Columbia TriStar-Home Video via Its' 003rd Logo

**Columbia TriStar-Home Video** is .

## Summary

Cthv1993.jpgCthvcomingtotheaters1993.jpgCthvcomingtohomevideo1993.jpgNicknames: "CT Boxes III", "Part III: Will This Logo Ever Die?!", "Sliding Boxes", "Blue BG Boxes", "Day of the Boxes", "Cloudy Boxes", "Columbia Tristar III"

**Logo**: We see a screen full of clouds forming, tossing about in a time-lapse. Then, "COLUMBIA TRISTAR", in yellow zooms out from above, and "HOME VIDEO", in yellow shrinks out from below as we see the clouds zoom out, as part of a golden-bordered box on a blue-black gradient background. The box then duplicates itself and the two boxes slide to the left and the right whilst the Torch Lady on the left and the Pegasus on the right (in their the same styles as before) appear in the boxes, as the wording takes its position. The text shines for a few seconds after the logo is formed.

**Trivia:** This logo was used as the basis for the first ***Columbia TriStar International Television*** logo, and the first ***Columbia TriStar Television*** logo was patterned on it to an extent as well.

**Variants**:

* A still logo was found on early Columbia TriStar Home Video releases on DVD, as well as Mexican videotapes from 1997-99.
* There is also an abridged version for some New Line Home Video releases.
* On a home video TV spot for *Amos and Andrew*, it's placed on a black background alongside the 1991 New Line Home Video logo.
* On some later tapes, such as *Universal Soldier: The Return*, the 1999 Collector's Edition VHS of *Taxi Driver*, *The 6th Day*, and the first 6 VHS releases of *Dragon Tales,* the logo fades in.
* On some (mainly earlier) DVDs, such as *The Adventures of Milo and Otis*, the logo is darker and there's a visible dot crawl on the right side of the screen.
* An extremely rare variant exists where there are blue bars featuring small CTHV print logos on the sides of the logo. This version is seen on early DVDs and widescreen edition Laserdiscs.

Trailer Variants:

* From 1993-96, following the logo's formation, the boxes would then slide away, the CTHV text would fade out, the blue background fades out to the moving clouds and one of the following clip-ons would zoom in from the center of the screen:
	+ COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU
	+ COMING SOON TO HOME VIDEO

Afterwards, a trailer pertaining to one of these two clip-ons plays. On even rarer occasions, the logo starts already formed, then the trailer variant animation plays as normal, and the other clip-on appears.

* On Australian tapes, the logos and the text fades out and one of these:
	+ COMING SOON
	+ NOW AVAILABLE

would slide in from the top and bottom respectively.

**FX/SFX**: The zooming out effects; nice CGI for the time.

**Music/Sounds**: A rather dramatic synth theme with beating drums and cues of piano. The last note of the theme is held out for the rest of the logo.

**Music/Sounds Variants**:

* On the trailer variants, the theme (which appears to have been arranged differently, being performed in a sharper key than on the normal logo) would be followed by a male announcer announcing the text at the clip-on, whilst the music goes on longer than usual.
	+ On the during-trailers version, the theme starts over, and fades out earlier than usual.
* A silent version is used on later prints of the original VHS of *As Good as It Gets*.
* Depending on the specific tape, the music would end differently, either fading out to completion or having its ending cut off at any length.
* A low toned variant exists.
* On the 2000 DVD of *Thrill Ride: The Science of Fun*, the theme is slightly slower and warps at one point.

**Availability**: Very common, even today.

* Seen on the majority of VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD releases from Columbia TriStar Home Video, starting with the May 1993 home video release of *A River Runs Through It*.
* The abridged version can be found most New Line Home Video releases such as *National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1*, *Time Runner*, *Surf Ninjas*, *Three of Hearts*, *Needful Things*, *Malice*, *Man's Best Friend*, *Who's the Man?*, *Excessive Force*, *Chained Heat 2*, *Relentless 3*, *Relentless 4: Ashes to Ashes*, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III*, and the unrated version of *Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday*.
* This also appears on later DVD reprints of titles such as *The Deep*, *Jason and the Argonauts*, *Oliver!*, *Muppets from Space*, *Air Force One*, *8MM*, and *The Mirror Has Two Faces*, as well as the 2005 VHS of *Matilda*, which likely used a tape master made for the original 1996 release.
* Tapes with the trailer variants include *Sleepless in Seattle*, *Bad Boys*, *The Net*, *Jury Duty*, and *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein*.
* The version with the cut-off ending to the music was heard on VHS prints of *Used Cars*, *Guarding Tess*, *Stand by Me*, *Willow*, *In the Line of Fire* (EP mode), *Sniper*, *Flatliners*, *The Craft*, *The Fan*, *Maximum Risk*, *St. Elmo's Fire*, *Revenge*, *Sleepwalkers*, *Howards End*, *Absence of Malice*, *Leon: The Professional*, *First Knight*, *The Big Hit*, *Cromwell*, *The Ambushers*, *Sidekicks*, *The Mouse That Roared*, and *Girl, Interrupted* (all without previews), as well as a Spanish-subtitled print of *The Patriot*.
* In Canada, this appears on tapes released by Astral Video after the Astral logo during the mid-1990s, including *Demon Possessed*, as well as some Motion International and TVA International titles such as *Out of Control (1988)*, *Someone is Watching*, *Little Men*, and *Stranger in the House*, and the Republic Pictures release *The Wrong Woman*.
* Surprisingly, on the 1997 VHS of *Double Team*, as well as a 1998 demo VHS of *Midnight Express* (after the previews) and 1999 reprints of *Immortal Beloved* and *Fools Rush In*, both this logo and the 1997 logo appeared. Also surprisingly, prints of the 1994 VHS releases of *Red Rock West* and *My Life* that don't carry previews omit this logo and go straight to the warning screen.
* Previewless prints of tapes with the 1996 and 1997 logos, such as *Money Train*, *The Devil's Own*, *The Cable Guy*, and *Jerry Maguire*, instead use this logo. Bizarrely, a previewless printing of *The Craft* replaces this logo with the one for TriStar Pictures!
* This also makes an appearance on an earlier pressing of the 2002 VHS of *Stuart Little* (released to coincide with *Stuart Little 2*), which is certainly a reprint of the earlier 2000 release.
* Its first appearances on DVD were limited to the fullscreen sides of the releases, as the widescreen sides instead used a different logo (see the 6th logo description for more). The first DVDs to use it on both sides of the disc were *Fools Rush In*, *Annie (1982)*, *In the Company of Men*, *Look Who's Talking*, and *Single White Female*, and the last discs to have it include *Solo*, *Bats*, the second edition of *Jumanji*, *Love Stinks*, *Blue Streak*, *To Sir, with Love*, *Random Hearts*, *Bear in the Big Blue House: Party Time with Bear*, and *The Man from Laramie*.
* This logo even makes an appearance at the beginning of the earliest *Dragon Tales* VHS releases from 2000 to 2001, which also feature the 1997 ***Children's Television Workshop*** semicircle logo after the closing credits, with *Keep on Trying* and *Let's Play Together* being the last tapes to use both.
* The last films that used this logo on VHS were *Charlie's Angels (2000)* and *The 6th Day*.
* On the 1996 VHS of *Striptease*, it appears at both the beginning and end.
* Only some international DVDs contain this logo, such as the 2000 release of *Total Recall*, as most use the 7th logo.

Editor's Note: This is a very popular logo among many, and was used longer than any other Columbia TriStar logo. It has drawn some criticism for its longevity.