Rapido Television

Credits

Compiled by
Camenati

Editions by
AlmightyKingPrawn and TheRealMarcel2000

Background

Rapido Television is a London-based television production company best known for Eurotrash. It is named after the BBC Two show of the same name, which aired from 1988 to 1992.

1st Logo (1993-1996)

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Logo: On a black background, there is a cartoony, orange TV with the text "TV" with a static effect inside. Underneath it is a Channel 4 copyright notice reading "©Channel Four Television (year in Roman numerals)". On the top of the TV, the text "RAPIDO" slides in from the right and shakes when it stops in the center.

Variant: On The Girlie Show, the copyright notice is stacked.

Technique: The static in the "TV" text and the company name sliding.

Music/Sounds: A cartoony, descending whoosh sound. The end trail of the program may play over this logo.

Availability: Was seen on Naked City and early episodes of The Girlie Show and Eurotrash.

2nd Logo (Carnal Knowledge variant) (February 15-August 1, 1996)

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Logo: On a black background, there are two childishly-drawn figures, a blue male with a leaf over his crotch and a magenta woman with bare breasts and the same object over her groin. On the top is the stylized text "Rapido TV" with "A" in white to the left of it and underneath the figures is "Production for ITV".

Technique: The text and figures being redrawn.

Music/Sounds: The ending theme of the show.

Availability: Only seen on Carnal Knowlege.

3rd Logo (Big Mouth variant) (March 19, 1996-Late 1990's)

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Logo: On a gold background with the top of a blue can on the bottom, a red 2D head with changing textures, a big eye and mouth pops out of the can and burps while facing the right. It returns back into the can, allowing the bottom text

©channel four television corporation (year in Roman numerals)
a rapido production for channel four

to fade in and the top text "rapido tv" to slide from the top with each of the letters loose. They stop on the left, causing the letters to overlap and then arrange into the center of the screen.

Technique: 2D animation.

Music/Sounds: A burping sound when the head burps and then the same whoosh sound from the 1st logo. Like the 1st logo, the ending of the show trails over this logo.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the April 9, 1996 episode, the burp as well as the first half is replaced with a short rock guitar sting.

Availability: Only seen on Big Mouth.

4th Logo (January 29, 1997-2001, 2004-2009, June 17, 2016)

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Logo: On a white background, there are the faintly visible stacked letters "RAP" and "IDO" with the former on the left and the latter on the right. Both are in an outline with a shadow effect. From the right, a White's tree frog slides in, stopping in the center while expanding its left eye. Then, the text "rapido tv" types in followed by the bottom copyright notice reading "©Channel Four Television (year in Roman numerals)". Lastly, the frog shouts a random sound effect.

Trivia: The background is based on the Rapido show, where Antoine de Caunes standing in front of a large Rapido sign on a white background.

Variants:

• Sometimes, the text within the background is removed.
• When the logo was revived in the mid-2000's, the text was replaced with lowercase letters in a black box for "rapido" and a normal format for "TELEVISION".
• On The Dark Side of Porn episode "Death of a Porn Star", the mid-2000's variant is inside a white tube box and in a split-screen format.
• On Pride Divide, after the tree frog slides in, it becomes pink through a fading effect. The company name is also in said colour.

Technique: Live-action for the frog accompanied with sliding and the text typing and fading in.

Music/Sounds: The same cartoon whoosh sound from before when the frog slides in, followed by a few bubbling noises, then a typewriter in-sync with the text appearing, and then a beastly roar from the frog.

Music/Sounds Variants:

• The frog's noise can vary on many shows and episodes:
  • On the Fortean TV episode "The Best of Series One" and episode one of the uncut version of the show, the roar was replaced with a stock baby laughing sound.
    • Episode 2 of series 2 of aforementioned show has a chicken cluck, a moo for the next episode, a duckling quack on episode 5, and an owl hooting for episode 7.
    • The uncut episodes of said show has episode 2 include a horse neighing, a short and weird voice saying "Cow" for the next episode, and a dog howl for episode 4.
  • Likewise, Eurotrash has many noise variations. On one episode, the frog's roar was replaced with a fart noise.

Availability:

• Despite appearing on many programs from this period, most of them are only found through old video recordings. Shows that include this logo are Fortean TV, later episodes of Eurotrash, and The Dark Side of Porn episode "Death of a Porn Star".
• It has also appeared on their website at the beginning and end of clips of their many shows, but are possibly no longer around due to the end of Flash.
• The logo made a brief return on the Eurotrash special "Eurotrash EU Referendum Special".

5th Logo (2001-2004)

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Logo: We see the same tree frog from before sitting on a globe with red-colored land while releasing red signals. Underneath, the bottom text "planetrapido" scrolls from the left, followed by the text ".com" to type in and then the frog shouts, in-sync with the copyright notice underneath to pop in.

Variant: As usual with Channel 4 co-produced programmes in the early 2000s, the logo would be smaller and to the left of said network's logo.

Technique: The signal wiping and the text appearing and typing.

Music/Sounds: Same as before but now with morse code sounds.

Music/Sounds Variant: On a series 14 episode of Eurotrash, the tree frog utters "Sh*t!".

Availability: Extremely rare, it was so far seen on Around the World in 80 Raves and later series of Eurotrash.