Logo descriptions by Jason Jones, James Fabiano, Matt Williams, Kris Starring, Dan DeCosta, and Nicholas Aczel
Logo captures by AsdfTheRevival, Wisp2007, Hoa, mcy919, V of Doom, Eric S., and snelfu
Editions by V of Doom and Shadeed A. Kelly
Video captures courtesy of mcydodge919, JohnnyL80, and DrClaw77
Background: DiC Entertainment (formerly DiC Audiovisuel, DiC Enterprises, DiC Animation City, and DiC Productions) was founded by Jean Chalopin in Paris, France in 1971, but the American arm debuted in 1982. It was bought by Capital Cities/ABC (now ABC, Inc.) in 1993 and The Walt Disney Company in 1995, until Andy Heyward re-bought the company from Disney in 2000 by becoming independent with an investment by Bain Capital. On July 23, 2008, DiC was acquired by Cookie Jar Entertainment, Inc. and became a wholly-owned subsidiary. Months later, Cookie Jar decided to take over and DiC Entertainment was folded into Cookie Jar. DiC stands for: Diffusion, Information, and Communication (Diffusion, Information, et Communication).
1st Logo(1983-1986)
Nickname: "D.i.C."
Logo: A certain character appears across a DiC screen:
- Inspector Gadget (1983-1984): Inspector Gadget passes a green DiC logo on a blue background while on his skates. Halfway through, his Gadget mallet comes out (presumably involuntarily) and hits the space above the I, dotting it. Gadget exits out of control.
- The Littles (1983-1986): The character Dinky runs past a green DiC logo on an orange background and places a green button onto the space above the I, dotting the letter, and then clumsily exiting.
FX/SFX: Just DiC quality animation.
Cheesy Factor: The logo looks like it says "Die".
Music/Sounds:
- Inspector Gadget: A 7-note trumpet outro from the end notes of the Inspector Gadget theme song. There is also a "boing" sound heard when Gadget's mallet "dots" the I.
- The Littles: The end title theme of the show.
Availability: Originally seen on Inspector Gadget during the 1980s, this logo is actually extinct from American television, being replaced with newer logos on reruns and DVD releases, usually the Kid in Bed or the IWoD Globe. This was last seen on television during the late 90's airings on Nickelodeon. Can now only be found on early VHS releases of the show from Family Home Entertainment (with the 1985 logo). As for The Littles variant, although it was retained during all reruns since its premiere, this logo was NOT saved when The Littles made the rounds as part of a syndicated package of DiC shows appearing on local stations syndicated by Tribune Entertainment between 2003 and September 2007 (nicknamed as the “DiC Kids Network” and now the “Cookie Jar Network”). To make it less obvious, the end credit animation is slowed down except for the audio to run at the allotted time so they could plaster this logo with the current one. These prints were also used for the show's presence on www.kewlcartoons.com. However, the logo is still intact on the DVD of The Littles Christmas Special and later DVD releases.
Scare Factor: None to low, depending on what you think of the music and the DiC logo’s look.
2nd Logo
(1984-1988)
Nicknames: "The (Green/Yellow) Vortex", "Cheesy Vortex", "The Ugly Vortex"
Logo: The background is a vortex of blue concentric boxes in which purple colors streak down as a stylized "DiC" comes up, seemingly sideways, then turns forward as it comes closer. When it is all the way up, the logo shines and sparkles.
Variants:
- There are filmed and videotaped variants. The filmed variant has a brighter blue vortex and the "DiC" is more of a green-yellow color; the videotaped variant has a dark purplish-blue vortex and "DiC" is in green.
- On Pole Position, a still shot of the beginning of the logo zoomed in, and then the regular animation played.
- Sometimes, "In Association With" or "Produced in Association With", in white, is shown at the bottom throughout the logo.
FX/SFX: The blue vortex with purple streaking down it, and the zooming logo.
Cheesy Factor: Same as above. The color of the filmed variant is just a terrible eyesore.
Music/Sounds: An ascending 8-note synthesized theme.
Music/Sound Variants:
- On the 2nd season of Inspector Gadget (1985-86), a new variant of this logo's music was introduced, utilizing a very different 5-note keyboard tune. It has been heard on both the filmed and videotaped versions, and so far has only been heard on this show.
- Rainbow Brite once used a variation in which the keyboard music was played slightly faster and was in a different pitch.
- Sometimes the ending of the show's theme would play over the logo instead of having its own music.
- This appeared occasionally without music on some 1983 episodes of Inspector Gadget when it aired on Nickelodeon in the late '90s, which was probably a poor attempt at plastering.
- The original japanese airing of Ulysses 31 had this logo as a in-credit version in white.
Availability: None of the shows that had this logo (Inspector Gadget, Zoobilee Zoo, and Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats to name a few) are currently being rerun on American TV, so it’s pretty much gone outside of tapes (and some DVDs). But if the shows are rerun on a local station (especially as part of an Incredible World of DiC block), expect the IWoD Globe to plaster it. If they are rerun on Cartoon Network or another channel like that, the logo might be intact. It was last seen on TV when Boomerang briefly reran the '80s Dennis The Menace series in January 2007. The DVD set of Heathcliff has this logo. The variant with the closing theme can be seen on some shows, such as The Real Ghostbusters (1st season and syndicated episodes), Kissyfur, The Get-Along Gang, and the Here Come the Littles movie, among others.It was also left intact on Comcast On Demand's prints of The Real Ghostbusters (followed by the 2002 SPT logo).
Scare Factor: Low for both filmed and videotaped variants, but the filmed variant's colors look uglier than the videotaped one. None to minimal for the closing theme variant. This logo, however is probably more cheesy than scary, but that's nothing compared to the follow-up...
3rd Logo
(1987-2001/2003-2005)
Nicknames:"Kid In Bed", "Sleeping Kid", "DiC!", "Deek!"
Logo: We see a boy sleeping in bed (a dog is on the bed, too) with a window above. The camera pans through the bedroom to a "spiked" star outside the window (the spikes are intended to represent shining). The spiked star morphs into a ball, and the silver, 3D word "DiC" zooms in and rotates 90º below to face us. The ball is the dot in the I in “DiC”. Then, a kid says the company's name (pronounced "DEEK").
Trivia: This logo was designed and animated by Homer & Associates.
Variants:
- In 1990, the logo got an update with a spiffier starfield.
- A bumper seen on early DiC Video releases had a video freeze at the end with "PRESENTS" quickly appearing below letter by letter. This version is also sped up.
- There is a variation where the "kid in bed" is completely deleted and the word "PRESENTS" fades in below in an ugly font. There is also no "DiC" sound bite heard.
- On an extremely rare occasion, a TM bug is strangely used instead of the standard ®. Why a TM bug? No one knows.
- On Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters, "In association with" is shown below at the end of this logo.
- Around 1991-1994, the byline “COPRODUCED BY RETITALIA, s.p.a. IN ASSOCIATION WITH TELECINCO” appeared below at the end.
- In 2003, this logo was strangely resurrected. This time, instead of the regular DIC logo, it has the "Incredible World Of DiC" globe from logo 5 zoom up outside the window, with light rays shining behind it. When the globe stops, the light rays flash. The logo also has a different starfield that appears to be a cheap rotating 2D image.
- On The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, the 1990 starfield appeared, but this logo had the end credits music, along with a byline saying:
Produced By DiC Enterprises Inc.
For Bagdasarian Productions
- On DiC's English-dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon (known as Pretty Soilder Sailor Moon in Japan), this copyright info appears after the logo (the 1st 1990 variant):
English Language Adaption---------------------------
Copyright [YEAR] DiC Productions L.P.
FX/SFX: The pan from the bed to the star, along with the chromakey effects used to place the CGI animations in the window. Actually, this was pretty high-tech for it's time.
Cheesy Factor: The camera’s pan is very choppy. The 1987-1990 version of this logo had a low-budget starfield that was mostly empty, as well as this cheesy glow effect on the star/ball. Even though the logo got an update with a spiffier starfield in 1990, the camera's pan remained choppy throughout its long run.
Music/Sounds: Had three different sets of music: a spooky fading synth music, a sweet dreamy tune, and a fast dreamy tune. A child says "DiC" near the end.
Music/Sound Variants: Throughout its 14 year run, this logo had many different audio variations:
- 1987-1990: the fading synth music, simple starfield, voice-over.
- 1987-1990 variant 1: fading synth music, same starfield, 1st voice-over, sped-up.
- 1987-1990 variant 2 (DiC Video variant): fading synth music, same starfield, sped up.
- 1987-1990 variant 3 (TM bug variant): the fading synth music; same starfield; a scary, whispering synthesized choir singing “DiC...”. This variant earned the nickname "Chrous from Hell". This version was only used in early fall 1987.
- 1987-1990 variant 4 (TM bug variant 2): Same as above, but the logo continues over the Coca-Cola Communications jingle.
- 1987-1990 variant 5 (Slimer variant): same as the regular version, once again.
- 1990-1997: the dreamy music, spiffier starfield, a new (and better) voice-over kid (sounds higher pitched).
- 1990-1997 variant 1: the dreamy music, same starfield, 2nd voice-over kid, sped-up.
- 1990-1997 variant 2 (Retitalia/Telecinco byline variant): the same as above.
- 1997 (alternate): Sped up, 1990 starfield, 1st kid voiceover.
- 1998-2001: A fast dreamy tune (sounds familiar to the Strand Home Video music), the sped up 1990 starfield, and a different kid saying the name (sounds a bit more cheerful than before).
- 2003-2005 resurrection (IWoD Globe variant): Same as the 1998 version.
- In exceptional cases, it used only the closing theme of the show (e.g., later reruns of Rainbow Brite), being it less (or nothing) scary than all their counterparts. Sometimes, the "DiC" voice-over still plays after the logo appears.
Availability: It was used for a total of 14 years. The main, 1990-1997 first variation currently appears on The Adventures of Captain Planet on Boomerang and Inspector Gadget's Field Trip on Univision. It was once also seen on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on Toon Disney (now Disney XD) until early 2002, but this is still seen on all six VHS tapes of the show. The 1990-1997 variant with the "English Language Adaption" copyright can found on all English-dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon from September 1995 to early 2001. The rare (and scary) variant with the choir singing “DiC” was occasionally featured on syndicated episodes of The Real Ghostbusters (plastering the Vortex logo; the syndicated episodes carried the Vortex but originally aired with the Kid in Bed plastered over it). This variant was found on one of the episodes on the recent DVD release of the show from Time Life. The 1990 version was recently spotted on a couple of episodes on the Inspector Gadget: The Original Series DVD set. The Retitalia/Telecinco version can be seen on the Sonic the Hedgehog (mainly known as SatAM): The Complete Series DVD. The 1997 version is not easy to find, and can only be found on some British Sonic Underground DVDs. Also, many shows with the “Kid In Bed” logo can be found on video and DVD releases done by Shout! Factory. Shout! Factory usually have done a good job at keeping original logos, but the variants with the show's closing theme are available only on some shows, such as Alvin & The Chipmunks and Rainbow Brite, among others. A version of the 1998-2001 logo, running at normal speed and with extended music, can still be found at the end of the 1999 movie Our Friend Martin on VHS and DVD). The Kid in Bed can also be found intact on many shows that used it on DiC's new website, www.kewlcartoons.com.
Scare Factor: High to nightmare for the earlier music variants, medium to high for the 1990 music variation, and low for the other variants. The darkness of the logo, the spiked star, and sudden appearance of “DiC” weren’t easy to look at for most kids, either. But the scare factor varies for those who are used to seeing it.
4th Logo
(2001-2008)
Nicknames: "The IWoD Globe", "The Incredible World of DiC"
Logo: We see a background with red, green, yellow and blue (the areas are filled with patterns such as a DiC logo outline, and planets). The red and green wipe away until we are left with a yellow BG with a blue oval. A purplish globe pops out of the blue oval, then bounces to the center before zooming to fill the screen and backing up again, at which point the planets in the BG disappear and are replaced with stars, and stars pop up from behind the globe. On the upper-half of the globe, some sparkles fly across and write the words:
The
Incredible World
----------------------of
in yellow script, and on the lower-half, the word:
DiC
(in the same-font as the “Kid in Bed” logo, in yellow) zooms out to the logo; also like the previous logo, a kid is often heard saying the company name (the third kid voiceover from the Kid in Bed logo).
Opening Variant: On the DiC Kids Network, the logo is shown at the beginning followed by the DiC effects that shows the title card logo and the cartoon character(s) with it such as Sabrina The Animated Series, Sabrina's Secret Life, Archie's Weird Mysteries, Inspector Gadget's Field Trip, The Littles, and Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, among others just to name a few.
FX/SFX: Just DiC quality animation.
Music/Sounds: A light techno-pop tune with bells and other cartoony sounds. Sometimes the theme is extended, with a few extra bells heard at the end. In other cases, it's edited/warp speed.
Availability: It was very common on the newer DiC-produced shows, such as Sabrina: The Animated Series, Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!, and Liberty’s Kids whenever reran. Also plastered older DiC logos in some cases, mainly on the "DiC Kids Network" syndication package which was syndicated by Tribune Entertainment from 2003-2007 and has been renamed to the "Cookie Jar Network" shortly afterwards, and was also seen on KOL's Secret Slumber Party on CBS in 2006 (now called Kewlopolis). It also appears on all shows on Kewlopolis (a current Saturday Morning block on CBS stations), and can be found on some DVDs (mainly the DiC DVDs distributed by Sterling/UAV Corporation). It's also seen on some shows on www.kewlcartoons.com, mainly DiC shows that originally had this logo and programs that did not use the Kid in Bed logo. But due to the fact that Cookie Jar is now plastering DiC logos on television programming and only for DVD releases, it's becoming uncommon.
Scare Factor: None; the logo may be cute for children, but you'll probably be annoyed by its childish and overused appearance.