90 Minutes/120 Minutes

Credits

Compiled by
Cattotld

Editions by
KosMir

Video captures courtesy of
R1991 and TV9

Background

90 Minut/120 Minut were the first titles of a morning news magazine of CT USSR Programme One (later Channel 1 Ostankino and then Channel One).

The first episode of the program was released on July 13, 1987 - Grigory Alexandrovich Shevelev was at its origins. On January 4, 1988, the program changed its name to 120 Minutes. The hosts of the program were Vladimir Molchanov and Larisa Verbitskaya. The program included "Morning Warm-Up", cartoons, performances by Russian singers, teleconferences, news and weather forecasts. Part of the "120 Minutes" program was also the healing sessions of Allan Chumak, a healer who silently "charged" water, ointments and creams. When launching the program, its creators were largely oriented towards the West: shortly before the launch, they saw the program "60 Minutes" on the CBS channel. By analogy with this, the first titles "60 Minutes", "90 Minutes" and "120 Minutes" were taken.

Later, in 1991, the program was renamed to Utro, then Tele Utro in 1994 and now Dobroe Utro in 1997.

1st Intro (July 13, 1987-1989)

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  The nearly finished product
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  The finished product

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  The nearly finished product
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  The finished product

Visuals: On a purple/orange gradient background, a glowing orange sun rises up frame-by-frame (the animation of the sun is represented by crossfading for six frames), then a diamond-shaped flash pans up from the bottom to the sun, causing it to turn into a smaller one, with a white blurry number "90", in a Bauhaus-esque font, and a white blurry bar below it. The object turns silver with multiple bevels and a bar turns into the word "МИНУТ" in a sliver gradient with black bordering as the sun fades out and the gradient background turns blue/pink, then the screen fades to a black city skyline with the logo above and a purple-blue gradient in space below the skyline. Two orange laser beams shoot towards below, and the white diamond shape flashes, causing the wide white text "ИНФОРМАЦИОННО-МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ПРОГРАММА" to appear below in three rows.

Later Variant: In 1988, when the program was renamed, the intro was redone. When a blurry diamond shape reached to the sun, the sun remained normal, but the number, which is now "120", already has multiple bevels, albeit in orange/golden colors before fading into a different shade of silver when the sun faded out, with "МИНУТ" being made in the same style as the said number. The white text at the end also gained a drop shadow and the letters are now cursive and lowercase. The colors of the gradient background also seem to expand their spaces more than the gradient itself, and the said background in the final shot is also light purple/hot pink.

Technique: Limited computer animation.

Audio: A dreamy and upbeat new-age synth chime tune, ending with repeating descending synth arpeggios.

2nd Intro (July 17, 1989)

Visuals: Over a horizontal cyan/gray gradient background is the 120 Minutes logo from before, albeit closer to the screen and having a cleaner shade of silver, with the clouds and the sun rays (stylized as a three-pointed yellow segmented shape) on the left portion, and a navy umbrella going through the number "0".

Technique: 2D computer effects.

Audio: The synth arpeggios from before.