Scary TV Logos from My Childhood

Chances are, if you were a little kid in the 60's and 70's, you unfortunately grew up in front of the television. At the end of every show, there'd be, of course, the trademark of the production company. These clever (mostly obnoxious) logos had some wild ways of getting your attention after the credits stopped rolling. Even as a child, I took most of these in stride, but I must admit, some of them flat scared the HELL out of me, even to the point of giving me nightmares (which was a funny thing, considering I was quite into monsters and scary movies, even as a toddler).

It was a shameful secret I never shared with anyone. Nobody else ever talked about getting spooked out over such things. I figured I was just a weird kid, so I just suffered through them in silence, even if it meant pissing the bed for fear of getting up to use the john in the dark. To this day, I cannot understand why I was so frightened by these company trademarks that had no effect on me as I progressed through grammar school into adolescence.

So anyway, I was assin' off on YouTube while doing some work one night, and I came across a video entitled "10 Scariest Logos of All Time". I cannot remember how I came across the thing, but at that moment, those logos were the farthest things from my mind (Ooooh!!! WEIRDSVILLE!!!) When I played the thing, I couldn't stop laughing! I mean, almost every one of these logos freaked my shit as a kid, and evidently, somebody else wet their bed over them, too! From there, the fun really kicked in! YouTube is full of "scary logo" clips, and there is even a group dedicated to them!

What an affirmation! What a relief for this 40 year old, 230 pound dock-hand to finally realize he wasn't alone in his childhood terror that the show was almost over! That he wasn't the only one hiding his face in the pillow at the end of "Star Trek" or singing loud nonsense to drown out some spooky synthesizer drone when "The Partridge Family" or "The Monkees" finished! Yes, there are others out there who UNDERSTAND!

I know, I am risking having to take some serious ripping from all of you, dear readers, but I am ready for your worst, for it is time to come clean, and present to you in order (from a little creepy to downright Underoos-soaking) my personal list of Scary TV Logos From My Childhood!!!!!!!

10) MTM ENTERPRISES (Early 1970's) - Go ahead. Laugh. Mimsie, the cute little kitten, spooked me out! Hahahaha! Seriously, though, the end of "Mary Tyler Moore" really gave me the heebie-jeebies, especially since it was shown right before bedtime. But when I was a little dude, I think the long silence after the last note of the outro, coupled with the long, silent pause after Mimsie meowed, was what was spooky to me (not to mention the creepy, stop-action motion of the kitten as she moved). As I grew up, however, I got less scared of Mimsie, and used to actually look forward to hearing her let out her cute little noise. Still, though, I remember, in the 70's, I would run into the other room before the endings of "Mary Tyler Moore", "Rhoda", "Phyllis", "The Tony Randall Show", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "WKRP in Cincinatti".

9) DiC "Kid in Bed" Logo (late 70's) - I was a little older, but this still creeped me out. I think it's the silence, followed by the spooky tones, that did it!

8) BCP (Bing Crosby Productions) (early 60's) - With its loud trumpets blaring and the ghoulish lettered tiles dropping down sequentially, this one scared the crap out of me after every "Hogans Heroes", but it was SO worth it just to see Colonel Hogan and his fellow POWs outsmart Colonel Klink and Sargeant Schultz yet again (we all know who REALLY ran Stalag 13!) The creepiness compounded for me when I found out about how lead actor Bob Crane was murdered.

7) Filmways(late 70's) - This one was spooky to me because of the music, really. The visuals didn't bother me too much, but boy, talk about a HELL of an earworm for a 6 year old kid to have stuck in his head at midnight, when all you hear is the fridge running (right before the cat knocks something into the floor. Time to change the bedsheets again!).

6) (1960's) - I used to think Lisa Douglas from "Green Acres" was so hot!!!! So, then, why the hell did her voice creep me out so bad over this logo? Hell, they all creeped me out as a tot, yet I still religiously watched that show and "Petticoat Junction", "The Addams Family", "Mr. Ed", and "The Beverly Hillbillies"! I guess it was the silent, stretched-out globe with the words flying out at me that made me jump inside every time, even when I knew it was coming (hey, sometimes I LIKED being scared, OK?!)

5) Desilu "Merging Circles" (mid 1960's) - This one was easy! It was the dark background and the music that spooked me so! I remember this one at the end of early "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible" episodes; all the shows that would eventually become Paramount Television productions (but hey, that's another logo for another paragraph).

4) Viacom "'V' of Doom"(late 60's/early 70's) - "Bewitched", "The Partridge Family", and "The Monkees" all ended with the "Evil 'S'" of Screen Gems (a.k.a. "The 'S' from Hell"), an animated orange, stylized 'S' on a yellow background (very 70's), matched up to spooky synthesizer music. I remember laying awake in bed many a night with those creepy tones playing over and over in my pointed little head. My folks used to wonder why I used to look so tired in the mornings before school, but I dare not tell them. Shoot, they'd just might've made me stop watching TV altogether (and everybody knows, all kids need TV to LIVE!).

3) (70's) - The giant gray 'V' flying out of the screen over the spooky music with the menacing floor tom roll made this thing way terrifying for millions of little kids. The shows featuring the evil thing were too numerous for me to recall, but I remember it clearly from "All in the Family" and "Andy Griffith" reruns in particular.

2) Paramount's "Closet Killer" Logo (late 60s) - This logo is known in scary-logo circles as the "Closet Killer" logo for good reason: The obnoxiously LOUD trumpet fanfare sounds like what you hear before the boogeyman jumps out of your closet to decapitate you. Double that with the creepy mountain flying out in your face, and you end up with a nasty pair of size XS tightey-whiteys! Actually, all the paramount logos scared the crap out of me until I was in middle school, but this one beat 'em all!. And it was featured at the end of all my favorite shows, like "Star Trek", and "The Brady Bunch". The "Big Blue Mountain" logo was more tolerable, but even their music had a creepy "I Kill 4 Thrills" flavor to it. Hey, for shits n' giggles, you oughta watch this brilliant Star Trek parody of the "closet killer" theme. BOO!

And now, the NUMBER ONE TV logo that scared the shit out of me as a little kid.........

MGM! (the year really doesn't matter!) - No kidding! I don't care if it was from the 40s all the way up to the end of "CHiPs" and "Fame" in the late 70s. Leo always gave me nightmares, especially if I didn't expect him to pop up and roar at me! Everything about the logo gave me the creeps, from the silent, dark background, all the way up to the creepy "drama mask" thing beneath him. And if I happened to see him right before bed, that was it! "I'm sleeping with the light on and the door open, dammit!" How amazing, though, that this became my favorite logo as a teenager. Yes, I went from seeing Leo as a roaring monster to a magnificent, noble creature.

What changed? Who knows! Maybe it's the same change that lets the growing child realize there is really nothing under his bed but dust bunnies! Yes, childish fears are as funny a things as childhood crushes. All I know is I got a kick out of seeing these again, especially since I don't ever watch TV anymore (What's the point when you got YouTube?)

As I depart for another God-knows-how-long, I though I'd leave you all with some of the entrants of the Creepy TV Logo Hall of Fame. These never really scared me, but the have scared many others (hey, one man's ghoul is another man's clown, I suppose!)

UBU productions. Seriously, a lot of people think this is scary, but I think its funny! I guess it was because I was a teen ager at the time. Who knows how I'd have felt about it as a baby!

ITC Entertainment. With it's spinning tri-color logo, many logophobes admit to being frightened by this one. It never scared me, though, but rather made me think "Oh, GOD, this show is going to be BORING!!!!!!"

SFM. The beeping Morse Code with the black background scared quite a few people, according to YouTube comments. For me, again, the thing just told me that the show was going to be BOR-ING!

PBS. I don't understand how anyone was scared by this one, but according to the comments on YouTube, it is among the absolute scariest! There is a slightly scary variation of this logo circulating. It does kind of spook you out if you're not ready for it!

Mark VII Limited. Although this was listed by many as one of the all-time scariest logos, I loved it as a kid. It reminded me of strong working men like my Grandpa. I even loved the tympani roll with the clanging of the hammer on the die. I used to see this at the end of "Dragnet".

What about you? Was there that certain TV logo that spooked you out as a kid? It's okay, you can admit it now. You're not alone! Many of us wet the bed over the stupid things when we were curled up tightly under our NFL or Holly Hobby bedsheets, squeezing our pillows until our forearms were white!

Or were we all just a bunch of little pussies?

Thank you all for letting me waste your time. Good night and God bless!