Amazar Productions

1st logo (1984-2010)

Nickname: "That nightmare is not in the public domain!", "A Face from H*ll", "Klasky-Csupo and VID's Dark Sides"

Logo: On a white background, we see a thick black line wipe onto the screen from the left side, going right. It begins vibrating as it continues moving, and then a white ball comes from off-screen left and begins bouncing along it at a fast pace. It then falls off as the line stops moving. Then we cut to a large close-up of the ball as it zooms away from us and disappears. The black outline of a circle zooms in, immediately followed by a entirely black circle that fills the screen, creating a black background, and then a creepy-looking face with a mean-looking expression fades in. Then "Amazar Productions" fades in and shines underneath in large bronze letters.

Variants:

An abridged variant of the original variant was sometimes used, cutting out the ball-and-stick segment and just starting at the zooming circles.

Late in this logo's life in 1985, the wiping transitions were removed due to concerns of epilepsy. The face is forming from the smoke of a lit match.

In 1985-1999, a special Christmas variant was used that featured the face fading in and slowly zooming in. As it zooms, it slowly grows a beard and Santa hat complete with a happy grin. Below the face, it reads "Happy New Year!", and the word "Year" changes to "Amazar". The music starts with peaceful violin music but ironically becomes a menacing chord when the face changes into its Santa form.

In 1985-1986 before Doraemon, the face would morph into the face of Bowser from the Mario series and open his eyes.

At the end of a 1984 Perman episode on "Seasick Perman", the face faded into a different face with eerie eyes and a tongue sticking out (as if to mock the viewer). This variant sometimes appeared at the end of other Perman episodes as well!

On a repackaged VHS of Bubble Bobble from 1992, the logo is on a blue background.

FX/SFX: The line forming, the ball bouncing, the circle zooming and background color change, and the face and "Amazar Productions" fading in.

Cheesy Factor: The animation of the ball bouncing and the line isn't very detailed, looking like it was made in the 1980s.

Music/Sounds: Starts out with a jackhammer/film projector-like noise during the ball and line animation, and then when the black circle zooms in, a loud, dramatic five-note fanfare is heard.

Availability: Rare. This logo only appeared on videos distributed by the company, many of which are out-of-print and hard to find, even on auction sites such as Amazon and ebay. Appeared on VHS tapes of Bubble Bobble, Perman, Doraemon, and possibly Rainbow Islands.

Scare Factor: Depends on the variant:

Nightmare for the original variant. The loud scary music, zooming circles, and the evil-looking face will without a doubt scare children, who were ironically their target audience, because the music comes suddenly after the warning to adjust tracking control and is so loud that it can kill your TVs speakers, not to mention your ears, and the font used for the "Amazar" portion of the logo dosen't look too friendly either.

Medium for the Christmas variant. The friendly music turning menacing along with the sudden appearance of the face may scare some, but it is far less intimidating than the normal one.

High to nightmare for the Doraemon variant, since the face morphing into Bowser's face and the opening of it's eyes can scare quite a few, and we still have that dramatic fanfare, but it's (somewhat) less intimidating than the normal one.

Nightmare for the "Seasick Perman" variant. This variant is infamous for scaring many unsuspecting viewers when it first aired, due to the face suddenly changing into a eerie, mocking face. The fact that the variant sometimes appeared on other Perman episodes afterwards, thus catching (and scaring) viewers by surprise. Possibly one of the scariest logo variants ever created.