Bing Crosby Productions (BCP) was founded in the late 1940s by actor Bing Crosby to produce films and his early TV series The Fireside Theater. Later, BCP produced the medical dramas Ben Casey and Breaking Point, as well as the World War II sitcom Hogan's Heroes. BCP was sold to Cox Broadcasting in 1968; BCP turned its attention to films after this, and Crosby had no further involvement in the company after 1971, leading to his name being dropped from the company.
BCP was shut down by Cox in 1979, following the poor performance of The Great Santini; its library was merged with the Operation Prime Time/Television Program Enterprises library, and is now split between CBS Media Ventures (for TV series) and Paramount (for films), with a few exceptions (one of which was The Great Santini itself, which was released by the Orion/Warner Bros. partnership and is currently distributed by Warner Bros.)
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1st Logo (October 2, 1961-May 13, 1963) | 2nd Logo (September 9, 1963-June 1974) | 3rd Logo (April 25, 1975-October 26, 1979) |
Visuals: Superimposed, the image of two film reels fade into the middle of the screen. Then the words "A" and "Production" fade into place as Bing Crosby's name writes itself over the reels in a stylized font, not unlike that used for Desilu's, at an angle (in the same angled font as Crosby's name), reading "A Bing Crosby Production" (later referred to as "Bing Crosby Productions").
Trivia: On Ben Casey, a bunch of symbols, synonymous to the intro, appear vertical in the background between the reels (from top to bottom: Man (a "male" symbol), Woman (a "female" symbol), Birth (a star), Death (a cross), and an "infinity" symbol).
Technique: Traditional animation.
Audio: The closing theme of the show.
Availability: Originally seen on pre-1963 episodes of Ben Casey. However, this was plastered in the 1980s with the Worldvision Enterprises logo (gray (or black) "Radar Globe II" on B&W shows, standard version on color shows).
Visuals: On a sky blue background, a very thin black line zooms from the upper left side, moves almost halfway across the screen and then flips downward, revealing a yellow capital "B" in a black parallelogram. By the time the "B" is fully revealed, a second line flips downward, which reveals a red capital "C" in an orange parallelogram. When the "C" is fully revealed, a third line flips downward, revealing a light blue capital "P" in a dark blue parallelogram. By the time all three parallelograms are in their places, the words "BING CROSBY PRODUCTIONS" in an italic Copperplate Bold font appear underneath.
Variants:
Technique: Cel animation.
Audio: A loud and dramatic fanfare composed by Gerald Fried, having a short and long version, with the short one being more common. It sounds like two car horns going off as they are just about to crash into each other.
Audio Variants:
Availability: This logo is intact on Hogan's Heroes reruns on Me-TV and DVD releases. The longer fanfare variation could be seen on Breaking Point and later episodes of Ben Casey.
Visuals: On a black background, there is the previous logo, colored in various tones of gray. The word "presents" is seen below. No other text is seen.
Byline: The byline "A Service of COX BROADCASTING CORPORATION" has appeared on some releases.
Technique: A still, printed image.
Audio: None or the opening theme of the movie.
Availability: Can still be seen on their theatrical movies from the time. [Examples?]
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