Gecko Studios

Background
Gecko Studios was a production company that was formed by Elliot Strange in 1987, based in Lufkin, Texas. Following creative issues at ABC centering on The Halloween Gang and them restructuring their programs under the guidance of the Q5 Corporation for that year's television season, Strange sought to fund and produce a greenlit syndication run for the show, leading to him creating Gecko and seeking out other producers interested in the project. Strange's association with producers Phil Sterns and Julia West from the syndicated season helped to finance a pet project Strange was working on, which would become The Key to Laurie Locke. The film was only a moderate success, but enabled Strange to build connections from there. He would later help acquire and produce an American dub of the anime film Gin no ōzara no yōsei (released in the US as The Fairies of Silver Platte.) From there, Gecko would produce animated commercials for local Texas businesses, but would later land major clients such as RadioShack, Whataburger, Mystic Pizza, Barq root beer, Rolling Rock beer, Yuengling and more notably, American advertising for NEC/Hudson Soft and SNK for the TurboExpress and the Neo Geo Pocket Color respectively. Gecko exited the animation industry in 2003 and would continue on as a rights-holder. This coincided with Strange becoming more active on websites like Newgrounds, deviantArt and YouTube, also forming the animation multichannel network Stupid Planet in 2010 alongside producers Jerry and Renee Sterns. Gecko would briefly return in 2009 and 2015; 2009's Channel 2 was in production since the early-2000s, Strange's involvement stemmed from legal obligations through an agreement he signed with the then still-running Entropy Films for a three-production deal, this concluding that. 2015's Don't Watch These: Five of the Worst Movies Ever Made was owed more to Strange's heavy association with the Sterns and his involvement was owed to contractual details; Strange would own a majority stake in Stupid Planet on the condition he help co-finance the project with the Sterns.

1st Logo (1987)
Logo: On a black background, we see a grey box containing a circular image of a girl with her hair arranged in a pony-tail fashion and wearing a red sports shirt with blue jeans, standing in a fighting stance. The girl throws a few rapid punches before the image freezes. Beneath the frame is the text "GECKO STUDIOS" in black.

Trivia: The girl in the logo is known as Judy. She was the first character ever created by Strange. She was intended to be included in The Halloween Gang, but as co-creator Byron Blessard had become more accepting of ABC's impending alterations, intended to revision her as a more submissive character (Blessard had also become infamous for a number of allegations of pedophilia, which would get confirmed years later.) The extent of the conflict led to Strange using Judy as a personal trophy to reflect his victory against Blessard and the network. Judy would appear in The Halloween Kids and would also appear in various commercials produced by Gecko.

FX/SFX: The punching.

Music/Sounds: Various punching sounds, ending with a bell sound.

Availability: Appeared on syndicated episodes of The Halloween Gang. This and the Sternwest Productions logos would wind up plastering the Blessard Animation Productions on local reruns of the first season and the eighth through thirteenth episodes of the second (those were traded off from the syndicated seasons) distributed through The Program Exchange. This principle also applies to earlier VHS releases through Family Home Entertainment.

2nd Logo (1989-1992)
Logo: We fade in to a white background with scribbles on it, as well as a black number "3". The area flashes a bit before cutting to the number "2" against the same background but with smaller, more faded blue scribbles, then cutting to "1" with green and yellow scribbles. Suddenly, the image from before fades in. The background flickers as Judy throws a punch before the image clears out, leaving an image of her in a circular frame, with "GECKO" above her in yellow and red squares (a gecko embryo replaces the "O" in "GECKO" and "STUDIOS" below in a spaced out font. All of this is on a grey stone background.

FX/SFX: Traditional animation.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Seen on The Key to Laurie Locke and the Streamline Pictures dub of The Fairies of Silver Platte.

3rd Logo (1995-2015)
Logo: On a black background with yellow, orange and red circles, we see a girl facing away from the viewer. The girl is encased in a circle made up of the company name. She turns around, revealing she has two heads, both holding surprised expressions, and they jump to face the viewer. One head grins and waves her hand, the other has their hand out.

Variant: On Champion, this shares the screen with the logos for Distant Horizon, Broadway Video, Central Park Media and The Firm. The logo is also still.

FX/SFX: 2D animation.

Music/Sounds: Three hard to describe sounds, or the closing theme of the program.

Availability: Appeared on the short-lived The Halloween Kids. Was also seen on Forget Tess and its spin-off holiday specials, which were last seen on Nicktoons Network years ago, the unsold pilot for Foxtrot and the obscure OVA Champion. Also seen on the films Channel 2 and Don't Watch These: Five of the Worst Movies Ever Made and the video game Green Jean. First appeared on the 1995 version of The Beast of Yucca Flats.