ITT 1997-1998 Countdown

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This countdown currently has missing footage. This template will be removed once all parts of this countdown have been found.

This page is considered as a stub, which means it does not have enough information. You can help the New Year's Media Database by expanding it.

## 1997-1998 Countdown

### Events

* Times Square New Year's Eve 1996-1997
* Times Square New Year's Eve 1997-1998

The **1997-1998 Countdown** is the very first digital countdown to be used on the 55-foot billboard where the Allied Chemical sign used to be.

## Design

Against a black background, rays of light zoom on the left of the screen for each even number and the right for each odd number. The colors of the rays appear in a pattern (red, green, red, red, green, yellow), which is repeated throughout the countdown. For each second, a white-colored number in Helvetica Bold zooms in for the first half of each second.

When the countdown hits 0, an explosion appears, and the Happy New Year sign is revealed, which changes font as the background changes color and confetti falls.

## Trivia

* The missing parts of this countdown are currently most to 47 to 43, most of 31 to 27, and most of 25.
	+ About 84% of the countdown is currently available.
* This countdown marks the first of several things:
	+ The first digital countdown to be used on the 55-foot billboard where the Allied Chemical sign used to be.
* This countdown also marks the only of several things:
	+ The only countdown under the control of ITT Technical Institute.
	+ The only digital countdown to be used on the 55-foot billboard where the Allied Chemical sign used to be to use 2D animation until the Volkswagen 2020 Countdown, twenty-three years later.
		- It is also the only countdown in the 1990s to use said animation style.

### Appearances in films and TV

* A teaser for the *1998 Godzilla film* contains footage of 13 to 10. It also features a remade version of the last four seconds of the countdown, and has similarities, except the rays zoom in at the right of the screen for each even number and the left for each odd number, and the pattern is red (for each even number) and green (for each odd number) instead of red, green, red, red, green, and yellow. The commercial also features the NBC countdown for the same year.
* In *Y2K: The Movie*, despite the fact that footage of the 1999 countdown was featured along with a fictional HNY sign, footage from the 1997-1998 New Year's Eve celebration is featured a few seconds after Times Square hits 2000, retaining the ITT countdown's HNY sign.

## Gallery

243The last 6 seconds of the countdown and the HNY sign.The animation of the HNY sign.