Blue Sky Studios was founded in February 1987 by Chris Wedge, Carl Ludwig, and four other artists and technicians who had previously worked on the 1982 Disney film Tron while employed at MAGI/Synthavision. Blue Sky produced the famous Nicktoons "Blob" commercial bumper which aired on Nickelodeon from 1993 to 1999. Blue Sky has also produced full-length animated movies beginning with Ice Age in 2002. In 1997, the studio was acquired by Twentieth Century Fox (now known as 20th Century Studios). On January 5, 2009, the studio was moved from White Plains, New York to Greenwich, Connecticut. Blue Sky Studios also animated 20th Century Fox's final logo for the studio's 75th anniversary, the Fox Star Studios logo, the Fox International Productions logo, and the final Searchlight Pictures logo under the Fox Searchlight Pictures name.
On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company officially confirmed its acquisition of 21st Century Fox's key assets, including Blue Sky. The purchase was completed on March 20, 2019. On February 9, 2021, Disney announced they would close Blue Sky in April of that year, stating that functioning a third animation studio wasn't viable due to the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, various upcoming films from Blue Sky were cancelled, but their animated film adaptation of the webcomic Nimona was revived by Annapurna Pictures, Netflix, and DNEG Feature Animation. The film was officially released on June 30th, 2023. On April 10, 2021, the company ceased operations, and its assets are now owned by Disney. The last official production from the studio, Ice Age: Scrat Tales, was released as a Disney+ miniseries on April 13, 2022.
At the time of closure, they were well known for the Ice Age and Rio franchises, and the films Robots, Horton Hears A Who!, Epic, The Peanuts Movie, Ferdinand, and Spies in Disguise. Scrat from the first title was the studio's mascot from 2013-19.
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1st Logo (March 15, 2002-February 4, 2005) | 2nd Logo (March 11, 2005-July 13, 2012) | 3rd Logo (May 24, 2013-April 13, 2022) |
Logo: On a black background, we see the text "Blue Sky" in white, with a blue paint stroke strike underneath. Copyright info is seen at the bottom of the screen.
Variant: Sometimes, the logo appears in a white oval. It's probably a prototype variant of the next logo.
Technique: None.
Music/Sounds: Part of the soundtrack from the trailer, or none.
Availability:
Legacy: It was unknown whether this elusive logo was real or not for a long time, until it was discovered on the aforementioned TV spots and video games.
Logo: On a plain white background, we see a plain white shield with a blue outline rotating over the text "Blue Sky", in the same font as the previous logo. Then the text "studios" fades in underneath. The logo fades to the opening shot of the movie.
Variants:
Technique: Simple computer animation. None for the still print version.
Music/Sounds: None or the opening theme of the movie.
Availability:
Logo: On a white background, we see Scrat's acorn from the Ice Age films sitting on a solid blue surface. Scrat himself then appears in the distance, hops to the acorn and embraces it. Suddenly, the surface tips to the right. Scrat runs to the left and closer to the screen, causing the surface to tip towards the left, becoming increasingly vertical. Scrat panics and scrambles in vain to tip the surface back to the right, but ends up clinging to the vertical surface while his acorn falls off-screen. The camera then zooms out to reveal the vertical surface as the left side of the "B" in "Blue Sky" (in a similar serif font as before), with "STUDIOS" below. Scrat then loses his grip on the "B" and bonks off the left corner before falling off. A drop shadow fades in behind the text, and then we fade out.
Alternate Descriptive Video Description: Scrat hops over a blue surface, grabs his acorn, and snuggles it. The blue surface tilts right, then left, dramatically. Scrat scrambles, drops his acorn, and clings to the now vertical surface. The view widens, revealing blue letters on a white background: Blue Sky Studios.
Variants:
Technique: CGI by Blue Sky themselves, who also animated 20th Century Fox's final logo for their 75th anniversary. None for the still variant.
Music/Sounds: Just the sounds of the surface tipping back and forth, a "whoosh" noise as the camera zooms out, and Scrat (voiced by Chris Wedge) making noises; he does his iconic scream at the end as he dives off-screen.
Music/Sounds Variants:
Availability:
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