Acme (UK)

Background: Founded in 1976, Acme (pronounced "ak-ME") was originally a film distribution company created by a Univeristy of Wisconsin which distributed international/foreign films from the 1970's to the early 1980's from offices in Milwaukee. The company was owned by the married couple Ronald Weinberg and Micheline Charest. In 1984, things were changing for Acme as the couple moved the company to Cardiff, Wales and began to focus on children's TV programming. Between 1985 and 2004 Acme produced a number of successful shows such as Neville, Coby, The Adventures of Barbara the Flamingo, The Great World of Daffy Duck and ZooBoom!. In March 2004, after the company lost a lawsuit that began several years earlier and became defunct, Mitchell Hurst bought the defunct Acme and renamed and rebranded it as World View Entertainment, it's current name.

1st Logo

(1985-1994)

Nickname "Rotating Green Bars"

Logo: On a primitive computerized dark blue background, we pan-out to the right through many bright green 3D bars interlocking with each other. The bars rotate up and zoom-out, revealing the text:

ACME

glittering with stars. The word "ACME" is in a blocky lined font, with the "C" colored red and the "M" and "E" rather connected.

Variants:

Sometimes, "AN" and "PRODUCTION" (or "PRESENTATION") are shown above and below the logo, respectively.

A still of this logo with "AN" above and "PRODUCTION" below was seen on Barbara the Flamingo and Adventures of the Rainbow Parrot. Sometimes, "ACME" turns upward.

Animated versions of this logo were tied into the opening credits of Barbara the Flamingo and The Great World of Daffy Duck.

FX: The bars interlocking, the glittering stars.

Cheesy Factor: Medium, rather poor quality early computer graphics and cheesy "glittering" effect for its time, although the animation itself is pretty cool.

Music/Sounds: Plays over the ending theme.

Availability: Last seen in North America when Boomerang reran The Young Gingerbread. Appears on shows airing on Britain's Toonvision Network and Ireland's The TaispeáinFís Channel on occasion and recently has been spotted on The Black Fang on Britain's Sky Kids cable network. Recent re-airings of The Great World of Daffy Duck on World View Kids Network kept the Empire logo, but replaced "An ACME Presentation" on the in-credit logo with "A WORLD VIEW Presentation".

Scare Factor: Minimal; pretty much depends on the ending theme shown.

2nd Logo

(1993-2004)

Nickname "Acme in Space"

Logo: On a space background, various glowing line blocks zoom-out from the bottom of the screen, forming the Acme from before in the same font as the previous logo with a red "C", but this time the letters "M" and "E" do not appear connected together. The logo flashes and the disclaimer "ACME is a registered trademark of ACME Corporation (first Films) " appears below. Starting in 1998, the URL www.acme.com appears below that (this variant may plaster the URL-less logos on new prints of Acme's classics).

Variants:

Sometimes, there is no byline.

Most of the time, the byline is used in different forms (On Neville, it's using their own text form).

Sometimes, the disclaimer would say "ACME is a registered trademark of ACME Films Inc."

On ZooBoom! the logo is still in the first season.

FX: The zooming line blocks, the flash.

Music/Sounds: A whooshing sound with a calm new age synth tune, which is rarely heard. It most commonly used the ending theme of the show. On some shows, like Next of Night and The Great World of Daffy Duck, it is silent.

Availability: Was common back in the '90s. It survives on many pre-2004 Neville episodes on PBS and on VHS/DVD. Some PBS affiliates have already replaced it with a World View Entertainment logo. On the internet, the logo survives on Airborne Squad.

Scare Factor: Low; the darkness and quick pace may get to some, but the CGI is much improved over the previous logo.

3rd Logo

(2003-2004)

Nickname "Bland CGI"

Logo: Superimposed on the screen, we see the Acme logo zooming-in into a blue oval, with the same copyright stamp and URL from the previous logo fading-in.

Variant: On ZooBoom!: Playtime and ZooBoomVille game for GBC, the logo is white.

FX: The CGI logo zooming in.

Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the show, or none.

Availability: Extinct. After Mitchell Hurst purchased the then-defunct Acme because they lost a lawsuit that started in 1999 (as well as debts and losing worth) in 2004, Acme permanently was wiped off the face of the animation industry. Expect this logo to be replaced with a World View logo these days. This logo was seen on the last season of Lisa the Vampire and Theodore in the World of Chalk (Season 2). Ironically, neither Neville, Coby or even ZooBoom! for that matter used this logo as those shows used the 2nd logo.

Scare Factor: None to minimal; the dark skies may or may not get to some people, besides the terrible CGI animation compared to the 2nd logo.