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 green-lit 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, Subway 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 2004 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. Strange would co-produce two more films between 2009 and 2012 before rendering Gecko an in-name only company.

1st Logo (1987-2012)
Logo: Against a city skyline with a red tinted sky, we see two women (one with short red hair, the other, a normal brunette) and three girls running toward the viewer. "GECKO STUDIOS" slides in above and shines.

Variant(s):


 * A version exists for films, where we see the characters fade in and run as the scenery fades in, then the logo goes on like normal.
 * 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, seemingly reminiscent of the opening to the 1996 Batman series.

Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the show, or none. On some uses, it had a distorted techno theme with a woman shouting "Now look at me when I'm talking to you boy!" When it was first seen, it featured a six note triumphant theme.

Availability: Uncommon


 * First appeared on syndicated episodes of The Halloween Gang. Was also seen on the short-lived The Halloween Kids, Forget Tess and the show's spin-off specials, the unsold pilot for Foxtrot and the English dub of the OVA Champion. It also appeared on the company's final production, Don't Watch These: Five of the Worst Movies Ever Made.
 * It also appeared on the video games Green Jean 2: Enter the Nega Jean and Green Jean (2002). Strange assisted as a character designer and artist on either game.
 * The extended version appeared on The Key to Laurie Locke, the Streamline Pictures dub of The Fairies of Silver Platte, the 1995 version of The Beast of Yucca Flats, Tonka: Search and Rescue and Channel 2.
 * This and the logos for Sternwest Productions and Entropy Films 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 also applies to earlier VHS releases through Family Home Entertainment, as Strange sanctioned the release.
 * Newer prints, such as the budget DVD release by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, wind up removing the logos, and as is the case with shows produced by DiC Entertainment and those inherited Sony Pictures Television, the DiC and Coca-Cola Telecommunications logo are replaced with the Cookie Jar Entertainment and SPT Bars of Boredom respectively, while the Gecko, Sternwest and Entropy logos are replaced by the Blessard Animation Productions logo.