Weston Woods
Background: Weston Woods is a production company founded in 1953 by Morton Schindel, that produces animated short films and audiobooks for many well-known children's books. The company was acquired in 1996 by Scholastic.
1st Logo
(1960s-1996)
Weston Woods
Nicknames: "The Trees", "Blue W"
Logo: On a black background, we see three green, stylized trees, with two blue Vs connected together, from the left to right tree, resembling a "W". The text "weston woods presents" appears under it.
FX/SFX: None, unless you count the film scratches.
Music/Sounds: None
Availability: Seen on early Weston Woods shorts (including the Gene Deitch/Rembrandt Films ones).
Editor's Note: None
2nd Logo (1996-)
Weston Woods Presents (1996-present) Weston Woods Release
Nicknames: "CGI Trees", "CGI Blue W," "The 3 Blue W Trees"
Logo: We open with the 1990 Scholastic logo. After it fades out, the same stylized trees from before, now slightly amended and in a darker green color, zoom up. Then, a flash occurs in in the middle of the trees, turning the middle section into a sky blue "W". "weston woods presents" fades in under it.
Variants:
On later videos, it used the 2003 Scholastic logo. Starting in 2011, the logo was in widescreen and it was enhanced. Sometimes, the opening Scholastic logo is cut, and the text instead reads "a weston woods release".
FX/SFX: The trees zooming up.
Music/Sounds: A piano stinger is heard during the Scholastic logo, which then turns into a whimsical folk theme.
Music/Sounds Trivia: An extended version of this theme would later be used as the background music to an intro used on later Scholastic Video Collection and Scholastic Storybook Treasures DVDs.
Availability: Common on many Weston Woods videos and DVDs, starting with Harry the Dirty Dog. The 2003 variant can be seen on their later videos and Cinedigm DVD releases.
Editor's Note: None.