Spiffy Pictures

Spiffy Pictures
Founded:	2003 (21 years ago)
Founder:	David Rudman Adam Rudman

Background

Spiffy Pictures is a Chicago-based production company founded by brothers David and Adam Rudman, both of whom (specifically the former) are known for their work on Sesame Street. The company centers around producing shows for children and are known for their puppetry work. The company was founded in 2003.

Logo (April 22, 2004-November 8, 2008, November 25, 2015-)

• 
  First prototype variant
• 
  The animal winking (prototype)
• 
  Second prototype variant
• 
  2005
• 
  The animal winking
• 
  Bunnytown variant
• 
  2015

Visuals: On a tangerine background, a white oval with the head of a cartoon animal (it looks like a dog) wearing a beret in the center, "S P i F F Y" (in the Witless font) at the top and "P I C T U R E S" (in the Avant Garde font) at the bottom, jumps to the middle of the screen. The animal zooms up towards the viewer, says "Spiffy!", zooms back in place and winks with its right eye.

Variants:

• There are two prototype versions of this logo.
  • The first one was seen on the website. The whole logo is an orange circle, and has another blue circle in the center. The "SPIFFY" text is white with a shadow underneath it, the tagline "good stuff" is seen below, and "PICTURES" is written in a curved fashion. The animal also winks on the left eye instead of the right eye, and doesn't say anything.
  • The second one was seen on the Curious Buddies episodes "Look and Listen at the Park", "Exploring at the Beach", and "Helping at Home". It's essentially the regular logo, but the lighting is darker, the letters are closer, the lines are not filled as much and there is no pause in the animation when the animal winks. There is also a slight orange tint if one looks closely.
• On Bunnytown, the logo was modified. The logo is bigger and slightly positioned upwards, has a drop shadow and a thin white outline, is significantly shortened to just have the animal saying the company name, and the animation is cheaper.
• Starting in 2015, the logo was remade with new animation, a different font for the logo's text (to match the website logo), and the oval zooms out to the middle of the screen.
  • Sometimes on this version, the logo is slightly shortened so it removes the part where the animal says its line.
• On broadcasts and digital prints of the first three seasons of Nature Cat on PBS Kids, there's a copyright notice at the bottom that fades in. Earlier broadcasts lack the copyright notice.

Technique: 2D computer animation; Flash animation on the Bunnytown and 2015 variants.

Audio: A two-note accordion jingle (composed by Todd Hannert) followed by the animal's dialogue (voiced by David Rudman himself) and a ding-dong sound as he winks. On some episodes of Jack's Big Music Show, the closing theme is heard over the regular music.

Audio Variants:

• Jack's Big Music Show had four variations:
  • On the episode "Spunky the Alien", the animal says "Swinky!" The last note of the end theme also plays over the accordion note.
  • On the episode "Silly Show", the animal sounds like a chicken. It sounds like he's saying "SPUNKEH?!"
  • On the episode "Jack and the Beanstalk", a single drum sound plays at the beginning of the logo. This is actually a part of the end credits theme.
  • On the episode "Jack's Big Orchestra", the last note of "Can Can" by Jacques Offenbach plays over the accordion note.
• On Bunnytown, the accordion plays immediately after the animal says "Spiffy!"
• On Nature Cat and Donkey Hodie, the ending theme plays over the logo.
  • On seasons 4 and 5 of Nature Cat, while the animal winks, a xylophone note is heard over the closing theme.

Availability: The final logo can be seen on the shows Curious Buddies, Jack's Big Music Show, Bunnytown, Nature Cat, Frankie and Frank, and Donkey Hodie. The prototype version can be seen on the website here.

Legacy: Fans who grew up with Spiffy's works consider this a nostalgic logo; it's also infamous to some for being a common subject of memes/"logo edits (also known as "effects")" on YouTube.