Universal Pictures Logo Intro 1937-1946

[mtprice1972]

like the jingle!

[Skulldini]

DAMN GOOD for 1937 !!

[salsburysteakjr]

Today's studio logo sequences ought to shy away from CGI, they're all so routine and uninspired...

[801liveable]

The best movie logo of all time..

[Margann1987]

that is just so amazing. i love that logo

[david1513]

by the way in 1955 when james dean died thay found anomation videos he had made years before anybody eles had discovered it, it was still stop anomation with still cameras

[david1513]

how the hell do that do that ive been trying for 40 years to figure out how thay got the letters to go around the silver ball, thay dident have high tec items back then to do this, i can only figure mirrors but it still dont pan out thats only part of it that could make it work the other part ive never figured out, i love that silver ball,

[LOPEZdJUNGLIST]

probably a shiny ball inside a glass ball with suspended letters? dunno but when you cant tell how a 70 year old logo is made it was clearly a pretty good logo...

[natethefighter]

This is my all time fave film logo. Why doesn't Universal still use this?

[1912Universal]

@natethefighter Because in today's Holly-weird mo-rons are running the aslym...but seriouisly........there is a real paucity of aesthetics in Hollywood......and that has been a problem for years. not since Carl Laemmle was forced from power, and relinquished control of Universal to Standard Capital has Universal had a sense of self and it's place in the world of moving art..........yes there were movie moguls.........but there was only one Carl Laemmle.....a giant in early motion picture's RIP.

[Starscreen86]

shipley

[Starscreen86]

awes

[Nodog438]

My grandma was born somewhere in 1942

[angelpichu1]

wow it's so...... SHINY!!!!!!!!!

[LogoLibraryinc]

think this is what inspired the 1990-1997 logo and the current logo.

[bogercs]

Since the 1930's and 40's were not the space age of filming, they have to go with diarama!

[RShahProductions]

The effect is actually awesome, and this was over 70 years ago!!

[jslasher1]

The music for this was composed by Jimmy McHugh. It reappeared after a lapse of some decades in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid". In that film the fanfare was conducted by Lee Holdridge.

[perrymyers100]

This Universal, the RKO Rado logo and the early Forties WB logos are my top three of all time.

[enigma413]

I love this logo. 

[Jamie10004]

sounds a bit like the superman theme

[aihoschema]

@Jamie10004 thought the exact same!

[retroguy1976]

best universal logo ever

[DjABBlends]

these effects are still better than mines today, i cant even do this!!!

[RacerXGTO]

You are looking at an actual scale work of art, built by Alexander Golitzen. If you look closely, the globe has two sections, the plexiglass constructed upper text half spins, the lower half is a reflection of plexiglass stars twirling. The entire logo shoot was done by John P. Fulton, ASC's special photographic department. And there you have it! An actual working scale model as Universal's logo.

[ufee]

This is absolutely beautiful. How did they pull this off? It looks infinitely better than their newer CGI logos.

[olegario39]

i wonder how they animated that logo back then...there was no cgi that time.. o_O

[APyleOfVinyl]

Fantastic logo, was fascinated with this since I first saw it on a WC Fields movie when I was five years old. Is there a variation on youtube, where it has the 1960s-80s logo with this same tune but re-recorded? I remember seeing the aforementioned on an old cassette with Marx Brothers "Animal Crackers".

[stereoplayers]

Some opening logos are just classics, like this one (though my particular favorite is RKO Radio Pictures with the morse code). I can understand the changing logos as a company/studio grows over time, but now and then they should put a retro logo in their releases.

[angelpichu1]

so shiny..... *stares at video for 8 hours*

[Pathecomedy]

What a great art deco-logo this is! Thanks TomChor. Indeed, how did they make this?

[williestratton]

that's so much better!

[1400deadwood]

It was so great to see those terrific monster movies from the 1930s opening with this great theme.

[Bebop435999]

VERY COOL!

[JackRussellTerrier2]

This is the logo used in the 2008 film "the Changeling," mostly set in 1928.

How was that originally made? Was a reflective ball, like glass or metal, used? It's hard to imagine how they made the letters and stars like that without modern computers. And where was it lit from?

[superdes51]

I love this logo, why they use that?

[jimbo97]

EXCELLENT quality clip! I don't know how they did it either! I used to think it was a chromed ball reflecting the letters (which look like neon) and the rotating crystal stars, but read somewhere the globe is plastic/plexiglass. My fave movie logo (I think of the original THE WOLF MAN whenever I see it.

[jslasher1]

This fanfare was composed by the songwriter/composer Jimmy McHugh.

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

This theme music would make a return in the Ron Howard and LucasArts movie, Willow.

[SoapClawtooth]

This logo also features in the 2010 Wolfman Feature.

[geniej125]

In the 2010 version of "The Wolfman," they paid homage to the 1941 original by using this Universal Pictures logo in the beginning!

I actually quite like it! I wouldn't mind at all if they change it to this one in the future. :D

[rawrvintageisclassic]

*POW!!* take that CGI scum!!

[WockesZero]

Color it and you can use it as a modern logo. No one would notice its age

[MattTheSaiyan]

One of the most underrated logos ever!

[danthemankandy]

this gave me a roany...

[JKSpiero]

Well, yeah, the fanfare kinda-sorta sounds like the old George Reeves 'Superman' TV series march. (Makes me wonder whether or not Universal might have been a contender for the first 'Superman' big-screen feature----which was ultimately released by Warner Bros. in 1978.)

[LoserinYellow04]

disco inferno

[blooberflat22]

hell yea.....bout to go get my mother fuckin superman on babbbayyy babbbaaayyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[owenmcgarel]

MY NEW THEME SONG!

[burger414]

The music sounds like the theme from "Superman" the movie.

[dondonp12004]

@burger414 Perhaps. BTW, the first four notes of the current Universal Studios fanfare--composed by the late Jerry Goldsmith--reminds me of the first four notes of the 1937 fanfare.

[7transformer]

i have a mp3 of the fanfare

[Jac2Mac]

I just saw the new remake of Universal's The Wolf Man and it only had the current logo with the NBC Universal byline. It should have used this logo instead as it would have helped it be really scary especially when this classic logo should have been used in The Wolf Man remake, don't you think so?

[Bebop435999]

My favorite movie logo, of all time! Love the lights on the globe!

[keno8spot]

the best logos of all are

selznick international

20th century fox a cinemascope picture

and this one

[1276epr]

TomChor, you are right, this ranks right up there with 20th Century-Fox's intro, both surpassed only perhaps by the origininal version of the musical introduction to Movietone News.

[sunlexlo]

how did they make this?

[robuk1981]

Cant Say for sure but because of its age Traditional Animation combined with Rotoscoping

[sunlexlo]

what's rotoscoping?

[robuk1981]

Rotoscoping is where you film a person or an object and trace an animation on top of the film cells.

A good example is the original He-Man cartoon from the 80s

[sunlexlo]

Thanks!

[Akira625]

@sunlexlo That's a good question, the design is quite complex and unique, considering this was made *decades* before CGI came along.

[trainman536]

@sunlexlo looks to be almost tin foil that is being shaken in spotlights....

[JohnsParadise]

It's... it's... amazing!! Simply amazing!!

[Green18600]

Excellent!! Classic!! A Brilliant 6!!

[MattBL]

Me too. Every time I see this, thats what comes to mind.

[spongefan1222]

i saw this logo on the woody wood pecker cartoon

:D

[haileyy9jenna1]

I saw a color verison in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon

[Rlotpir1972]

From 1940 to 1947.

[Densaku]

This is probably the nicest ident ever made by a Hollywood studio. Universal should produce a remake of it for a movie or two. ^^

[alfredoz]

"Changeling" used it, thought it was digitized, which told you right away how "authentic" the look of the movie was going to be.

[bobbobato]

A remake wouldn't work, since Universal would make it ironic to show how far they've come.

[BnBGobo]

I'm interested to know how they pulled off the text...I don't see any attachments to the globe or thin wires from above. I'm guessing for the stars they just hung them from a ceiling rigging, blew a fan on them, and filmed it from below with a wide-angle lens, maybe? Anyways, thanks for posting this, I've haven't seen a clear version like this one before. :)

[SeanElGatoTelevision]

A re-recorded version of the fanfare was used in the Eighties for Universal Pay Television.

[MrFb09]

Ah, new ending. I wasn't expecting the drum roll. It seems Uni changed the arrangement, even slightly, every other film.

The was an homage to this in "The Sting" as well.

[rtivey01]

taken from Dead men Don't get Plaid

[TomChor]

No. As said in the comment, its from the Movie "Night Key".

But "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" sure is a great homage to the genre and era! :-)