Sunbow Entertainment

1st Logo (January 1981-1984)

Sunbow Productions (1981)

Nicknames: "Zooming Sun", "The Great Sun Coaster", "The Sunbow Sun", "The Dark Sun", "Jeopardy! Logo With A Zest", "Sun of Doom"

Logo: We fade to a medium blue (or dark blue) background. The symbol emerges from the top corner of the screen and zooms-down chyron-rollercoaster style. It then curves to the middle of the screen. The logo appears as a sun motif, with the company name "SUNBOW PRODUCTIONS" surrounding an orange-yellow circle. The words appear as the sun's rays, and they bear a vague resemblance to the Jeopardy! logo.

FX/SFX: The zooming-in of the logo with the Scanimated chyron trail.

Music/Sounds: A high "whoosh" effect, followed by an obscure keyboard-type chime that has a "wow" sound to it.

Availability: Extremely rare. Can be seen on the first three seasons of The Great Space Coaster, which were released on VHS byMGM/UA Home Video. Four episodes were available on Vimeo's On-Demand service for a short time.

Editor's Note: The fast and rough zoom-in with the black trail and SFX can be very startling for unexpecting viewers. The design looks very unfriendly as well.

2nd Logo (September 12, 1983-February 11, 1995)

Sunbow Productions (1983)Sunbow Productions (1992)Sunbow/Marvel (1984)Sunbow/Marvel (1987)Sunbow/Marvel (1987)

Nicknames: "80s Sun", "'Flashing Sun", "The Comet/CGI MP", "The Sunbow Sun II"

Logo: On a shady blue background, 4 dots of light fly from the midpoint of each side of the screen and merge in the middle, exploding into a huge ball of orange light that fades to reveal the Sunbow logo identical to the previous logo, but with a brighter orange color cast and black outlines. The logo "shines".

Sunbow-Marvel Combo Variants: Television: On a dark blue background, a stylized "MP" (larger version of the first Marvel Productions logo, but colored blue and white) quickly zooms backwards, placing itself on the bottom half of the screen. When the "MP" is in place, a flash of light reveals the words "MARVEL PRODUCTIONS LTD." in a rounded white font, along with the byline "A CADENCE COMPANY" underneath in a smaller font. At the same time, a spark forms an orange ball of light on the top half of the screen, which fades to reveal the 1984 Sunbow logo. When both logos are in place, a very bright sparkle shines on the edge of the "P" in the Marvel Productions logo. Movies and Television: We zoom out over a space BG from an orange planet, as a glowing orange ball of light hits it. This turns it into the Sunbow logo, as we zoom out through the bars of the CG Marvel logo, in silver/white (the Marvel logo doesn't have the white part of the "M"), and the logos both shine. The television counterpart is the short version and only features the logos shining.

Other Variants: Short versions of the logo exists, usually starting with the huge orange ball or the finished logo shining.

FX/SFX/Cheesy Factor: The dots of light merging, the orange light, the logo "shining"; The "MP" zooming backwards, the orange ball of light revealing the Sunbow logo, and the flashing effects for the combo variants.

Music/Sounds: A short, somber piano/bass/synth tune with two synth dings at the end when the logo shines. The end theme may also finish over it.

Music/Sounds Variants: There's a fully synthesized remix of the fanfare with a whoosh as the dots converge that can be seen on some season one and all season two episodes of Conan the Adventurer. On Marvel co-produced movies, it's a "spacey-like" theme with lightsaber-esque whooshes.

Availability: Rare. The standard variant with the end theme was seen on the 1992 episodes ofConan the Adventurer while the variant with the jingle is used on 1993 episodes of said show both on Tubi TV, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, My Little Pony Tales (the early '90s reboot), Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Warriors, a few CBS Schoolbreak Specials like "A Matter of Conscience", the one-shot DTV feature Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles (a spin-off of G.I. Joe), as well as early episodes of The Tick. As for the original variant with music, it's extremely rare and was seen on the final two seasons of The Great Space Coaster, international prints of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (the 1989 series), and the 1984 CBS Special The Secret World of the Very Young. For the Marvel combo variants, the first Sunbow/Marvel logo was seen on G.I. Joe, Transformers: Generation 1, and Jem and the Holograms, as well as the 1980's incarnation of My Little Pony, and both of the shows that were bundled with it, Moon Dreamers and Potato Head Kids. It was also seen on Inhumanoids. The movie variant is seen on the 1986 Transformers movie, along with later episodes of Transformers: Generation 1 and G.I. Joe.

Editor's Note: The effects in this logo arerather passe today, but are pretty cool cel animation for the time, and the design looks cleaner and less extreme than the previous logo.

3rd Logo (Late 1994-June 26, 1998)

Sunbow Productions (1996)Nicknames: "'90s Sun", "The Sunbow Sun III"

Logo: On a black background, we see the dark blue text as a yellow sun rises from between the "B" and "W," casting a light on the rest of the logo. The logo is arranged almost like this:

SUNBOW

ENTERTAINMENT

Variant: There is an abridged version of the logo.

FX/SFX: The sun rising. Pretty simple, but effective animation.

Music/Sounds: A dramatic 6-note woodwind fanfare with a "trill" at the end. The short version has the last 3 notes and the trill. The end theme may also play over it.

Availability: Rare. It appeared on later episodes of The Tick, Littlest Pet Shop (the 1995 version), Salty's Lighthouse, G.I. Joe: Extreme, Mission: Genesis (a.k.a. Deepwater Black in some markets), the short-lived Adventures of Hyperman, and The Mask: The Animated Series.

Editor's Note: The dramatic music might catch some off guard; otherwise this is a nice logo.

4th Logo (1998-1999?)

Sunbow Entertainment (199?, nearly finished)Sunbow Entertainment (199?)

Left: The nearly-finished logo. Right: The finished logo.

Nicknames: "CGI Earth to Sun", "90s Sun II", "The Sunbow Sun IV"

Logo: In space with the light shining on the top-left hand corner, the spinning Earth zooms out and places into the near-left at the comfortable distance, then the words "SUNB W" and "ENTERTAINMENT" from the last logo, but are colored gold and white, respectively, and facing downwards, fly in from the sides of the screen into the usual position, and face the viewer, forming the similar finished product to the last logo. Then the entire logo goes two-dimensional as the background turns white, the sun turns into the white/yellow radial gradient and the words black.

FX/SFX: Decent CGI done in-house.

Music/Sounds: A rock theme with a few whooshes added.

Availability: Ultra rare. We don't know which shows this appeared on.

Editor's Note: None.

5th Logo (January 17, 1999-February 19, 2005)

Sunbow Entertainment (Sony Wonder byline)Sunbow Entertainment (2001)Sunbow Entertainment (In-Credit, 2004)

Nicknames: "2000s Sun", "The Sunbow Sun V"

Logo: On a white background we see the "SUNBOW" text from before only this time the sun in place of the "O" is more hand-drawn and has lines surrounding it.

Bylines: 1999-2000?: "A Division of Sony Wonder". 2000?-2003: "A TV-Loonland Company". Copyright information is far beneath the logo also in black.

Early Variant: On The Brothers Flub, the sun rises in a manner similar to the third logo and the background starts out blue before turning turquoise.

Variant: On season 3 of The Cramp Twins, the logo is in-credit and is way before the other logos, probably because the animation then had been taken over by Telemagination and Sunbow had closed at that point.

FX/SFX: None. The sun rising and the background changing color on the variant.

Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the program. A rooster crowing on the variant.

Availability: Rare. Was seen on Generation O!, The Cramp Twins, and The Brothers Flub.

Editor's Note: None.

Final Note

In 2004, TV-Loonland folded Sunbow Entertainment. In 2009, Hasbro, Inc. acquired its properties (i.e. G.I. Joe and Transformers) from TV-Loonland. TV-Loonland themselves filed for bankruptcy in December of that year, and, 2 years later, the rest of TV Loonland's catalog was sold to m4e (made for entertainment) AG in Germany.