Turner Entertainment Co.

Background

The Turner Entertainment Company (commonly referred to as "Turner Entertainment Co.") was established on August 4, 1986 by media mogul, Ted Turner, initially being a media distribution subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System to oversee its film and television libraries after its ultra short-lived acquisition of MGM/UA Entertainment Co (now "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.," and "United Artists Corporation" respectively, which are now owned by MGM Holdings Inc.). The company was formerly responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution. Since Time Warner (later "WarnerMedia" and now "Warner Bros. Discovery") acquired Turner Broadcasting in 1996, it has served an in-name only subsidiary and copyright holder of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

1st Logo (1987-2001)

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Nicknames: "The Blue/Green Globe", "The CGI Globe", "Planet Turner"

Logo: On a blue/violet gradient CGI starfield, an oblong blue marquee with gold trim with the word "Turner" in silver, fancy and italic letters with the right arm of the "T" extended over the other letters, and the left arm curled; this is the same as the Turner print logo moves in, close to the screen from the right. The camera turns left to follow it, and it approaches a green globe, like a planet or moon, positioned in the top left and lit from there and behind. As it approaches, it zooms out and turns its left side (the camera's right) in away from the camera, eventually settling in front of the globe as the camera movement stops.

Variants: There are two versions of the graphic; one with a large globe at the top left and smaller (in proportion) marquee that faces us at an angle at the end, and one with a smaller globe at the top right and longer, more expanded marquee that faces us head-on. The former is most commonly used as the short version. And keep these color variations in mind too:

Red/violet starfield, violet/white/gold marquee, blue planet facing the left, marquee sweeps at a moderate speed after about a second, facing the camera at an angle.
Blue starfield, blue/white/gold marquee, bluish-green planet facing the left, marquee sweeps at a moderate speed after about a second, facing the camera at an angle.
Blue starfield, green/white/gold marquee, bluish-green planet facing the left, marquee sweeps quickly as soon as it fades in, facing the camera head-on. A matted widescreen version of this variant also exists.
Blue/violet starfield, green/white marquee, bluish-green planet facing the right, marquee sweeps at a moderate speed after about a second, facing the camera head-on.
Blue/violet starfield, blue/white/gold marquee, bluish-green planet facing the left, marquee sweeps slowly after about 3 seconds, facing the camera at an angle.
Violet/red starfield, violet/yellow marquee, blue planet facing the left, marquee sweeps quickly as soon as it fades in,facing the camera at an angle.
There is an "enhanced"/videotaped version shown in widescreen. It had more stars at the beginning, an expanded marquee, the interior of the "Turner" text has more reflections and appears to be shinier, the shining effects on the lettering aren't as cheesy, and the animation in general is much smoother.
Sometimes, the logo is shown in black & white.
On some occasions, chyroned text is shown beneath the logo; one version says "A Turner Entertainment Co. Presentation", another says "Listed on the American Stock Exchange".

FX/SFX: The starfield, logo and globe, all decent mid-late 1980s CGI.

Music/Sounds:

The standard variant features a triumphant 10-note orchestral tune, with a flourish as the logo first appears.
The short version of this logo features a 5-note calm synth/trumpet theme.

Music/Sounds Variants:

A high tone variant of the long version can be found before the short film The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Story on TCM.
A low tone variant of the short version can be found on the Top Cat episode "The 1,000,000 Derby" on Boomerang. A low tone version of the long version can be found on the 2002 DVD print of Logan's Run and at the end of the 1999 VHS release of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. It is possible that this is how the NTSC Turner prints of them two were left from the start after the editing.
A high tone variant of the short version ended up on Canada's Teletoon reruns of The Scooby-Doo Show, due to the entire respective episodes being aired high-pitched. The same can be said for The Flintstones episode "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes" on recent Boomerang Central and Eastern Europe airings from 2013-2018.
On some Turner shows aired on Teletoon, the logo plays its extended version, but the closing theme plays for half of its length. The other half plays the short logo's music. This was probably done to cover up HB logos, but it's present on the original 1995 print remaster of The Tom and Jerry Show (1975 version), as seen on Russian, Arabic and Mexican airings of the series.
A silent version is seen on early 2000's TV Land airings of Gilligan's Island and the VHS of the colorized version of The Philadelphia Story. The same thing happened at the end of a French airing of The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission, though it is not known if the issue came because of the editing done by the dubbing studio or if the European Turner master itself is like that.
2011 reruns of The Smurfs on POP! in the UK have the final seconds of the end credits theme over the short variant, while the logo along with the H-B Swirling Star and the entire end credits sequence have been digitally sped up to match the ending theme song without the sound of the logos, likely due to time-compressing.

Availability: Uncommon for both versions.

This was once found on many movies and shows from the Turner library, mainly on older home video releases by MGM/UA Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video. However, ever since the merger between Turner and Time Warner in 1996, many of the shows have since passed on to Warner Bros. Television Distribution (now under WarnerMedia) and thus newer prints of these shows and movies will use WB logos. However, the logo has still managed to end up here and there on some post-1996 releases.
The long version appears before several short films on TCM (usually preceded by a TCM Extras bumper), but is usually replaced with the current TCM logo on feature films.
The print logo itself continued to be used until 2015, when they introduced a new print logo.
The logo is also still kept on much of the Hanna-Barbera library. The short version can be still seen on Tooncast broadcasts in Latin America of The Flintstones, The Jetsons (both remastered and 80s pre-Turner masters retain it), Top Cat and all three shows on the Boomerang US channel whenever they decide to rerun them again. It was also kept on Boomerang reruns of The Atom Ant Show, two Jonny Quest episodes ("Arctic Splashdown" and "Curse of Anubis"), two episodes of SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Captain Planet and the Planeteers (even modern home video releases kept it), and some Hanna-Barbera specials like The Town That Santa Forgot, A Flintstones Family Christmas, A Flintstones Christmas and Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights. Canada's Teletoon Retro kept the short logo on their prints of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, The Scooby-Doo Show and The New Yogi Bear Show (1988 series). European broadcasts, however, always erase out both versions of the logo on Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TCM or TN; if it appears, it's usually unintentional.
The short version of this logo also appears on the 1997 UK VHS of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop: Bumper Edition after the silent 1969 H-B "Multiplying Rectangles" logo.
The intro logo can be still seen whenever Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School airs on Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Tooncast, as well as at the end of the 1966 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! special on Cartoon Network.
The enhanced version was recently found on films like Nine 1/2 Weeks (surprisingly, the 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment PAL DVD release of said film retains it as well) and Oxford Blues on the Encore networks, and can be found on the original DVDs of Poltergeist, The Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Story (it was also spotted on a 2001 TNT airing), Logan's Run, How The West Was Won, a 1998 VHS of Gone with the Wind, and a 2000 VHS of Shaft (1971), among other pre-1986 MGM films from MGM/UA Home Video, MGM Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video. Also seen on Movies! airings of Crossfire (1947).
The short version was also sighted at the end of a Huckleberry Hound cartoon on Boomerang in 2001 (which was "Bars and Stripes"), and the short even ended up like that on at least one rerun on the Latin American Boomerang. The same happened with a Pixie and Dixie cartoon ("Goldfish Fever"). This was odd, as these cartoons aired in a three-hour block.
The original version is also seen on international Tom & Jerry Kids tapes.
The long version has recently appeared on an airing of Hey There, It's Yogi Bear on the Australian TV channel "GO!" (now known as 9GO!) as well as a 2017 airing of Teahouse of the August Moon followed by the MGM "George the Lion" logo.
The version with the planet on the right side and the green and white marquee was seen on a Taiwanese Video CD release of The Sea Wolf.
It can be seen at the end of all 5 episodes of Scooby-Doo! Where are You? on the DVD release "Original Mysteries", preceded by the "Action" variant of the 1994 Hanna-Barbera logo. Also, it was seen at the end of every episode on both the VHS and DVD releases of the "Cartoon Crack-Ups" set.
It is known that the logo was present from the start on every 1995 "new modern remaster" of the series and feature films done by Turner before the broadcasters and home video staff made any edits to the prints. While the WarnerMedia-owned channels often plaster out the logo (especially on international airings), local channels not affiliated with Warner always keep the prints of the shows and films they air unaltered (besides needed censorship), so all the beginning and end logos are kept as is, including this one, which is why the logo was seen on 2000s overseas airings of shows including Droopy Master Detective, Tom and Jerry Kids, Yogi's Treasure Hunt, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Tom and Jerry Show (1975), The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (both 1979 and 1980 versions) on CTC in Russia, The Addams Family (1992 animated series) on Nova TV in Bulgaria, some episodes of The Mask: The Animated Series on THT in Russia, Top Cat and The Scooby-Doo Show on TV Prima in Czechia, plus some syndicated airings of the pre-1986 MGM and pre-1948 WB libraries (like Kelly's Heroes on AMC, A Time to Sing on Circle and the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on GoodLife TV Network / YTA TV).
While live-action television series from the Turner library would always have the long extended version of the logo, be it before the intro or after the end credits, there is one exception: the 1977-1983 MGM series CHiPs actually ends with the shortened variant of the logo.
The short version was kept on the "Dexter's Laboratory: Season One" DVD release. Notably, Dexter's Laboratory is the only Cartoon Network original series to have this logo, as it was the only CN show released before the 1996 merger (excluding series like The Moxy Show or The What-a-Cartoon Show).
As stated before above, somehow the short variant in high-pitched audio ended up on The Flintstones episode "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes" on recent Boomerang CEE airings from 2013 until 2018 (when the show left the schedule at that time). As the logo is always wiped out on modern overseas airings on the Warner-owned TV channels, it's obvious that it was kept on that episode unintentionally (plus it was the only episode on the channel to keep the full logo). Not only that, but post-2014 reruns of the Scooby-Doo Where Are You episode "What a Night for a Knight" on the channel featured only a small nano-second frame of this logo after the 1994 H-B All-Stars "Action" card before cutting to the promos and commercial break.
The logo is kept on the Warner Archive Collection DVD release of the 1995 Dumb and Dumber animated series, as well as on Amazon and iTunes prints of the show. The same can be said for a few episodes of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, though most of them have the 1988 Worldvision Enterprises logo instead, preceded by the CGI "Swirling Star" Hanna-Barbera logo. It is also kept on the Warner Archive Collection DVD release of Josie & The Pussycats in Outer Space and also on the DVD release of the 1993 special The Halloween Tree.
The short logo can still be seen on the Boomerang streaming service prints of The Flintstones, most episodes of The Jetsons, Top Cat, Scooby's Laff-a-Lympics, Yogi's Galaxy Goof-Ups, Yogi's First Christmas, some episodes of Johnny Quest and a few episodes of Tom and Jerry Kids. Tubi prints of The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries kept it, as they use older prints (conversely, the HBO Max prints are restored and therefore lack the logo).
The short version was seen on Hulu and Netflix prints of the 1978 Godzilla series, preceded by the Hanna-Barbera 70s "Rainbow" (small variant) and the 1995 All-Stars "Action" logos.
This also used to occasionally appear on The Flintstones when aired on MeTV, until Warner Bros. restored the entire series in 2020 for HBO Max and the Blu-ray release and replaced any end logo with the current WB Television Distribution one, and MeTV began running these prints instead.
The matted widescreen/green marquee version is only known to have appeared on the 1993 25th Anniversary VHS of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
It was also spotted on Grit airings of The Treasure of Pancho Villa and Devil's Canyon.
The B&W version was sighted on Amazon Prime Video's print of Step by Step (1946), and some prints of Idiot's Delight, Honeymoon for Three, Laughing Sinners and Strange Interlude.

Editor's Note: A fantastic logo due to its CGI and fanfare.

2nd Logo (January 1, 1988)

Logo: Just a still of the Turner logo on a white background, which is positioned center-left. There are segmented lines behind the logo.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: A snippet of the Droopy Cartoon "Drag-A-Long Droopy", which is an echoed gunshot after Droopy says the line "Exciting. Isn't it?".

Availability: It's seen only in the documentary Tex Avery: King of Cartoons.

Editor's Note: It's probably a placeholder.

3rd Logo (October 1988-December 4, 1993, 2001)

Nicknames: "Filmstrip Star", "Turner Star"

Logo: This has two distinct versions:

1988: Everything is concentrated on the center of the screen and appears through a fade-in effect, on a black background. At the top we see a very tiny star outlined by 5 stylized low-cut fuschia filmstrips. Below the star there are the words "A TURNER ENTERTAINMENT" in a serif font and underneath, in the same font but smaller, "Presentation". At the bottom-center, in an even smaller lettering are the words "in association with" and underneath "SELZNICK PROPERTIRES L.TD." on the same font size as the Turner credit. All of the text is in the same type of fuschia color. This variant only appears on the direct-to-VHS documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind.
2001: On a black background we see the same star from the previous variant but now bigger and in white color, fading in alone on the top-center. Then the words "TURNER ENTERTAINMENT CO." in Times New Roman font fade in after a few seconds below in white, after which the same does the Time Warner byline in its trademark font underneath on the bottom-center in the same color, but way smaller. A widescreen version of the logo also exists for films released in that format.

Variants:

An alternate variation of the logo from The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind appears on some VHS re-releases. This time, the background is a shot of a night sky covered by dark clouds and the full moon scattered in the middle. The fuschia star appears taking the most from the middle of the screen, while the filmstrips that surround it have full solid color. After a few seconds it skrinks while moving one inch below and upwards in the initial position from the original logo. The rest of the text, in the same fuschia color, then fades in and is positioned like in the original logo.
An in-credit version appears on Tom and Jerry Kids:
- The filmstrip star along with the "TURNER ENTERTAINMENT CO." text (in the same serif font from Gone with the Wind) appear near each other in white color. Above is a white "Hanna-Barbera" logo in its cursive trademark font at that time with a silver-looking Swirling Star (1979-1988 style) on the left. A tiny "A" and "and" appear above and below the Hanna-Barbera logo in Arial font, while "CARTOON" is below the Turner font on the same size but a bit bigger. All of this appears in a grass-like green background with a sunburst effect, while the text and the logos have a shadow effect. The whole text reads as "A Hanna-Barbera and TURNER ENTERTAINMENT CO. CARTOON".
- Later, the title card received some modifications. The background now is of a darker shade of green while the Swirling Star is gone. The text now reads as "A H-B Production Co. and TURNER ENTERTAINMENT CO. CARTOON", with the H-B logo and "A" being written in a different crawled font with the Turner stamp, "and" and "CARTOON" in Arial Narrow font.
- Same as before, except the background is red with an orange sunburst, like the Tom and Jerry closing titles of the MGM Cartoons logo, and the colour of the Arial Narrow font of the "A H-B Production Co. and TURNER ENTERTAINMENT CO. CARTOON" text is now silver.

FX/SFX: Just the fading. For the alternate The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind variant, there's also the star moving on the screen and zooming out. None for the Tom and Jerry Kids in-credit logo.

Music/Sounds:

On both logos of The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind, a triumphant trumpet piece is heard.
None for the later 2001 variant.
On Tom and Jerry Kids, the final fanfare of the end credits theme is heard.

Availability: Turner used this logo mainly as a print logo during this era, and any onscreen appearance of this logo is quite rare.

The Time Warner variant was seen on some modern home video releases of MGM features, like the 2001 special edition of the 1970 documentary film Elvis: That's the Way It Is.
The H-B/Turner combo is very rare and can be seen on seasons 2-4 of Tom & Jerry Kids. But it can still be seen on the show's prints on the Boomerang streaming service, it is also can be seen on the original print of Season 1 episode "Flippin' Fido" (if it didn't even contain the actual intro and credits) on Tom and Jerry: The Deluxe Anniversary Collection and the Boomerang streaming service.
The variants from The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind are ultra rare, as the documentary wasn't seen much anywhere after the VHS releases.

Editor's Note: None.