Sunbow Productions Logo History

1st Logo (January 1981-1984)

Nicknames: "The Great Sun Coaster", "The Sunbow Sun", "The Dark Sun"

Logo: Fading in to a medium/dark blue background (depending on film quality), a strange dark object emerges from the top right corner and zooms into the middle, leaving a chyron trail as it does. As it stops zooming, the dark shadows on the object disappear, revealing itself to be the Sunbow Productions logo. It consists of an orange circle with a yellow gradient on the edges, and surrounding it is the text "SUNBOW PRODUCTIONS" in the same colors, but with the pattern reversed, in a font similar to that of the Jeopardy! logo. The text is arranged in a circle pattern, which are supposedly made to resemble "sunrays".

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

Music/Sounds: A high-pitched synth "whoosh" effect, followed by an synth keyboard-type chime that has a "wow"-like pitch and a echo effect.

Availability: Extremely rare. Can be seen on the first three seasons of The Great Space Coaster, which were released on VHS by MGM/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 sudden SFX can be very startling for unexpecting viewers. The design looks fairly unfriendly as well.

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

Nicknames: "80s Sun", "'Flashing Sun", "The Sunbow Sun II"

Logo: On a shady blue background, 4 small dots (3 white and one pink), come in from all sides to merge in the middle, causing a small flash of light to appear and a off-center orange circle to grow. As it reaches its maximum size, 2 6-pointed lights appear and rotate in opposite directions of each other briefly, and the circle shrinks a bit, fading to the same logo from before, but with a saturated color scheme and black outlines. 2 pings then appear, on on top of the "W", and another on the bottom of the last "S".

Variants:

On co-productions with Marvel Productions, they have a unique logo together:
Early Variant: 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.

Later Variant: Zooming out from an orange planet, we see a detailed space background with a nebula, as well as a white and orange light. The orange light reaches behind the planet and causes the planet to burst into light, turning it into the Sunbow logo, while we zoom out from some silver bars that close up to form the Marvel Productions logo, this time in silver. The lights on the Sunbow logo die down, and the Marvel logo rotates straight upwards as the trail for the text recedes. Both logo shine, a simple wipe on the "MP" and a circular wipe on the Sunbow text, as stars flash in the background. The television counterpart is the short version and only features the logos shining.

Short versions of the logo exist, usually starting with the huge orange ball or the finished logo shining.

FX/SFX: 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 a few sparking sounds at the beginning and 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.

The Sunbow/Marvel movie variant uses a bombastic synth fanfare with a chorus and explosion, as well as lightsaber-esque sounds for the shining.
Originally, the sparkling wasn't present.

Availability: Depending on the variants of this logo, but its more common than the previous logo.

Standard Variant: Uncommon.
The version with the end theme was seen on the 1992 episodes of Conan the Adventurer while the version 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), and the first season of The Tick.

Earlier Music Variant: Extremely rare. It 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.

Early Marvel Combo Variant: Rare.

This combo was seen on G.I. Joe, The Transformers, and Jem and the Holograms, as well as the 1980s 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 bylineless version appears on these Series 3 The Transformers episodes: "Nightmare Planet", "Ghost in the Machine", and all episodes from "The Big Broadcast of 2006" onwards, including all of Series 4 ("The Return of Optimus Prime" and "Rebirth")

Later Marvel Combo Variant: Rare.

The longer variant is seen on My Little Pony: The Movie, The Transformers: The Movie, and G.I. Joe: The Movie.

The shorter variant is seen on Series 3 episodes of The Transformers (with the exception of the two mentioned above) up until "Carnage in C-Minor" and on later G.I. Joe episodes.

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