DreamWorks Television

Credits

Descriptions by
Shadeed A. Kelly

Captures by
Eric S. and Shadeed A. Kelly

Background

DreamWorks Television was a television production arm of DreamWorks, LLC, established with the studio in 1994. Its first productions aired in 1996, more than a year before the first DreamWorks movie was released. Its shows had trouble coming to syndication because DreamWorks was too small to have its own syndication/distribution division. It eventually went with Paramount Domestic Television. Ironically, Paramount would acquire DreamWorks in 2006, so CBS Paramount Domestic Television/CBS Television Distribution (a part of CBS Corporation, which split from Viacom before the acquisition was completed) took over the complete rights to the DreamWorks Television library. DreamWorks broke apart from Viacom when its employees left to form the current version of DreamWorks. Currently, most of the pre-2008 DreamWorks Television library is owned by Paramount Pictures, syndicated under Paramount Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution or licensed to Trifecta Entertainment & Media. The current DreamWorks had its TV arm merged into Amblin Television sometime in 2013.

(March 4, 1996-August 4, 2013)

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Logo: The logo is cut down to only the last second or so of the animation from the movie logo, except there is a different cloud backdrop. The boy fishing on the moon in the upper center of the clouds can be seen.

Variants:

• A later widescreen version has the same backdrop from the movie logo.
• The logo may appear more zoomed-out on some shows.
• On Boomtown, the 16:9 variant is squished to 4:3.
• This logo is referred to as "DREAMWORKS TELEVISION" with "TELEVISION" below the line without "SKG", starting in January 2006.

FX/SFX: Same as the movie logo.

Music/Sounds: A soft 4-note horn sounder (different from the movie logo). Sometimes, it's silent, had the last few notes of the show theme, or had a generic theme on NBC, CBS and ABC.

Music/Sounds Variants:

• A low-tone version was heard on Boomtown, Undeclared, and the unsold pilot Life on Parole.
• A high note version is also heard on the short lived show Oliver Beene.
• A different 3-note violin theme is also heard on a unknown show, though of course this could just be the end credits theme.
• Part of the movie theme was heard on Alienators: Evolution Continues.

Availability: Common. It can be seen on quite a few shows such as The Contender, Carpoolers, Spin City, On The Lot, Boomtown, Rescue Me, Oliver Beene, Toonsylvania, Dog Bites Man, Ink and the first 3 seasons of Falling Skies, among others. The logo first appeared on High Incident, a series co-created by DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg. This logo does not appear on Band of Brothers or newer prints of Freaks and Geeks, as they use the still version of the theatrical logo instead. Foreign prints of Evolution: The Animated Series do not have this logo either, instead having the Columbia TriStar Television logo (Columbia co-released the movie and therefore has overseas rights), whereas the US version (known as Alienators: Evolution Continues) had this logo along with the Incredible World of DiC logo prior to the Fox Kids-style compressed credits (reruns of the series on This TV plastered the DiC logo with Cookie Jar's logo).

Editor's Note: This is a good predecessor to the full movie logo, which would premiere one year after this logo.