DeMuZa Produções

Credits

Video captures courtesy of
Raro VHS

Background

DeMuZa Produções was founded in 1979 by Dedé Santana, Carlinhos Mussum, and Zacarias, three members of the four-part comedy group Os Trapalhões. The company became notorious after the group split up from Renato Aragão (Didi) in mid-1983. During the six months split, DeMuZa produced Atrapalhando a Suate, released in December 1983 against Didi's solo movie O Trapalhão na Arca de Noé, released at the same time. The trio rejoined with Didi in January 1984, with DeMuZa licensing the trio's figure and Os Trapalhões name while co-producing movies with Renato Aragão Produções. DeMuZa (by that time called ZDM Produções) ceased activities by the early 1990's due to the death of Zacarias in March 1990.

Logo (December 10, 1983-December 20, 1984)

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Visuals: The screen fades into a pastiche of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo, where a cartoon version of Dedé Santana sporting facial hair similar to that of a lion's mane is rubbing his hair inside the MGM ribbon. The camera zooms out, and he does a double take at the audience before making a taunting face (putting his hands in his ears and sticking his tongue out). The camera pans to the right where we see a woman holding a torch in the air (parodying the Columbia logo) snickering at the man in return. The camera then cuts to the back to Dedé, who realizes he's being mocked and angrily walks out of the cutout towards the torch lady. He then smiles as he grabs a ribbon on the ground that's connected to the torch lady's dress, then yanks it away, causing the torch lady to cartoonishly spin around in place while her dress and costume unravels, revealing that the "torch lady" was Zacarias in costume, covering his nudity once he's exposed. Then it cuts to the torch that the Zacarias dropped earlier falling down towards a vulture with Mussum's face (refering to the Flamengo soccer team, which Mussum was a fan of) standing atop a mountain encircles by a ring of stars (spoofing Paramount). As the torch falls, its flame lights up Mussum's tail. He turns around to sniff shortly before realizing his tail is on fire, and he promptly dashes off the mountain. Then it cuts to Mussum running in front of golden structure similar to that of 20th Century Fox, but displaying three gold rings and the word "DEMUZA" stacked on each other instead. The searchlights move as "DEMUZA" zooms in and turns silver, and the rest of the logo fades out. Fading in are three silver spheres above "DEMUZA", and "&" in white, "J.B. Tanko" in red, and "apresentar" in white below fade in.

Variant: A much shorter variant that starts at "DEMUZA" zooming in and, instead of fading out, it freeze-frames and the white text "APRESENTA" types out in the bottom-right.

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: Comedic rock background music and the sounds of the characters interacting with each other, before segueing into a samba rendition of the CinemaScope extension of the 20th Century Fox fanfare.

Availability: The full version is only seen on Atrapalhando a Suate. The short version is seen on Os Trapalhões e o Mágico de Oróz and A Filha dos Trapalhões, the first two movies co-produced with Renato Aragão Produções after the reconciliation of all four Trapalhões.

Legacy: A humorous (and slightly risqué) spoof of multiple American film logos.