The phases of the moon.L-R, top to bottom
DreamWorks has its Trademark, a moon with a child (generally a boy) fishing from it. The company's works often play with the skyline, put the boy through some sort of misery related to the story, or replace the boy with a character from the work. open/close all folders
DreamWorks SKG
Films — Live-Action
- Fright Night (2011): The logo is darker and pans down into the sky.
- The Ring: The moon becomes the Ring for a split second, along with videotape glitches.
Video Games
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park for PlayStation and Sega Saturn: The boy's line gets a tug, and the boy is violently yanked off the moon by a raptor, seen here
.- This is referenced during the end-game cutscene, where the camera pans over a pair of raptors before panning up to show the boy on the moon.
- This is referenced
- Medal of Honor:
- As the original orchestral-acoustic music changes to a military fanfare, the boy throws away his fishing rod to pull out a rifle and put on a helmet. He then jumps off the moon, deploying a parachute, but it gets stuck at the bottom of the moon, seen here.
- Medal of Honor: Underground has mostly the same intro, except that the boy's parachute fails to deploy, leaving him to quickly catch himself at the bottom of the moon, seen here.
- As the original orchestral-acoustic music changes to a military fanfare, the boy throws away his fishing rod to pull out a rifle and put on a helmet. He then jumps off the moon, deploying a parachute, but it gets stuck at the bottom of the moon, seen here
- Small Soldiers for PlayStation: The Commando Elite climb up the line, throw the kid off the moon and use the line to pull in the title, seen here.
- T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger: A dragon flies by the moon, and carries off the fisher boy. T'ai Fu then takes his place and the game's logo forms, seen here.
DreamWorks Animation
General
As DreamWorks Animation became a major animation studio that developed its own animated media, it redesigned the logo and experimented with it further, including more logo jokes. One popular way to open a DreamWorks Animation movie is to pan down from the scene with the boy in the moon, so even logos that are otherwise normal will have the sky altered to match the opening scene.
Later on the advent of streaming services and tv channels contributed to more DreamWorks TV cartoon shows, so it's now normal for all DreamWorks cartoon shows to have their own take on the logo.
The DreamWorks Animation logo has had various changes over the years:
- Shrek 2 debuted the logo with the moon boy riding a bunch of balloons to the moon.
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010) debuted a new logo in a 3D format against a nighttime background.
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World debuted a new logo, which starts off in a 2D animation style and cleverly transitions into 3D CGI.
- Beginning with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (seen here), the moon boy is redesigned to be an androgynous moon child. The logo has the child fly around the universe on the moon, greeting characters, from The Bad Guys, How to Train your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, The Boss Baby, Trolls and Shrek before flying into the sky and casting its line.
- Trolls Band Together debuts a secondary version where Kung Fu Panda, The Boss Baby and Trolls are replaced with Madagascar, The Croods and Puss in Boots, respectively.
Animated Films
- Bee Movie: Barry B. Benson flies up to the boy, causing him to get distracted in his attempts to swat Barry away. Barry stings the boy, causing him to fall down. Barry then takes the boy's place on the moon.
- The Bad Guys (2022): Mr Wolf climbs up to the moon with his grapple gun.
- The Boss Baby: The entire logo is structured into a baby mobile, and the "Fairytale" track sounds like a tinkly lullaby. The sky also resembles the regular logo not used by DreamWorks Animation. This logo was reused for the sequel The Boss Baby: Family Business, except this version ends with a bright flash to transition into the film.
- Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie: George and Harold can be heard humming along to the "Fairytale" music.
- The Croods: The logo is a cave painting.
- The Croods: A New Age: Belt is sitting on a rock moon, and strikes a light to illuminate it out of darkness.
- Home (2015): The boy is sucked up into a Boov transport and is then replaced by a Boov who then casts the fishing line.
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010): a Night Fury flies around in the background, revealing it to be a reflection in the water, which then follows a pan up to the opening scene.
- Kung Fu Panda: A leopard in a coolie hat in a Ninja Run, skips across a body of water, fishing pole in hand, leaping up onto the crescent moon to take the boy's place, seen here.
- Kung Fu Panda 2 has Master Oogway who died in the first film go to the moon and take the boy's place, seen here.
- The inbetweenquel features "Secrets of the Scroll" and "Secrets of the Masters" have Oogway watching from heaven above.
- In Kung Fu Panda 3, Po wears himself out climbing a long flight of stairs to get to the moon, and ends up flopping across it, exhausted. It also ties in with him achieving transcendence in the third film and visiting the spirit realm, like Oogway did.
- Some Chinese releases of DWA titles (before DWA sold off their share in the company now known as Pearl Studio) used the Oriental DreamWorks logo, where the moon is formed from a paint stroke and a panda (inspired by Po) sits on the moon, seen here.
- Kung Fu Panda 2 has Master Oogway who died in the first film go to the moon and take the boy's place, seen here
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: The penguins knock out the boy and take his place, seen here.
- Penguins of Madagascar: After a "20 Years" version of the regular DreamWorks logo, the logo appears on an ice cliff face with the boy in the moon. Part of the cliff then breaks off to reveal the silhouettes of the four penguins on top of each other, taking the boy's place with Skipper, the penguin on top, holding the fishing rod. Seen here.
- Penguins of Madagascar: After a "20 Years" version of the regular DreamWorks logo, the logo appears on an ice cliff face with the boy in the moon. Part of the cliff then breaks off to reveal the silhouettes of the four penguins on top of each other, taking the boy's place with Skipper, the penguin on top, holding the fishing rod. Seen here
- Monsters vs. Aliens: A UFO abducts the boy with a tractor beam. Furthermore, the logo appears in grainy black-and-white and in the 3D version appears flat.
- Orion and the Dark: The logo appears as a child's drawing. Orion appears in the moon and turns on a switch, making everything bright (to his relief and liking).
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman: Sherman takes the boy's place.
- Puss in Boots: The animation is accompanied by lively Spanish music, including the sound of a whip-crack which syncs with the boy casting out his fishing line.
- Rise of the Guardians: Jack Frost takes the boy's place in the crescent moon, his staff in the place of the fishing rod. He lazily knocks the snowflake off towards the screen, causing the camera to zoom out, and the 'DreamWorks' title then freezes up with frost and explodes into snowflakes.
- Shark Tale: The intro starts off normally until the end where the scene cuts back to the boy as he casts his line and the action switches to the worm at the end, which segues into the movie proper as the worm falls into the water screaming.
- Shrek:
- Shrek: The "S"'s in the DreamWorks logo turn into the "S" in the movie's title, reflecting Fiona's nightly transformation. note The series' leitmotif, "Fairytale", also replaces the normal logo fanfare; said score track would later become the normal DreamWorks Animation theme.
- The film was originally to have the logo fade into the crescent moon on Shrek's lavatory.
- Scared Shrekless: The boy is scared by a wolf howl and hides behind the crescent moon.
- Shrek: The "S"'s in the DreamWorks logo turn into the "S" in the movie's title, reflecting Fiona's nightly transformation. note The series' leitmotif, "Fairytale", also replaces the normal logo fanfare; said score track would later become the normal DreamWorks Animation theme.
- Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas: The camera pans out of the logo and into space being viewed in Eris' domain.
- Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans: The Krohnisfere device (displaying scenes from the film) forms the crescent moon, and Jim steps out of the crescent where the fishing boy would go and holds his sword high, seen here.
- Trolls:
- Trolls: The music for the DreamWorks logo at the start is an A Capella version of "Fairytale" from Shrek, the standard version of which is usually used on older versions. At the end, the whole logo is done up like one of Poppy's scrapbook pictures, with the fishing boy having Troll hair.
- Trolls World Tour: Here the DreamWorks logo is made to look like a scrapbook page again, with the fishing boy turning into a Rock Troll and playing a riff on a guitar. There is also a 25 Years Commemoration logo with this feature.
- Trolls Band Together: The DreamWorks logo takes the scrapbook approach yet again, however there is a variation of the 2022 logo with the music in a lower key. This is to allow for the music to transition into the song Perfect once the scrapbook logo appears.
Animated TV Series
- The Boss Baby spinoffs:
- The Boss Baby: Back in Business: The DreamWorks Animation logo is shoved aside and replaced by Ted Templeton Jr. on a swivel chair shaped like the moon. He tells his secretary to hold all his calls, and goes to sleep on the chair. Seen here.
- The sequel show The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib uses the same logo, except that in mid-call Tina leaps on Ted's chair and spins it around, seen here.
- The Boss Baby: Back in Business: The DreamWorks Animation logo is shoved aside and replaced by Ted Templeton Jr. on a swivel chair shaped like the moon. He tells his secretary to hold all his calls, and goes to sleep on the chair. Seen here
- The Croods spinoffs:
- The prequel series Dawn of the Croods has the entire family piled onto the moon as it rocks them to sleep, seen here.
- The Croods: Family Tree, set after the events of the second film, has Eep and Dawn fishing on the moon. They pull up a bear-fish hybrid, so Eep breaks off a chunk of the moon to beat it off, seen here.
- The prequel series Dawn of the Croods has the entire family piled onto the moon as it rocks them to sleep, seen here
- How to Train Your Dragon spinoffs:
- Dragons: Riders of Berk: Hiccup and Toothless are sitting in the moon together, Hiccup is reading a book while Toothless has a fishing line tied to his tail. Toothless then fires on the camera, which Match Cuts with the opening, depicting Hiccup and Toothless flying out of the moon.
- The spinoff series Dragons: Rescue Riders features Dak falling off the DreamWorks moon and the dragon Winger catching him on his back.
- Madagascar spinoffs:
- For the prequel series All Hail King Julien, Julien sits in a straw moon hanging above the jungle and uses Mort to catch a shark, seen here.
- Another prequel series, Madagascar: A Little Wild has a snapshot of a young Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman posing in front of the original DreamWorks blue/purple sky logo.
- For the prequel series All Hail King Julien, Julien sits in a straw moon hanging above the jungle and uses Mort to catch a shark, seen here
- Trolls series:
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On!:
- In the intro, Poppy forms a crescent with her hair while sitting on Cloud Guy. She then uses a twig as a fishing rod and casts Guy Diamond and the DreamWorks Animation logo up. Guy Diamond then puts glitter on the logo as we hear the first line of the theme song. The group then jumps down transitioning into the rest of the intro.
- An in-episode example pops up in the middle of "The Imposter". Poppy discusses Branch's paranoia issues, and it cuts to him trying to explain that the man in the moon is actually a boy fishing, demonstrating with a silhouette of the default DreamWorks logo.
- Another in-episode case occurs during Branch and Creek's song sequence in "Haircuffed". A part of the scene involves Branch sitting on the moon before pulling Creek up.
- Trolls: TrollsTopia: The DreamWorks logo takes on a scrapbook appearance once again, in which the ambassadors of each tribe take a step putting it together, with Poppy making the last touch by giving Troll hair to the fishing boy.
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On!:
- The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle: Bullwinkle does his magic trick and pulls Rocky out of a hat, who flies up to the DreamWorks Animation logo, seen here.
- The 2014 short is in shades of pink, and has Rocky sitting on the moon pulling up Bullwinkle on the fishing line.
- The Adventures of Puss in Boots: Puss sits in the moon instead of the boy. He catches a fish which he tosses directly into his mouth, seen here.
- Cleopatra in Space has Cleopatra and her cat Khensu on the moon, who take off on an anti-gravity bike. The writing also appears in hieroglyphics briefly.
- Dinotrux: Revvit carves a DreamWorks Animation logo into the ground that features Ty Rux and him fishing on the moon, seen here.
- The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants: Harold and George are coloring a Captain Underpants page that has the titular superhero standing on the moon, taking the place of the boy, and the camera zooms in on the page that comes to life by Captain Underpants attempting to fly only for his underpants to get caught by the tip of the moon while flutes play a heroic jingle. Seen here.
- Gabby’s Dollhouse: Gabby, in live action, pulls out a cardboard cutout on a string of Pandy Paws sitting on the moon with the fishing pole. It fades into an animated version of him doing the same, as he pulls his line out of the water, now holding a starfish, as MerCat leaps out of the water.
- Harvey Street Kids: The three main girls sit on the crescent. Dot fishes up a flag and hands it to Audrey, who gets thrown to the top of the crescent by Lotta, plants the flag on the top of the crescent, and hangs off of it.
- Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh: Oh is in the moon in place of the boy, he fishes up the controller for his saucer, and activates it, flying off into the opening proper.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Mandu munches on a bag of cheese snacks at the end of the fishing line, which draws her to the logo, where Wolf is sitting in place of the fishing boy. Seen here.
- Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight: Po, sitting on the moon, catches a bun from a barrel of water. Seen here.
- Megamind Rules!: Megamind sits on the moon until he reels up Chum, who later says "Hello" and later falls down taking Megamind with him.
- The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show: The WABAC drops Sherman off on the moon, who then fishes up "DreamWorks Television Animation", on which Peabody is sitting on, seen here.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: the logo appears from Light Hope's hologram and features She-Ra in her classic "sword aloft" pose, seen here.
- Spirit: Riding Free: A horse steps on a twig lying in the dirt, its hoof-print making a vaguely moon-shaped impression with the silhouette of Lucky sitting in the place of the fishing boy; the twig serving as her fishing rod.
- The Tales of Arcadia series:
- Trollhunters: The Amulet of Merlin opens into the crescent moon, Jim steps out of the crescent where the fishing boy would go and holds his sword high, seen here.
- 3Below: The DreamWorks logo is formed from an Akiridion interface, and Luug the dog appears in it and barks, seen here.
- Wizards (2020): The Heart of Avalon device forms the crescent moon, and Archie flies into it and perches on it, seen here.
- Trollhunters: The Amulet of Merlin opens into the crescent moon, Jim steps out of the crescent where the fishing boy would go and holds his sword high, seen here
- Voltron: Legendary Defender: Voltron cuts a chunk out of the moon leaving only the crescent shape remaining, standing behind it where the boy would normally go.
- Where's Waldo?: Waldo appears hiding on the moon with his hat on top of it. He later grabs it and uses his key to match the moon with his colors.
Video Games
- DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing: The DreamWorks logo's nocturnal setting is adapted as a race track titled "Galactic Sky".
- Players can get access to a selection of custom parts designed to represent the DreamWorks logo (a blue chassis with clouds, and the Moon as a hubcap on the tires).
Other
- The Futurama episode "Three Hundred Big Boys" has Professor Farnsworth visit a gene therapy shop titled "Gene Works SKG", with the fisher boy in the logo using a DNA strand as a fishing line. note
