ITC logo/DVD trivia

[pault]

I remember when viewing episodes of The Muppet Show as a child, the end of the program had the ITC logo displayed, sort of 3 diamonds (green, blue & red) revolving around, but it's no longer shown on the DVD's (Seasons 1 or 2). I know Disney bought the rights, but why wasn't this included. At least they could use the video as an extra on an upcoming season. Also, on Season 1, there was a trivia option you could have. Why was this not included on Season 2?

 

[David French]

I remember when viewing episodes of The Muppet Show as a child, the end of the program had the ITC logo displayed, sort of 3 diamonds (green, blue & red) revolving around, but it's no longer shown on the DVD's (Seasons 1 or 2). I know Disney bought the rights, but why wasn't this included. At least they could use the video as an extra on an upcoming season. Also, on Season 1, there was a trivia option you could have. Why was this not included on Season 2?

With regards to the logo, this is all due to the change in ownership. There were in fact two logos - a rectangular ATV logo (used on the UK tapes) and the diamond ITC logo (used on the US tapes). The problem is that Granada International, who own the ITC archive, no longer own the copyright to the Muppet Show. It does seem a shame that the original copyright notices are not on the DVDs but this decision will have been made by Disney to make it clear who owns the copyright to the series.

As for the Muppet Morsels, a different DVD producer was used for this set.

 

[minor muppetz]

I have noticed that current DVD releases of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper do include the ITC logo in the credits. Not a big logo, but it's still in the credits.

 

[anathema]

The ITC/ATV logos were removed a long time ago when Henson bought the shows back from ATV in the early 80s. Nothing to do with Disney.

 

[David French]

The ITC/ATV logos were removed a long time ago when Henson bought the shows back from ATV in the early 80s. Nothing to do with Disney.

There are still tapes that have the original logos, though, and if Disney are using the "original" UK tapes (as has been claimed) then it's possible they may have made the decision to ditch the old copyright notices.

In saying that, I do realize they are using the old HIT! endings so maybe they are the "original" UK tapes they are using. I hope that makes (some) sense.

 

[David French]

I have noticed that current DVD releases of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper do include the ITC logo in the credits. Not a big logo, but it's still in the credits.

Yes, but they're a part of the end credits so it's a bit harder to remove them than it is for TMS. The various copyright notices used for TMS have always been on a seperate shot of Zoot blowing his sax so it's always been easy to change them.

 

[Mistersuperstar]

It would have been nice, as ITC and HIT! no longer exist, for Disney to have left them intact and then added the Disney or Muppet Holding logo at the end of that. They had to use a clip from another season (I think I am right in saying that Zoot is a different colour) to add to the first season's credits to cover the original logo. I don't think this was neccessary.

 

[BannieBoy]

I agree it'd be nice to see the older logos. Here in the UK, we always had an animated "ATV" logo at the beginning and a still "ATV Colour Production" end-card (examples: http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/atv.asp ) ATV and ITC were obviously part of the same company, and so for overseas sales (as TMS was technically a UK production) ATV was removed, and ITC was bolted on... until Henson's took full ownership... and so on...

As a side note, when the BBC repeated some shows in the mid-80s, the ATV logos were missing and a "HIT" logo spun up and out of Zoot's Sax.

These days the actual ATV and ITC branding are owned by ITV plc, and therefore Disney would have to pay ITV a royalty for their use. As the programmes are no longer anything to do with ITV as a company, Disney probably didn't consider it worth doing.

 

[Mistersuperstar]

I agree it'd be nice to see the older logos. Here in the UK, we always had an animated "ATV" logo at the beginning and a still "ATV Colour Production" end-card (examples: http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/atv.asp ) ATV and ITC were obviously part of the same company, and so for overseas sales (as TMS was technically a UK production) ATV was removed, and ITC was bolted on... until Henson's took full ownership... and so on...

As a side note, when the BBC repeated some shows in the mid-80s, the ATV logos were missing and a "HIT" logo spun up and out of Zoot's Sax.

These days the actual ATV and ITC branding are owned by ITV plc, and therefore Disney would have to pay ITV a royalty for their use. As the programmes are no longer anything to do with ITV as a company, Disney probably didn't consider it worth doing.

I still have some of those re-runs on video.

 

[minor muppetz]

The current releases of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper still have the Jim Henson Pictures logo, even though that was added to them when they were released on video in 1999.