Sunbow Entertainment

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Logo descriptions by Nicholas Aczel and Adam P.
Logo captures by snelfu, EnormousRat, StephenCezar15, Eric S., and TrickyMario7654

Video captures courtesy of English1stud's Sanctum, GDelva2003, NinJutsuDude1997 (AmantiDorian), Eric S, and Pepsi9072.

1st Logo

(January 1981-1984)

Nicknames: "Zooming Sun", "The Great Sun Coaster", "The Sunbow Sun", "

Logo: We fade to a medium blue (or dark blue) background. The symbol emerges from the top corner of the screen and zooms-down chyron-rollercoaster style. It then curves to the middle of the screen. The logo appears as a sun motif, with the company name "SUNBOW PRODUCTIONS" surrounding an orange-yellow circle. The words appear as the sun's rays, and they bear a vague resemblance to the Jeopardy! logo.

FX/SFX: The zooming-in of the logo with the Scanimated chyron trail.

Music/Sounds: A high "whoosh" effect, followed by an obscure keyboard-type chime that has a "wow" sound to it.

Availability: Extremely rare. Can be seen on the first three seasons of The Great Space Coaster, which were released on VHS by MGM/UA Home Video. Four episodes were available on Vimeo's On-Demand service for a short time.

Editor's Note: The fast and rough zoom-in with the black trail and SFX can be very startling for unexpecting viewers. The design looks very unfriendly as well.

2nd Logo

(September 12, 1983-February 11, 1995)

Nicknames: "80s Sun", "'Flashing Sun", "The Comet/CGI MP", "The Sunbow Sun II"

Logo: On a shady blue background, 4 dots of light fly from the midpoint of each side of the screen and merge in the middle, exploding into a huge ball of orange light that fades to reveal the Sunbow logo identical to the previous logo, but with a brighter orange color cast and black outlines. The logo "shines".

Sunbow-Marvel Combo Variants:

Television: On a dark blue background, a stylized "MP" (larger version of the first Marvel Productions logo, but colored blue and white) quickly zooms backwards, placing itself on the bottom half of the screen. When the "MP" is in place, a flash of light reveals the words "MARVEL PRODUCTIONS LTD." in a rounded white font, along with the byline "A CADENCE COMPANY" underneath in a smaller font. At the same time, a spark forms an orange ball of light on the top half of the screen, which fades to reveal the 1984 Sunbow logo. When both logos are in place, a very bright sparkle shines on the edge of the "P" in the Marvel Productions logo.
Movies and Television: We zoom out over a space BG from an orange planet, as a glowing orange ball of light hits it. This turns it into the Sunbow logo, as we zoom out through the bars of the CG Marvel logo, in silver/white (the Marvel logo doesn't have the white part of the "M"), and the logos both shine. The television counterpart is the short version and only features the logos shining.

Other Variants: Short versions of the logo exists, usually starting with the huge orange ball or the finished logo shining.

FX/SFX/Cheesy Factor: The dots of light merging, the orange light, the logo "shining"; The "MP" zooming backwards, the orange ball of light revealing the Sunbow logo, and the flashing effects for the combo variants.

Music/Sounds: A short, somber piano/bass/synth tune with two synth dings at the end when the logo shines. The end theme may also finish over it.

Music/Sounds Variants:

There's a fully synthesized remix of the fanfare with a whoosh as the dots converge that can be seen on some season one and all season two episodes of Conan the Adventurer.
On Marvel co-produced movies, it's a "spacey-like" theme with lightsaber-esque whooshes.

Availability: Rare.

The standard variant with the end theme was seen on the 1992 episodes of Conan the Adventurer while the variant with the jingle is used on 1993 episodes of said show.
With the ending theme, it would appear on Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, My Little Pony Tales (the early '90s reboot of MLP), Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Warriors, a few CBS Schoolbreak Specials like "A Matter of Conscience", the one-shot DTV feature Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles (a spin-off of G.I. Joe and the last feature to use this logo), as well as early episodes of The Tick.
As for the original variant with music, it's extremely rare and was seen on the final two seasons of The Great Space Coaster, international prints of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (the 1989 series), and the 1984 CBS Special The Secret World of the Very Young.
For the Marvel combo variants, the first Sunbow/Marvel logo was seen on G.I. Joe, Transformers: Generation 1, and Jem and the Holograms, as well as the 1980's incarnation of My Little Pony, and both of the shows that were bundled with it, Moon Dreamers and Potato Head Kids. It was also seen on Inhumanoids. The movie variant is seen on the 1986 Transformers movie, along with later episodes of Transformers: Generation 1 and G.I. Joe.

Editor's Note: The effects in this logo are rather passe today, but has pretty cool cel animation for the time, and the design looks cleaner and less extreme than the previous logo.

3rd Logo

(Late 1994-June 26, 1998)

Nicknames: "'90s Sun", "The Sunbow Sun III"

Logo: On a black background, we see the dark blue text as a yellow sun rises from between the "B" and "W," casting a light on the rest of the logo. The logo is arranged almost like this:

-------------------SUNBOW
---------------------- ENTERTAINMENT

Variant: There is an abridged version of the logo.

FX/SFX: The sun rising. Pretty simple, but effective animation.

Music/Sounds: A dramatic 6-note woodwind fanfare with a "trill" at the end. The short version has the last 3 notes and the trill. The end theme may also play over it.

Availability: Rare. It appeared on later episodes of The Tick, The Mask: Animated Series, Littlest Pet Shop (the 1995 version), G.I. Joe: Extreme, Salty's Lighthouse, Mission: Genesis (a.k.a. Deepwater Black in some markets), the short-lived Adventures of Hyperman, and The Crayon Box.

Editor's Note: The dramatic music might catch some off guard; otherwise this is a nice logo.

4th Logo

(1998-1999?)

Sunbow Entertainment (199?, nearly finished)

Left: The nearly-finished logo.

Right: The finished logo.

Nicknames: "CGI Earth to Sun", "90s Sun II", "The Sunbow Sun IV"

Logo: In space with the light shining on the top-left hand corner, the spinning Earth zooms out and places into the near-left at the comfortable distance, then the words "SUNB W" and "ENTERTAINMENT" from the last logo, but are colored gold and white, respectively, and facing downwards, fly in from the sides of the screen into the usual position, and face the viewer, forming the similar finished product to the last logo. Then the entire logo goes two-dimensional as the background turns white, the sun turns into the white/yellow radial gradient and the words black.

FX/SFX: Decent CGI done in-house.

Music/Sounds: A rock theme with a few whooshes added.

Availability: This is very likely a prototype logo and so has not been seen on any shows.

Editor's Note: None.

5th Logo

(January 17, 1999-February 19, 2005)

Nicknames: "2000s Sun", "The Sunbow Sun V"

Logo: We see the "SUNBOW" text from before only this time the sun in place of the "O" is more hand-drawn and has lines surrounding it. The "ENTERTAINMENT" text is spaced out in the length of the "SUNBOW" text. Each show has a different version.

Variants:

On The Brothers Flub, the background starts off dark blue, then the sun rises up to the text similar to the third logo. After that, the sun-lines appear through a circular effect that changes the background color to turquoise. The byline for this variant is "A division of Sony Wonder".
On the first two seasons of The Cramp Twins, the logo is on a white background and is still. The byline for this one is "A TV-Loonland Company" and copyright information appears below.
On Season 3 of The Cramp Twins, the logo appears in-credit and is way before the other logos, this is very likely due to Telemagination taking over the animation for the series after Sunbow's closure. Season 4 doesn't include the logo at all.

FX/SFX:

The Brothers Flub: The sun rising and the background changing color.
The Cramp Twins: None.

Music/Sounds:

The Brothers Flub: A Rooster Crowing.
The Cramp Twins: The End theme to the show.

Availability: Only appeared on The Brothers Flub and The Cramp Twins excluding Season 4. The two other shows that Sunbow produced at the time (Fat Dog Mendoza and Generation O!) only contain in-credit notices and other logos.

Editor's Note: None.

Final Note: In 2004, TV-Loonland folded Sunbow Entertainment. In 2009, Hasbro, Inc. acquired its properties (i.e. G.I. Joe and Transformers) from TV-Loonland. TV-Loonland themselves filed for bankruptcy in December of that year, and, 2 years later, the rest of TV Loonland's catalog was sold to m4e (made for entertainment) AG in Germany.

Sunbow Entertainment

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