Logo Joke / Universal

Comcast isn't freezing to death in this logo.

As Universal has the Earth as its logo, it's common for features to employ an Astronomic Zoom as a logo joke.

Advertising

• A 1999 ad for Universal Studios featured the camera zooming in on the Earth until arriving at the park itself.

Animation

• All Universal Pictures's classic cartoons produced during the Golden Age — such as Woody Woodpecker and others — used the standard logos of the time, but with the starring characters' distinctive Leitmotif playing in place of the usual Universal fanfares.
• When Universal produced some animated series in the 1990s under their subsidiary Universal Cartoon Studios^note now known as Universal Animation Studios, they used a logo featuring an anthropomorphic cartoon airplane (a modified version of their 1920s logo), seen here.
• Universal Animation Studios debuted a new logo in 2006, that depicted an animated version of the globe being stretched out and spun around, and then a comet shoots by it. Seen here.
• The Land Before Time:
  • The Day of the Flyers: Earth reverts back to its geographic formation during the Pangean era as the camera zooms in.
  • Journey of the Brave: Alongside using the 1997-era music, the camera zooms in to the valley the dinosaurs live in.
• Balto III: Wings of Change: The movie opens with the Universal logo that was used from 1927 to 1936. It's period-appropriate (since the movie is set in 1928), as well as thematically appropriate due to biplanes featuring prominently in the plot.
• 2011's The Little Engine That Could uses the 90s Universal logo, and has the titular engine pulling the Universal title across the globe, seen here.
• Minions has the Minions sing the Universal fanfare in their traditional babble, with one of them holding an Incredibly Long Note until the Illumination Entertainment logo shows up and he passes out. This marks the first time the Universal and Illumination logos share a joke.
• Migration has Bob and Stuart playing the fanfare on their kazoo and ukulele respectively.

Films — Live-Action

• From 1922 to 1936, the Universal Pictures logo had a biplane circle the world.
• From 1925 to 1927, the globe featured an image of Universal founder Carl Laemmle, accompanied by the title "Carl Laemmle Presents" (which often replaced the Universal name, but would also often appear after it).
• 47 Ronin: After the logo sequence finishes, the globe stays on-screen for several seconds before the perspective zooms in through the clouds to Japan, seen here.
• The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle: The globe fades into a mural on the roof of animated cinema hall that opens the film, seen here.
• The Secret Probation Edition DVD release of Animal House has the globe get bigger and bigger until it explodes... with John Belushi's character Bluto exclaiming "I'm a zit, get it?".
  • At the end of Animal House, the usual advertisement "When in Hollywood, Visit Universal Studios" appears, and a parenthetical line "(Ask for Babs)" appears under it, in reference to a character from the film. This variant would also appear in John Landis' later films he did for the company such as The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. Supposedly, according to an Urban Legend, asking for Babs at the gate of Universal Studios Hollywood would either get you a discount or free admission. However, it was dropped sometime in the 1990s.
• The 2019 documentary Apollo 11, which tells the story of the first moon mission using entirely archival footage from the 1960s, opens with a recreation of the logo animation that Universal used in the 1960s (although with the small print updated to say "A Comcast Company" instead of "An MCA Company").
• For DVD releases of the Back to the Future trilogy, the Delorean flies past the logo and zooms into the camera.
• Baseketball: As the logo finishes, the Universal name disappears and credits begin to spin around the Earth while it turns into a baseball.
• Battlestar Galactica 2003 The Plan: Earth is replaced with the planet Caprica, seen here.
• Brüno (2009): To fit with "Brüno", the studio's name displays as "Üniversal". Also, the fanfare is changed to Scooter's Nessaja, which keeps playing through the other logos and the opening credits. Seen here.
• The 'Burbs: the Universal logo zooms into Hinkley Hills, the town the film takes place in, and Mayfield Place, the titular location. Seen here. ^note This is the first Universal logo to be an Astronomic Zoom, and the logo was specially rendered by Industrial Light & Magic, and impressed many of the cast/crew.
• Cape Fear: The logo is shown underwater and starts to ripple.
• Casper: The globe turns into the moon, seen here.
• The 2010 documentary Catfish, about social media, replicates the Universal logo by using a computer cursor to spin a mildly pixelized Brand X version of Google Earth. Production companies Relativity Media and Rogue Pictures are pixelized and represented as a desktop icon, respectively.
• Crimson Peak: Both the Universal and Legendary Pictures ident are styled all in crimson red.
• Death Race has the logo transform into a car engine, alongside the logo being in black-and-white.
• Doom: After a brief narration from Sam, Earth is replaced by Mars in the logo. After the ident finishes, the perspective zooms into the Olduvai Research Base on the planet's surface.
• In the original release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Universal logo runs backwards (as if to emphasize the space bearing on the plot). For the 20th anniversary release, a special logo was created that shows Elliot and E.T. flying past the Universal globe with the text "Universal celebrates the 20th anniversary of E.T." underneath. (The same ident was used in the original release of Big Fat Liar.)
• The Fast and the Furious
  • 2 Fast 2 Furious: Earth turns into a hubcap. Seen here.
  • F9: The 1990 Universal logo is used in this film (albeit with the 1997 fanfare used), setting up the opening flashback: a race that Dom's father participated in.
• Five Nights at Freddy's (2023): The logo glitches out halfway through with a similar effect as the one found in many of the games.
• The Flintstones and its Prequel The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: the Universal logo is made of bones, named "Univershell", and hovers over Pangaea (prehistoric Earth).
  • In the first film it doesn't appear until the Flintstones go to the drive-in (accompanied by the Revue/Universal Television logo music of the 1960s!), whereas Viva Rock Vegas begins with this variation - actually noticed in the movie by the Great Gazoo ("Did anybody else see those big letters flying by?"). Seen here.
• Freaky: The logo is tinted red.
• The Great Wall: Just after the logo disappears, the globe goes pitch-black for a moment before being relit and showing the other side of the Earth, just before the perspective zooms into China, going all the way to a section of the Great Wall and through a crack in the section, seen here.
• Happy Death Day has the logo rewinding twice after a few seconds, in the style of the film's "Groundhog Day" Loop. Seen here.
  • The film's sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, has the screen split into three Universal logos, reforming at the end, showing that alternate universes are coming into play along with the time loops. Seen here.
• Hop has an egg-shaped globe.
• The House With a Clock in Its Walls uses the 1970s Universal logo, from the era when the original "The House With a Clock in Its Walls" story was first published (1973), and the 1980s Amblin Entertainment logo, seen here. More subtly, the Reliance Entertainment logo has a Smash to Black to the sound of a loud bell in place of a Fade to Black. The Universal logo also plays backwards so that the space background can fade into the Amblin moon. That, and it also mirrors the titular clock's power.
• The Huntsman: Winter's War: The globe transforms into the "golden apple" carried by Queen Raveena as the Universal logo appears.
• The international release of Josie and the Pussycats had the Universal logo turn into a tongue ring shown on a screaming girl's tongue. Although the film opens with both logos, this variation is not on the US release which got the MGM logo joke listed on their page; the joke appears on the logo of the company that didn't release it in that territory as their logo would come up second in sequence and thus be responsible for segueing into the movie.
• Jurassic Park:
  • The opening for the original film has no fanfare at all, instead playing ambient jungle sounds as the ident appears. For the DVD versions of the film, the logo zooms into a dinosaur footprint. (This variation would also be used for a Universal Theme Parks commercial and the DVD menu of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.)
  • The trailer for the 3D re-release of the original film zooms through the logo and into the globe, stopping at a birds-eye view of Isla Nublar.
  • Jurassic Park III: The Universal globe, as well as the Amblin Entertainment logo, ripple like water from the sound of heavy footsteps.
  • Jurassic World: Battle at Big Rock: The continents on the Universal globe form the Jurassic Park logo, seen here.
  • Jurassic World Dominion: The trailer has the Universal logo made of amber.
• Krampus: Both the Universal and Legendary Pictures logo are coated in ice, with icicles having formed on them and snow blowing in the background, seen here.
• The Last Remake of Beau Geste had a variation of the 1936 “Art Deco Globe” with continents on it, followed by Marty Feldman walking in, knocking off all the letters over the sound of glass breaking, stopping the globe, and forming it into a cube, causing all the continents (except for Africa, where the story takes place) to fall off.
• After the credits of the final episode of Magnum, P.I., Magnum turns off a TV showing the Universal logo, then says good night.
• The Man with the Iron Fists: The logo appears to become blurry and smoke-filled, just before a roaring fire comes up from the bottom of the screen and obscures the logo just before it disappears.
• Marry Me (2022): The "Bridal Chorus" score accompanies the Universal logo.
• Meet the Parents doesn't have any visual changes to the Universal logo, but the opening song features a chorus singing "Look at the light coming out of the Earth". The same applies to the following DreamWorks logo, no visual changes, but the same chorus then sings "Look at that boy, sitting on the moon". This isn't present on international releases, due to the logos being swapped.
• The comedy/concert film Michaël Youn: Pluskapoil has the Universal title transform into the titular performer's name, along with the globe morphing into a toy.
• Mo' Better Blues: Flava Flav raps over the (then recently-revealed) 75th Anniversary logo sequence, mentioning how Universal has been "large for years" before telling Spike Lee to "start the movie, G!" Seen here.
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: On the opening for the DVD release, the fanfare stops with a record-scratching noise, and the globe falls down and rolls to the right, before re-centering itself, as a hole opens up in it to reveal the menu options.
• In Mortal Engines, the globe in the Universal logo shows the Sixty Minute War, with explosions going off and massive cracks appearing in the continents, seen here.
• In The Mummy (1999), the text "UNIVERSAL" disappears and the logo turns into the sun, seen here.
  • In The Mummy Returns, the logo turns into the Scorpion King's banner, seen here.
  • In The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, it turns around to zoom on China, seen here.
• The Mummy (2017): The Universal logo heralds the (later cancelled) Dark Universe, proceeding as normal and then rotating around to reveal a dark world and the franchise's logo, seen here. Presumably, the other planned films in the franchise would have followed suit.
• The Munsters is going old school with the classic 1927 logo, cropped with a filmstrip. The projector sounds can still be heard alongside the sounds of the biplane.
• No Time to Die (international version): The Universal logo fades in at the middle of the animation, with the globe being silvery-white and the Comcast byline fading in earlier than usual. The globe fades into a white dot (with the texts fading out later) which moves off to the left, transitioning into the Bond Gun Barrel sequence dots moving to the right. Seen here.
• Oblivion (2013): The logo has a ruined, bombed-out Earth with the "Tet" space station floating over it. And the Odyssey in its blind spot on the opposite side of the planet. Seen here
• Pacific Rim: Uprising: The Universal Studios and Legendary Pictures logos are shown in Jaeger displays, seen here.
• The Paper: The logo transitions into a large antique clock situated above an open park in New York City.
• Pitch Perfect has the Universal fanfare performed a capella then cuts to characters performing it; the second film begins with the fanfare done as a duet by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins. The third has the Bellas doing a different arrangement, with dramatic reharmonizations.
• Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping has the traditional fanfare stop midway through playing (complete with a bass drop) before turning into an EDM remix.
• The trailer for Psycho (1998) emphasizes the fractured nature of Norman Bates' mind by having the Universal logo "glitch" out and cut rapidly between a deteriorating film countdown reel and the logo itself.
• Pufnstuf: During one of the verses in the song "Living Island", it cuts to the logo ident — except it's missing the Universal title and only has the Van Allen radiation belts rotating around it.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World displays the logo and fanfare in old-school-games style. Also inverted in the film itself when Lucas Lee makes his entrance to the tune of the original fanfare.
• Serenity: The Universal spinning-planet logo becomes Earth That Was, with the colony ships blasting off for space, seen here.
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The 1929 Byplane logo is used (with additional fireworks going off in the background), since the first scene is a flashback to World War I.
• According to its DVD trivia track, an early version of Shaun of the Dead scored the Universal logo with sound effects from the fruit machine game Ed plays in the pub.
• Skullduggery (1970): The Universal globe cross-fades into a model globe rotating until it lands on New Guinea, starting the movie. Because the model globe spins clockwise, the Universal globe footage is mirrored to facilitate it.
• Smokey and the Bandit: Part 2: Animated versions of Bandit's TransAm and Sheriff Justice's police car chase around the globe, seen here.
• Street Fighter: After the logo appears, the globe turns metallic and sprouts Shadaloo wings, seen here.
  • The teaser trailer had the globe turn into a crystal ball showcasing scenes from the film, then Bison hurls the ball at the screen, seen here.
• Ted begins with the standard Universal logo (the 100th Anniversary logo in this case), following which it takes a zoom into the globe to arrive on our hero's home.
  • Ted 2 has a similar transition, zooming through the logo and down through the clouds to the chapel where Ted is getting married while a narrator explains what's happening.
• The Thing (2011) uses the 1990 Universal variant (without the "MCA" byline and in blue-purple tones) to emphasize that the film is a prequel to the original, seen here.
• In Unfriended, the logo becomes pixelated and the audio quality worsens, the fanfare sounding like a ghastly moan by the end.
• Van Helsing: The Universal Earth is in black and white, and transforms into the flaming end of a torch carried by a member of a Torches and Pitchforks mob. In the trailer, the globe is replaced by a full moon.
• Violent Night: In the trailer, the Universal logo is Christmas themed, with a white background and a red ornament in place of the Earth.
• Waterworld: The Universal Studios spinning-planet logo shows the ocean levels rising up and flooding the continents. The camera zooms into the globe down to sea level, and the Mariner's boat, starting the movie. Seen here.
• The Wolfman (2010) features two versions.
  • In the theatrical cut, the Universal logo is lunar silver, seen here.
  • The unrated director's cut has a remade (and colorized) version of the Art-Deco Globe logo featured in the original 1941 version, seen here.
• Xanadu: A recreation of the 1929 Universal globe with biplane flying around opens the film. As the opening credits appear, the globe remains spinning on screen and a succession of increasingly modern planes (DC-3, Concorde, flying saucer) come out from behind the Earth. The music used plays in different genres as they appear, seen here.
• Zoot Suit: This 1981 film, about young Chicanos in World War II-era Los Angeles, opens with an old-timey 1940s black-and-white version of the Universal logo.

Video Games

• The game Wanted: Weapons of Fate had "UNIVERSAL" in keyboard keys flying over a globe model.

Other

The 1930s Universal logo with the biplane has been parodied on a few occasions:

• The Cuphead Show! opens with Mugman in a biplane circling a giant Cuphead's head, reflecting the 1930s setting.
• An episode of The Powerpuff Girls has the girls enter a silent movie. They chase after the villain of the movie, even after he gets in a biplane, and one scene reflects the 1930s Universal logo.

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