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Children's Television Workshop/Sesame Workshop |
Version 59 - view current page
Compiled by Juniorfan88
Background: In 1969 when Sesame Street was made, Children's Television Workshop was born. During the induction year through the year 2000, Children's Television Workshop has produce such shows such as 3-2-1 Contact, Square One, Cro, Ghostwriter, Electric Company, and many other edutainment titles. In 2000, Children's Television Workshop was renamed Sesame Workshop, so as to capitalize on the Sesame Street name.
Children's Television Workshop
1st Logo
(1969-1982)
Nickname: "The Plaque"
Logo/Animation: On episodes of "Sesame Street", two sets of stills were shown on the screen. The first one was of a regular on the show (i.e. Big Bird, Oscar, Susan, Gordon, Bob, etc.) holding up the Sesame Street title logo, which was a rectangular street sign in dark green and had a light green border. A small text in a semi-circle above the rectangle read CTW, which stood for "Children's Television Workshop". The second still featured another regular holding up a fancy-looking plaque made of marble. The name "CHILDREN'S TELEVISION WORKSHOP" appears in blue in front of the plaque.
FX: None, it's a still logo.
Cheesy Factor: Static logos are always cheap.
Music/SFX: The closing of the Sesame Street credits theme plays, as a random Sesame Street character says this, " Sesame Street is a production of the Children's Television Workshop."
Availability: While 1969-1982 "Sesame Street" episodes are no longer aired on TV, this logo can be found on the "Sesame Street: Old School" DVD box sets.
Scare Factor: None.
2nd Logo
(1971-1977)
Nickname: "The Electric Company Logo"
Logo/Animation: On episodes of "The Electric Company," the closing credits always featured the animated opening title to the show, in which the logo is seen in a cloud-like shape which in turn is seen with several cloud-like shapes and a box that's connected to either side of the screen. The words "The Electric Company" waved and wiggled and changed shape into the words "CHILDREN'S TELEVISION WORKSHOP" in orange. Afterwards, the box-like shape would open up and allow the CTW logo to wiggle away.
Variant: In the first two seasons, this logo was just two stills of "The Electric Company" and "The Children's Television Workshop" in the cloud-shape.
FX: The words changing/zooming away, the box opening up.
Cheesy Factor: This logo just SCREAMS "early-'70s," with the tye dye-ish design of the box and the clouds and the pattern seen on the words inside.
Music/SFX: The closing theme was usually heard, and a character from the TV show would always say, "'The Electric Company' gets its power from... the Children's Television Workshop."
Availability: Although "The Electric Company" is no longer seen on TV, the logo can be found on the show's two "best of" DVDs, released in 2006.
Scare Factor: Minimum, seems very party-ish overall, though the cheap animation and voice-over may give a few people the shakes.
3rd Logo
(1978-1983)
Nickname: "The Snake", "CTW Snake"
Logo/Animation: On a black background, four vertical orange rectangles appear in the center of the screen and start transforming into the letters in "CTW" simultaneously. The rectangle on the left stretches slightly to the right and left until it forms a square, then curves to the top and bottom to form a "C." The rectangle in the middle stretches on all sides vertically and horizontally until it resembles a cross with the top right corner slightly bent, then the bottom side stretches out some more and curves to the right to form a lower case "T." The two rectangles on the far right stretch in opposite horizontal directions until they connect each other in the middle with a bend in one of the quadrilateral corners for emphasis. The two quadrilaterals, along with the middle right corner of the "T," stretch to the bottom to form the "W." The small blue text,
CHILDREN'S
TELEVISION
WORKSHOP
appears in the top left corner where the "T" and "W" connect.
SFX: The quadrilaterals stretching.
Music: An eerie synthesizer/electronic tune which sounds like outer-space music, and the once the logo completes then we hear a ding at the end to mark the appearance of Children's Television Workshop text.
Music Variant: The Christmas variant is much different as we hear a dreamy tune accompanied by bell strings.
Cheesy Factor: The animation is certainly cheesy because you can tell it was merely cel-animated.
Availability: Near extinction, has been plastered over with the Sesame Workshop “House of Boredom” logo when older CTW shows were seen on Noggin before being taken off the air. It can be found on older VHS prints of "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street."
Scare Factor: Median to high, it may scare some with its cheesy animation and slyly creepy electronic music, but its pretty tame compared to its successor. The Christmas variant is much tamer though.
4th Logo
(1983-1997)
Nickname: "Sparks"
Logo/Animation: On a black background, a spark flies across the top left corner of the screen, writing the word CHILDREN'S in blue. It shifts to the middle left corner
Music: An electronic keyboard scale quickly descending is heard over the spark animations, followed by a laser zap accompanying the light explosion.
FX: All the animation in the logo.
Cheesy Factor: This logo is probably more cheesy than the previous logo because the way the spark scrolls and come back flashing seems very cheesy, almost like a real sparkler used against a blue screen, and the light from the bottom looks like a laser, and electronic sounds are certainly amongst what a stereotypical 1980's logo would sound like as well.
Availability: Rare, the "House of Boredom" logo has plastered itself to most older CTW shows when they were reran on Noggin, but this logo can be found on older 1980s/early 1990s "Sesame Street" and "3-2-1 Contact" tapes.
Scare Factor: High, because of the loud electronic music mainly, but many people may be put-off by the light effects.
5th Logo
(1993-1997)
Nickname: "The Rolling Stone," "The Cro Logo"
Logo/Animation: We see two pink boulders against a blue background; one is round while the other is in the shape of "V" without the split. Both have cracks and niches in them. From the screen's right, we see a third pink boulder in the shape of a square rolling in. It bumps into the second boulder, and all three boulders crumble apart slightly; each one forms a letter: the first one forms "C", the second forms "T" and the third one forms "W." Copyright information fades in at the bottom of the screen.
Music: First we hear several descending trumpet notes, then the sound of the boulders crumbling, and then an ascending four-note piano jingle accompanied by a descending four-note trumpet jingle.
FX: All the animation in this logo.
Cheesy Factor: A somewhat simple logo.
Availability: Extremely Rare/Extinct, only seen on the show "Cro," and is usually plastered over with the "House of Boredom" logo.
Scare Factor: Low, this logo is rather cute, but the huge boulders/jagged "CTW" design could turn some people off.
6th Logo
(1997-2000)
Nicknames: "The Bouncing Letters", "Play it Smart," "The Sailors' Hornpipe Logo"
t Smart".
Logo/Animation: On a shady cyan background, we see a yellow semi-circle (the same one from the Sesame Street logo) turned on its bottom side with the red letters C, T, and W positioned from left to right. The C bounces on the semicircle, making it slant to the left. Then the T twists around while the W bounces. The semicircle rebounds to its original position, then the three letters bounce together, pushing the semicircle to the ground. The semicircle bounces up and rotates a few times before settling into a position halfway up the screen. The text "CHILDREN'S TELEVISION WORKSHOP" comes from underneath the semicircle. The three letters fly in the air and land on the face of the semicircle. The sign bounces once more as the text "PLAY IT SMART" appears below.
Variation: There was an early version of this logo without "PLAY IT SMART."
Music: A horn playing a tune that starts out similar to "Sailor's Hornpipe," accompanied by bounce and boing sound effects.
Cheesy Factor: None.
Availability: Very rare, due to replacement with the "Sesame Workshop" logo. Your best bet of finding this logo are late-1990s Sesame Street tapes.
Scare Factor: None, this is a cute logo.
_______________________________________________________________
Sesame Workshop
1st Logo
(2000-Present)
Nickname: "House of Boredom"
Logo/Animation: On a white background, we see an abstract green house with a purple roof and the text:
outlined below. The window of the house is filled with yellow glitter. The house bounces and the roof explodes open to the right, sending the glitter sprinkling all over. Some of the glitter remains to form a lightning bolt crowned with a star, some sprinkles to the left to fill the "sesame" text with purple, and some sprinkles to the right to fill the "workshop" text with green:
Variations: Here are the four variations of this logo:
Music: A tuba plays at the start, then we hear a pop sound for the roof with a giggling child, and then a short accordion piece. In some cases, it uses the outro of the show's closing theme.
SFX: The animation in the logo.
Cheesy Factor: None
Availability: Very common, pretty much is on every show PBS and Sesame Workshop distribute. Also, when shown on "Dragon Tales", this logo would appear before the Boxes of Boredom!
Scare Factor: None, it's a clean (and BORING!) logo.
2nd Logo
(2007-Present)
Logo: When Sesame Workshop relaunched in 2007, this is an in-credit logo, consisting of same as the Sesame Workshop logo.
FX: None, it's an in-credit logo.
Music: The end of the show's theme.
Availability: Seen on brand new episodes of "Sesame Street" on PBS.
Scare Factor: None.
Background: In 1969 when Sesame Street was made, Children's Television Workshop was born. During the induction year through the year 2000, Children's Television Workshop has produce such shows such as 3-2-1 Contact, Square One, Cro, Ghostwriter, Electric Company, and many other edutainment titles. In 2000, Children's Television Workshop was renamed Sesame Workshop, so as to capitalize on the Sesame Street name.
Children's Television Workshop
1st Logo
(1969-1982)
Nickname: "The Plaque"
Logo/Animation: On episodes of "Sesame Street", two sets of stills were shown on the screen. The first one was of a regular on the show (i.e. Big Bird, Oscar, Susan, Gordon, Bob, etc.) holding up the Sesame Street title logo, which was a
FX: None, it's a still logo.
Cheesy Factor: Static logos are always cheap.
Music/SFX: The closing of the Sesame Street credits theme plays, as a random Sesame Street character says this, " Sesame Street is a production of the Children's Television Workshop."
Availability: While 1969-1982 "Sesame Street" episodes are no longer aired on TV, this logo can be found on the "Sesame Street: Old School" DVD box sets.
Scare Factor: None.
2nd Logo
(1971-1977)
Nickname: "The Electric Company Logo"
Logo/Animation: On episodes of "The Electric Company," the closing credits always featured the animated opening title to the show, in which the logo is seen in a cloud-like shape which in turn is seen with several cloud-like shapes and a box that's connected to either side of the screen. The words "The Electric Company" waved and wiggled and changed shape into the words "CHILDREN'S TELEVISION WORKSHOP" in orange. Afterwards, the box-like shape would open up and allow the CTW logo to wiggle away.
Variant: In the first two seasons, this logo was just two stills of "The Electric Company" and "The Children's Television Workshop" in the cloud-shape.
FX: The words changing/zooming away, the box opening up.
Cheesy Factor: This logo just SCREAMS "early-'70s," with the tye dye-ish design of the box and the clouds and the pattern seen on the words inside.
Music/SFX: The closing theme was usually heard, and a character from the TV show would always say, "'The Electric Company' gets its power from... the Children's Television Workshop."
Availability: Although "The Electric Company" is no longer seen on TV, the logo can be found on the show's two "best of" DVDs, released in 2006.
Scare Factor: Minimum, seems very party-ish overall, though the cheap animation and voice-over may give a few people the shakes.
3rd Logo
(1978-1983)
Nickname: "The Snake", "CTW Snake"
Logo/Animation: On a black background, four vertical orange rectangles appear in the center of the screen and start transforming into the letters in "CTW" simultaneously. The rectangle on the left stretches slightly to the right and left until it forms a square, then curves to the top and bottom to form a "C." The rectangle in the middle stretches on all sides vertically and horizontally until it resembles a cross with the top right corner slightly bent, then the bottom side stretches out some more and curves to the right to form a lower case "T." The two rectangles on the far right stretch in opposite horizontal directions until they connect each other in the middle with a bend in one of the quadrilateral corners for emphasis. The two quadrilaterals, along with the middle right corner of the "T," stretch to the bottom to form the "W." The small blue text,
CHILDREN'S
TELEVISION
WORKSHOP
appears in the top left corner where the "T" and "W" connect.
SFX: The quadrilaterals stretching.
Music: An eerie synthesizer/electronic tune which sounds like outer-space music, and the once the logo completes then we hear a ding at the end to mark the appearance of Children's Television Workshop text.
Music Variant: The Christmas variant is much different as we hear a dreamy tune accompanied by bell strings.
Cheesy Factor: The animation is certainly cheesy because you can tell it was merely cel-animated.
Availability: Near extinction, has been plastered over with the Sesame Workshop “House of Boredom” logo when older CTW shows were seen on Noggin before being taken off the air. It can be found on older VHS prints of "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street."
Scare Factor: Median to high, it may scare some with its cheesy animation and slyly creepy electronic music, but its pretty tame compared to its successor. The Christmas variant is much tamer though.
4th Logo
(1983-1997)
Nickname: "Sparks"
Logo/Animation: On a black background, a spark flies across the top left corner of the screen, writing the word CHILDREN'S in blue. It shifts to the middle left corner
and writes TELEVISION. Then it shifts to the bottom left corner and writes
WORKSHOP. A ray of light flies from the bottom of the screen and explodes. The logo "glitters."
Music: An electronic keyboard scale quickly descending is heard over the spark animations, followed by a laser zap accompanying the light explosion.
FX: All the animation in the logo.
Cheesy Factor: This logo is probably more cheesy than the previous logo because the way the spark scrolls and come back flashing seems very cheesy, almost like a real sparkler used against a blue screen, and the light from the bottom looks like a laser, and electronic sounds are certainly amongst what a stereotypical 1980's logo would sound like as well.
Availability: Rare, the "House of Boredom" logo has plastered itself to most older CTW shows when they were reran on Noggin, but this logo can be found on older 1980s/early 1990s "Sesame Street" and "3-2-1 Contact" tapes.
Scare Factor: High, because of the loud electronic music mainly, but many people may be put-off by the light effects.
5th Logo
(1993-1997)
Nickname: "The Rolling Stone," "The Cro Logo"
Logo/Animation: We see two pink boulders against a blue background; one is round while the other is in the shape of "V" without the split. Both have cracks and niches in them. From the screen's right, we see a third pink boulder in the shape of a square rolling in. It bumps into the second boulder, and all three boulders crumble apart slightly; each one forms a letter: the first one forms "C", the second forms "T" and the third one forms "W." Copyright information fades in at the bottom of the screen.
Music: First we hear several descending trumpet notes, then the sound of the boulders crumbling, and then an ascending four-note piano jingle accompanied by a descending four-note trumpet jingle.
FX: All the animation in this logo.
Cheesy Factor: A somewhat simple logo.
Availability: Extremely Rare/Extinct, only seen on the show "Cro," and is usually plastered over with the "House of Boredom" logo.
Scare Factor: Low, this logo is rather cute, but the huge boulders/jagged "CTW" design could turn some people off.
6th Logo
(1997-2000)
Nicknames: "The Bouncing Letters", "Play it Smart," "The Sailors' Hornpipe Logo"
t Smart".
Logo/Animation: On a shady cyan background, we see a yellow semi-circle (the same one from the Sesame Street logo) turned on its bottom side with the red letters C, T, and W positioned from left to right. The C bounces on the semicircle, making it slant to the left. Then the T twists around while the W bounces. The
Variation: There was an early version of this logo without "PLAY IT SMART."
Music: A horn playing a tune that starts out similar to "Sailor's Hornpipe," accompanied by bounce and boing sound effects.
Cheesy Factor: None.
Availability: Very rare, due to replacement with the "Sesame Workshop" logo. Your best bet of finding this logo are late-1990s Sesame Street tapes.
Scare Factor: None, this is a cute logo.
_______________________________________________________________
Sesame Workshop
1st Logo
(2000-Present)
Nickname: "House of Boredom"
Logo/Animation: On a white background, we see an abstract green house with a
sesameworkshop
outlined below. The window of the house is filled with yellow glitter. The house bounces and the roof explodes open to the right, sending the glitter sprinkling all over. Some of the glitter remains to form a lightning bolt crowned with a star, some sprinkles to the left to fill the "sesame" text with purple, and some sprinkles to the right to fill the "workshop" text with green:
sesameworkshop
Variations: Here are the four variations of this logo:
- Green House and Purple Roof (most common variant)
- Purple House and Green Roof (seen on CTW/Noggin co-productions such as Upside Down Show)
- Purple House and Red Roof (usually plasters CTW logos). This one is the first to contain the byline, "The nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street and so much more" (though the only TV show Sesame Workshop currently produces is "Sesame Street).
- An in-credit variation also appears on current 2007 episodes of "Sesame Street" as well.
Music: A tuba plays at the start, then we hear a pop sound for the roof with a giggling child, and then a short accordion piece. In some cases, it uses the outro of the show's closing theme.
SFX: The animation in the logo.
Cheesy Factor: None
Availability: Very common, pretty much is on every show PBS and Sesame Workshop distribute. Also, when shown on "Dragon Tales", this logo would appear before the Boxes of Boredom!
Scare Factor: None, it's a clean (and BORING!) logo.
2nd Logo
(2007-Present)
Logo: When Sesame Workshop relaunched in 2007, this is an in-credit logo, consisting of same as the Sesame Workshop logo.
FX: None, it's an in-credit logo.
Music: The end of the show's theme.
Availability: Seen on brand new episodes of "Sesame Street" on PBS.
Scare Factor: None.
