Compiled by Matt Williams, James Stanley Barr, Nicholas Aczel, Eric S., and Eric Hartman
Logo captures by Bob Fish, V of Doom, Eric S., mr3urious and Mr. Logo Lord
Editions by V of Doom, mr3urious, Mr. Logo Lord, and Shadeed A. Kelly
Video captures courtesy by Bob Fish, Eric S., ColumbiaPictures, JohnnyL80 and Logofan2006


Background: 20th Century Fox Television (first known as TCF Television Productions, Inc.) was founded in 1949 as other studios were branching out into television production as well. Nowdays, it's a TV subsidiary of News Corporation.


1st Logo
(1952-1958)

Nickname: "TCF Tower"

Logo: An in-credit logo similar to the 20th Century Fox logo, except instead of "20th Century Fox", it reads "TCF" and contains an explosion-like shape behind it. Underneath was "PRODUCED BY (in small font just below the tower) TCF TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS, INC. IRVING ASHER, Executive In Charge of Production".

Variants:

• An in-credit mention for TCF in association with CBS was seen on early episodes of Perry Mason.
• Sometimes, "PRODUCED BY" would be replaced by "FILMED AT THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS OF".

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, and Man Without a Gun available for viewing on the Museum of Broadcast Communications Archives website.

Scare Factor: None.



2nd Logo
(1955-September 1960)

Nickname: "Starry Sky"

Logo: We see a backdrop of a 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.

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, as displayed here.

Variant: On Adventures in Paradise, this appeared as an opening logo with a fanfare, coupled with the Martin Manulis Productions logo.

FX: The fading in of the company name.

Music: A rearrangement of the Alfred Newman fanfare used on the movie variation, or the end theme of the show.

Availability: Near extinction, although it was last seen on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on Nick At Nite/TV Land, and on Adventures in Paradise available for viewing on the Museum of Broadcast Communications Archives website.

Scare Factor: Minimum.



3rd Logo
(October 1960-1992)

Nicknames: "The Searchlights", "Zoom-Out", "20th Television Fox", "The Tower of Doom"

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" in the same color as the tower, 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.

Variants:

• There are two main versions of this logo: One based on the 1960's-70's searchlight logo and one based on the 1980's redraw.
• The logo is either in color, B&W, or sepia-toned.
• From 1960-1987 this logo is filmed; from 1987-1992, it's videotaped.
• The zero may either be straight or slanted.
• One extremely rare variant had the tower shown farther left, and when "TELEVISION" zooms out, the "C" in "CENTURY" can still be seen.

FX: The searchlights, the zooming out of "TELEVISION."

Cheesy Factor: The "TELEVISION" appearing and zooming-out looks REALLY choppy and amateurish.

Music: Here are the main variations of the famous Alfred Newman jingle:

• 1960-1964: An edited and mixed variant of the original TCF fanfare (as heard in the 2nd logo).
• 1961-1969: A short tune played on muted trumpets and strings that is a variation of the jingle, but does not sound exactly like a Fox jingle.
• 1965-1990: An abridged and slowed-down version of the film jingle.
• 1965-1990: Sped-up version of the above.
• 1988-1992: Extremely short version of the Fox jingle, which is currently used for the 20th Television logo.

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. A few episodes on The Simpsons Season 1 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: Depending on the logo variant:

• 1960-1964: Medium, due to the zooming out FX and the edited-mixed TCF fanfare.
• 1961-1982: High to NIGHTMARE; the scary jingle combined with the sudden zoom-out of the "TELEVISION" and scary searchlight drawing will cause more than a few scares.
• 1982-1990: Medium to high; the jingle and the zoom-out may cause some scares but the drawing is now tamer and slightly less scary.
• 1988-1992: Low to medium, thanks to the 1988 jingle, being it less scary than the original counterpart.

In some cases, the 1961 and 1982 variants of these logos often followed those scary "IN ASSOCIATION WITH" screens.



4th Logo
(1983)

Nicknames: "The Chryon", "Print Searchlights", "Still Searchlights"

Logo: On a black background, we see the print logo of 20th Century Fox of the time. Under it is the word "TELEVISION" and a Copyright disclaimer.

FX: None, it's an still logo.

Music: Probably the ending theme of the show.

Availability: Extinct.

Scare Factor: Minimum. This logo is maybe surprising, but nothing to worry about.



5th Logo
(March 1995-)

Nicknames: "CGI Searchlights", "Zooming Tower"

Logo: It's exactly the same as the current 20th 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.

Variants:

• On Futurama, the logo is altered to read "30th Century Fox Television", as that programme is set in the 31st Century.
• On Soul Food, there is a still shot version of this logo.
• In 2007, starting with Drive, the logo was given a more "enhanced" look and the effects more realistic.

FX: The logo zooming out.

Music: Here are the three main variants:

• 1995-1997/2007- : The re-arranged and re-recorded variant of the 1988 jingle by Bruce Broughton.
• 1995-1997 (Alternate): On some shows, it used the remasterized 1988 jingle.
• 1997-: A re-arranged and a re-recorded warp speed variant of the 1961 jingle.
• Fox network commonly uses their own fanfare over logos, due to generic credits; due to the fact that much Fox programming is produced by Fox, these fanfares go well with this logo. From 1997-2001, a simple Fox drumroll was used; the 2001-2002 season introduced different "remixes" of the Fox fanfare, usually only using the final four notes.
• In exceptional cases, it used only the closing theme of the show or it's silent.
• There is also a long version of the theme.

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. Also, the alternate variant was seen on all episodes of The Simpsons from the 1995-1997 seasons. The still shot version of this logo can be found on Soul Food: The Series on BETJ.

Scare Factor: Depending on the logo variant:

• 1995-1997/2007-: Low.
• 1995-1997 (Alternate): None.
• 1997-: Low to medium.
• None for the variant with the closing theme of the show.