MGM Cartoons: Difference between revisions

===1st Logo (August 16, 1930-July 18, 1942)===

* Starting in 1939 with "The Little Goldfish", the logo is followed by a screen saying "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents AN MGM CARTOON IN TECHNICOLOR" with the copyright disclaimer below on a blue background. * Starting in 1942 with the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "Dog Trouble", the title is put on a red background with "IN TECHNICOLOR" in blue.

* On the ''Captain and the Kids'' series, "Jitterbug Follies" and "Wanted: No Master", the end title is in black & white.

* On "Peace on Earth", a slightly different end title was used. On a sky background, the words "The End" don't appear at all. Instead, the cartoon's title appears in majestic letters.

* On "Swing Social", the end title is on an orange background. Same goes with the "AN MGM CARTOON" title.

* On "The Homeless Flea", the end title is on an animation background with Homer the Flea singing.

* On "Papa Gets the Bird", the end title is on an animation background with Papa Bear falling in the well.

* On "Home on the Range", the end title has the words "The End" written in ropecast.

* On "Dance of the Weed", the end title is on an orange pound background with the words "The End" written differently.

* On "Abdul the Bulbul-Ameer", the end title is on a book cover with the red words "THE END" written in a bold Algerian font.

* On "The First Swallow", the end title is on a shot of a medieval village with the red words "The End" written in medieval letters.

'''Early Closing Titles:'''

* 1934: TBA.

*1934-1935: On a red background with musical notes swirling, the Harman-Ising Productions logo appears on the top of the screen. Below it are the big words "The End", in white, and on the bottom of the screen are the words "Recorded by RCA Victor "HIGH FIDELITY" Sound System". After a few seconds, the "The End" text fades to the MGM marquee.

*1935-1938: Now, on a blue background, the MGM marquee is tacked on the top of the screen and the Harman-Ising logo in the middle with the words "IN TECHNICOLOR" below it. The "RCA Victor" words remain at the bottom of the logo. After a few seconds, all of this fades to the words "The End".

* Although Turner Entertainment Co. was very bad at colorization, they are quite good at logo preservation, and you can see these when cartoons from the period are rerun on TCM (mainly ''The Captain and the Kids'').

* You might also see this logo on some tapes.

* The WWII end variant appeared on "The Hungry Wolf", "The Bear and the Beavers", "Dog Trouble", "Little Gravel Voice", "Puss n' Toots", "Bats in the Belfry" and "The Bowling Alley-Cat" (all released in 1942).

* The Jackie logo premiered on the ''Flip the Frog'' cartoon "Fiddlesticks", released on August 16, 1930 and made its final appearance on "Wanted: No Master", released on March 18, 1939.

* The Coffee logo premiered on the ''Happy Harmonies'' cartoon "The Discontented Canary", released on September 1, 1934 and made its final appearance on the ''Happy Harmonies'' cartoon "Barnyard Babies", released on May 25, 1935.

* The Tanner logo premiered on the ''Happy Harmonies'' cartoon "The Old Plantation", released on September 21, 1935 and made its final appearance on the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "The Bowling Alley-Cat", released on July 18, 1942.

* This logo (with Tanner) was used on the earliest ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons, but the much more common reissue prints replace this with the 3rd, 4th, or 5th logos, or on a few occasions, the 6th logo.

* A special end title was used on "Blitz Wolf". After the cartoon ends, the pictures irises out to a blue circle, a white one and a red one. Then, a more humorous version of the WWII text is used (adding "of Adolf" to "The End" in reference to the end of that short). Due to the mean-spirited nature of the reworded "bond" text, a result of America's extreme patriotism, this end title is cut from most TV airings.

* On the ''Barney Bear'' cartoon "Wild Honey", the end title is on a red background.

* On "The Boy and the Wolf", the end title is on a rainbow-like background.

* On the ''Barney Bear'' cartoon "Bear Raid Warden" and the ''Screwy Squirrel'' cartoon "Big Heel-Watha" (both 1944), the MGM pseudo logo is dropped on the "A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon" secondary end title due to an error.

* Two ''Screwy Squirrel'' cartoons, "Happy-Go-Nutty" and "The Screwy Truant", have end title card gags:  

** "Happy-Go-Nutty": Screwy Squirrel and Meathead are chasing when they stop in front of an end title card on a black background, with the words "The End" in green. They realize that it is the end of the picture. They say goodbye to each other and Screwy says "Hey! Before you leave, just what was the idea chasing me over the picture?". Meathead says "Because you're crazy. You take your appointment. But your ace. I'm crazy." Then Meathead begins to "screw" himself and runs from the cartoon breaking the title card. Then the screen zooms in to Screwy, who says "You know, I like this ending. It's silly". Then the cartoon ends and the typical "A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon" card appears.

** "The Screwy Truant": Screwy Squirrel brings down a title card on a water blue background with the words "THE END" and says: "Well, that's that. Now that dumb officer never will know why I wasn't in school." Then the officer comes in and says: "Oh yeah? Come on, now! Why wasn't you in school?". Then Screwy replies "Because... I've got measles!" and kisses the officer, causing him to get the measles as well. Screwy laughs at him and we zoom up to the words "THE END", which also get the measles. This irises out and the regular "A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon" card fades in.

* Again, MGM was so good with their logo editing and reissues, that many people can't even tell that the logo was changed.

* The WWII end variant appeared on "The Early Bird Dood It!", "Chips Off the Old Block" and "Fine Feathered Friend" (all released in 1942).

* It premiered on "Blitz Wolf", released on August 22, 1942 and made its final appearance on "Northwest Hounded Police", released on August 3, 1946.

* This logo was also used on many ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons, but the much more common reissue prints use the 3rd, 4th, and 5th logos.

===3rd Logo (August 31, 1946-May 17, 1952)===

* It's tacked on to films it didn't originally appear on, as well.

* It premiered on the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "Solid Serenade", released on August 31, 1946 and made its final appearance on "One Cab's Family", released on May 17, 1952.

* It's worth noting that edited appearances of "The Cat That Hated People" in Hollywood Studios' Sci-Fi Theater in Walt Disney World have the opening logo cut off (likely to avoid any mention of another film company in a Disney Park, even though Hollywood Studios was formerly known as Disney-MGM Studios) but retain the closing logo.

* It premiered on the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "The Two Mouseketeers", released on March 15, 1952 (although the next three cartoons released, "Smitten Kitten", "Triplet Trouble" and "One Cab's Family" still used the previous logo, so that the logo officially premiered on the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "Little Runaway", released on June 14, 1952) and made its final appearance on "The Farm of Tomorrow", released on September 18, 1954.

===5th Logo (1953-August 1, 1958)===

* Sometimes, the registered trademark symbol is absent.

* The logo is modified for cartoons released in CinemaScope.

* A slightly different end title was used on "The Flea Circus". After the words "LE END" in a square scrolls from right to left to a pink background after a few seconds, the words "A METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER CARTOON MADE IN HOLLYWOOD U.S.A." are seen.

* On "Good Will to Men", it fades to a version of the secondary end title, written this way:

* The Academy version of the closing title is essentially the same as the previous versions, but this time the "An MGM" credit has been redrawn with thicker borders, and is noticeably smaller to accommodate flat widescreen ratios. Starting in 1956 (reissues only since the new CinemaScope cartoons were already using different closing titles), the "The End" text has been slightly redrawn again with even thicker borders to match the secondary closing titles. Also, "MADE IN HOLLYWOOD, U.S.A." is now in a different font.

* For the CinemaScope cartoons, there are three variants:

** First variant (November 20, 1954-November 19, 1955): Similar to the original title, but it's in widescreen and the background is orange. It was used on shorts from "Pet Peeve" to "That's My Mommy".

** Second variant (January 17-November 6, 1956): The "An M.G.M. Tom and Jerry CARTOON" secondary end title from before, now in different yellow fonts and put on a {{Font color|blue|blue}} background. It was used on shorts from "The Flying Sorceress" to "Blue Cat Blues".

** Third variant (December 14, 1956-August 1, 1958): On a {{Font color|blue|blue}} background, we see a pink square on the upper-left corner, an orange rectangle in the middle of the screen and a green square on the bottom-right corner. In the pink square is the word "an", on the orange rectangle are the words "M.G.M CARTOON", and on the green square are the words "made in Hollywood, U.S.A.". It was first used on "Barbecue Brawl" and its last appearance was on "Tot Watchers".

* It premiered on the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon "Neapolitan Mouse", released on October 2, 1954 and, as told above, made its final appearance on the last ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera "Tot Watchers", released on August 1, 1958.

===6th Logo (1960-December 1, 1962, 1965)===

'''Variants:'''

* On "Switchin' Kitten" and "Down and Outing", the then-current MGM movie logo would play (without "CARTOON" at the bottom, and without the theme song accompanying it) followed by a screen saying "A METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER CARTOON", whose font and background vary depending on the cartoon. The theme song would start whenever this screen came up. While the standard movie logo also appeared on "Buddies Thicker Than Water" and "Carmen Get It!", the second screen was not shown and the opening music played over it.

* Seen on ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons (and others) produced by Gene Deitch and William Snyder in the former Czechoslovakia, which are still rerun on Boomerang on a semi-regular basis and on MeTV as part of its ''Toon In with Me'' and ''Saturday Morning Cartoons'' blocks (all of them have also been released on DVD.)

* Was also seen on current prints of "Rock-a-Bye Bear" on Boomerang, old television prints of some ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts (such as "Puss n' Toots" (appears on the Spotlight Collection DVD with that short), "The Bowling Alley-Cat", "Sufferin' Cats!", "The Lonesome Mouse", "The Zoot Cat", "Quiet Please!", "The Invisible Mouse" and "Saturday Evening Puss") and the Boomerang Germany print of the ''Barney Bear'' cartoon "Half-Pint Palomino".

* Like with the 3rd logo, Sci-Fi Theater-edited airings of "Mouse Into Space" cut off the opening logo, but keep the ending logo.

===7th Logo (July 27, 1963-December 31, 1967)===

* Seen on the Chuck Jones-produced ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons, which are still rerun on Boomerang on a semi-regular basis and on MeTV as part of its ''Toon In with Me'' and ''Saturday Morning Cartoons'' blocks, and all are available on DVD.

* The version that doesn't fade to Tom is featured on non-Tom and Jerry cartoons, such as "The Bear That Wasn't".