay job as the plumber in red. But Charlie Day's high-pitched New York accent fits Luigi's personality like his gloves. But Jack Black stole the show with his portrayal of Bowser. Let's not forget the hilarious love song "Peaches". It made me crack up like a Yoshi Egg.

All in all, if you are a fan of Mario, you'll enjoy this masterpiece. Nintendo should release a cartridge copy of this movie on Switch.

I give this movie 5 Super Stars!

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