King Features Syndicate
Compiled by James Fabiano, Nicholas Aczel, Matt Williams and Argus Sventon
1st Logo
(1960-1963)
Nicknames: "The Popeye Logo," "The Pegasus Logo"
Logo: In the center of a blue background is the image of a man riding a pegasus or some winged beast. He is holding a quill (feather). On both sides of the image are ribbons with the company's name; "KING FEATURES" is on the left ribbon and "SYNDICATE" is on the right. Below the eagle is a montior-shaped box that says "TV." The word "Presents" appears under the opening logo. Then a star spins towards the screen from the center of the logo. When it stops, Popeye appears in it and toots his pipe, followed by the title screen and credits. At the end, the white quill writes out "The End," then flips to the right to rejoin the logo.
FX: The spinning star, the quill "writing."
Music: Opening - an abridged version of the generic cartoon sailor song "The Sailor's Hornpipe" (played on what sounds like a flute), leading into "Popeye the Sailor Man" which plays over the credits. Closing - The end to "The Sailor's Hornpipe."
Availability: I'd guess rare, considering that most people say they haven't seen the made-for-TV KFS Popeye cartoons of the 1960s.
Scare Factor: The centerpiece may be a little intimidating if you are not sure that it is a pegasus. The Popeye music coming out of nowhere with that star may make some people antsy as well.
1st Logo B
(1960-1963)
Nicknames: "The Zooming Crown," “The Beetle Bailey Logo”
Logo: On a pink background, a small yellow crown in the
center of the screen zooms up in a spinning manner. The three
spikes in the crown pop up one by one from left to right. The
word “King” appears on the crown in an old-world font,
the “K” is colored a bold red. The “King”
spins and settles on the below left of the screen, and the words
“Features” and “Syndicate” (the first letter
in each also colored bold red) appear to the right of it and
“PRESENTS” below. This logo leads into the title screen
and opening credits for the cartoon that follows.
End Title: Same pink background, but the crown is in the
upper left corner, and below it are written the stacked words
“A KING FEATURES SYNDICATE PRODUCTION,” with the bold
red word “TV” written behind it. Below the words
“Produced by Paramount Pictures Corporation” are seen
in the Paramount corporate font. This is a still logo.
FX: The zooming/spinning crown, the word animations.
Cheesy Factor: The crown is 2D, and animation is rather simple.
Music: A horn and xylophone fanfare, leading into the cartoon short theme music.
Availability: Rare. Appeared on the animated cartoon series “Beetle Bailey and His Friends” on network TV. If you really want to see it, some cartoon shorts that originally appeared on the series have been released on three VHS volumes of Rhino Home Video’s “Sunday Morning Funnies”: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Beetle Bailey, and Krazy Kat.
Scare Factor: The fast animation of the crown combined with the strange cheery music might surprise some.
2nd logo
(Mid 1960s)
Nicknames: "The Blondie Logo," "KFS Crown Logo", "Jumping Shapes"
Logo: A very difficult logo to describe because a lot happens in a short time. We first see a rectangle with a equilateral triangle in the center, along with two triangles on either side with one curved side each. On the lower left hand corner and upper right hand corner of the rectangle, there are two dots.
The dot on the lower left drops and explodes into 8 small dots and 5 larger dots. The triangle on the left side drops along with the other dot. The triangle blossoms like a fan into a flower shape, while the other two triangles drop and form an hexagon shaped by six triangles, except the upper triangle is missing.
Then at one point, we see the four "pieces" of the KFS logo on the screen, before they suddenly "multiply" and jump all over the screen, finally forming the KFS crown logo, which shrinks and moves to the upper left of the screen above the words "KING FEATURES PRESENTS". (It is ID'ed as "A KING FEATURES PRESENTATION" at the end of some TV shows)
FX: The moving shapes jumping across the screen.
Music: Opening - The first notes sound similar to the Universal theme from the late 70's. These occur during the dropping phase. Then big band music is heard while all of the shapes jump all over the screen and during the formation of the KFS crown. The closing is the same as the opening.
Availability: This logo appeared on the animated cartoon series "The Beatles" and "Cool McCool" on network TV. It was also seen on television prints of Columbia Pictures' Blondie movies. However, since I have seen the KFS-owned Blondie movies with Columbia Pictures original credits on American Movie Classics , this logo may be vanishing. However, if your station has been showing Blondie for a long time or if you owned a video of the Blondie movies from KFS Home Entertainment, you may see this logo.
Scare Factor: Median to high, considering the sudden big band music sounding, and the jumping shapes.
3rd Logo
(1970s)
Logo: On a blue background, we see on the right a crudely-drawn crown encapsuled inside a Worldvision-like radar globe, with a large quill behind it. Below, we see the words “King Features” in a bold font aligned to the left.
FX: None, it’s a still logo.
Cheesy Factor: Now c’mon, how hard can it be to make a 2D still logo? Sheesh!
Music: Silent
Availability: Long extinct, as the only known record of it’s existence is on the original broadcast of the 1972 ABC Saturday Superstar Movie “Popeye Meets The Man Who Hated Laughter.”
Scare Factor: The scratchy prints may bother a few; otherwise it’s mostly a boring logo
4th Logo
(1981-1985)
Nickname: "Crown Trail"
Logo: On a blue background, the words "King Features Entertainment" slowly zoom out. When the words get to a median distance, a "trail" of stylized outlined crowns come from the left and right side above the logo, consolidating into one stylized outlined shield. The words "Distributed By" may appear in an arc above it.
FX: The crown trail.
Cheesy Factor: The trail looks kinda cheesy.
Music: A weird early 80s synthesizer theme.
Availability: May appear at the end of some movie telecasts, but other than that, extinct.
Scare Factor: The music may get to some.
5th Logo
(1985-1990s)
Nickname: "Rolling Crown"
Logo: On a black background, a blue 3D crown spins onto the screen. It moves towards the top, as the black background begins to become blue-grayish (the color moves up from the bottom). The crown, when it gets near the top and comfortably small, flashes and becomes a 2D stylized crown like in logo 2. Below it the words "King Features Entertainment" appear in the same font as logo 2. The words "A Subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation" appear below it. Sometimes, "Distributed By" may appear above the crown.
FX: The rolling crown.
Cheesy Factor: Rather bad CGI.
Music: A generic synth-guitar theme.
Availability: Can be seen on old videocassettes of Popeye and Krazy Kat. Can also be seen without music on G-Force on the Cartoon Network when that network shows it.
Scare Factor: Low, I could see someone getting a bit spooked by that dated synth theme, but this is pretty clean.