20th Century Fox Television
Compiled by Matt Williams, James Stanley Barr, Nicholas Aczel and Eric Hartman
TCF TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS,
INC.
(1952-1955)
Logo: An in-credit logo Similar to the 20th Century Fox logo, except instead of "20th Century Fox", it reads "TCF". Underneath was "Produced by TCF TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS, INC. IRVING ASHER, Executive In Charge of Production."
(Note: An in-credit mention for TCF in association with CBS was seen on episodes of "Perry Mason")
FX: None, it's a still logo
Music: The outro of whatever show it was playing on.
Availability: Rare, seen on "My Friend Flicka" in color.
Scare Factor: None.
1st Logo
(1955-1961)
Nickname: "Starry Sky"
Logo: We see a backdrop of the night sky covered with stars and clouds. Over this backdrop, we see the following text fade in, not similar to any of their movie logos, might I add
20th
CENTURY-
FOX
This company name, in bold letters, fades in as if it were streaking from the bottom left of the screen. The "20th" seems to be more to the right of the other text, not as displayed here.
FX: The fading in of the company name.
Music: None, for it was accompanied by whatever theme song was playing throughout.
Availability: Near Extinction, although it was last seen on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" on Nick At Nite/TV Land.
Scare Factor: None
2nd Logo
(1961-1992)
Nicknames: "The Searchlights", "Zoom-Out", "20th Television Fox"
Logo: On a dark blue sky background, 3 rows of words, "20th", "CENTURY", and "FOX", apparently carved out of stone or metal and in a gold color, are seen. The words are "stacked" on top of each other, with similarly carved lines separating the rows. After a second, the word "TELEVISION", slanted at an angle, suddenly appears, filling the screen. It then rapidly zooms out, plastering itself on top of the "CENTURY" on the stack of words. A circular stage-like structure juts out from the base of the "stack". There are pedestals on both sides of the stack, each with a non-moving searchlight. In the background, several searchlights scan the sky.
There are two main versions of this logo: One based on the 1970s searchlight logo and one based on the 1980s redraw.
FX: The searchlights, the zooming out of "TELEVISION."
Cheesy Factor: The "TELEVISION" appearing and zooming-out really really REALLY looks choppy and amateurish.
Music: Three versions here, all variations of the famous Alfred Newman jingle:
Availability: Fox has replaced this with a newer logo (most likely the 20th Television one), but can still be seen on older prints of a few shows. Several episodes on "The Simpsons" DVD set still have it, and for some reason, has been spotted on Comedy Central's print of Office Space (a 1999 movie, so this is really messed up). A similar situation happened on a few episodes of The Pretender when reran on TNT.
Scare Factor: This actually varied a bit, depending on the logo:
Both versions of these logos often followed those scary "IN ASSOCIATION WITH" screens.
3rd Logo
(1995-)
Nickname: "CGI Searchlights"
Logo: It's exactly the same as the current Twentieth Television logo, but now the stack of words has been modified to resemble the standard Fox stack, with "TELEVISION" added to the bottom and the whole thing looking rather taller.
FX: The logo zooming out.
Music: Two main versions:
Availability: Typically found on network programming provided by Fox. May or may not be present in syndicated repeats of network programs-- the 20th TV logo may cover it up.
Scare Factor: None.
Nickname: "Tower of Tepidity"
Logo: We see a close-up of the familiar Fox structure, but now it's in CGI and reads "20th TELEVISION", with the line below that (that would normally be reserved for "FOX") replaced by a simple golden square. The logo zooms out to the familiar Fox logo distance.
Byline: "A NEWS CORPORATION COMPANY" began appearing below the logo in 1993.
FX: The logo zooming out.
Music: The 1988 jingle was used initially, but was re-recorded in 1995.
Availability: Plastered onto most every show Fox distributes, even classic shows.
Scare Factor: Low.
FOX Television
Studios
(1998-)
Logo: We see the standard Fox structure, this time reading "FOX TELEVISION STUDIOS". However, all is not well. The normally clear sky is gone, and a thunderstorm is brewing overhead! Worse yet, one of the searchlights blows out during the logo! The News Corp. byline is still intact.
FX: The stormy sky, the searchlight going on us.
Music: The final four notes of the long version of the Fox fanfare.
Availability: Can be seen on most comedies that Fox produces like "The Hughleys" and "Malcolm in the Middle", and some shows on Fox Sports Net.
Scare Factor: None, just a funny send-up of every single Fox logo. :)
Foxstar
Productions
(2001-)
Logo: We see the
"Fox Television Studios" logo described above. Suddenly
a bolt of lightning crashes down on the logo, and when the light
clears the logo has changed: the sky has cleared again, and we
see the Fox structure with a giant star on top of the stack and
the words
FOXSTAR
P R O D U C
T I O N S
in the lines below.
FX: The stormy sky, the lightning, the logo switch.
Cheesy Factor: Nice-looking CGI for the most part as with other current Fox logos, but the logo transition from Fox Television Studios to Foxstar Productions is very jarring and unprofessional.
Music: Same as Fox Television Studios.
Availability: Seen on documentaries produced by Fox such as AMC’s "Backstory" and A&E’s "Biography" (post-2001 episodes).
Scare Factor: Minimal to Median, the choppy transition between logos and the scary "star" structure will probably catch more than a few off-guard, especially if you’ve never seen it before.