The Disney-Paramount Project

Background: "The Disney-Paramount Project" is a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and Paramount Pictures Corporation and produced many of the popular Disney shows. The first show from them was "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh." The company joined forces with BIG HITS! Productions (described later) to produce "The Mason Harris Story" and "Inside Your World," along with the movie "Mason Harris: On The Road Again".

1st Logo

(1988-1996)

Nickname: "Castle with Stars, Part I"

Logo: On a blue background, a shower of light descends from the top of the screen, forming a stylized, segmented castle. The segments seem to be spaced farther apart by the time the light reaches the bottom. As it does so, a series of 22 stars flies in from the bottom-left of the screen and encircles the castle. Through the main gate of the castle, a white ball of light forms, then extends out to form the words "Disney-Paramount" in the respective logo fonts. The word "PROJECT" fades in underneath. (The word "THE" wasn't used until later).

SFX: The castle animation, the ball of light extending into the text, the stars flying in.

Cheesy Factor: The castle and text animation were done using Scanimation, while the flying stars animation was done on a computer. This combination may look strange when you consider the differing frame rate per second. In 1990, the animation was recreated, with the entire logo done on a computer.

Music: Depends on who had the upper hand. For mainly Disney-produced productions, the Disney jingle was used; if something was mainly Paramount-produced, then this logo used the Paramount jingle. Later on, a mix of the Disney and Paramount jingles was used. This applies to both film and television productions, where they used their respective jingles. Of course, this didn't apply to all productions, as some shows used their respective theme music over this logo.

Availability: Replaced by a newer logo on Disney- and Viacom-owned networks, and usually in syndication. Some lesser-known independent stations may retain their old copies of these shows. Expect a Carolco logo to precede on motion pictures as they distributed Disney-Paramount Projects until the former's dissolution in 1995.

Scare Factor: Medium, the music may scare some.

2nd Logo

(1996-2003)

Nickname: "Castle with Stars, Part II"

Logo: Same as before, only we zoom out of the main gate of a handsomely redone Castle as opposed to it being formed with light. The stars are redone with a silver trim, as does the text, which shines a bit. "THE" is added to the top-left of the logo, and "PROJECT" is moved to the bottom-right.

SFX: The zooming out, and very nice animation by Pixar Animation Studios.

Music: Uses one new, unified jingle that was first introduced on "Toy Story".

Availability: Replaced by the new logo but it's more current, so it's more common. Expect a Live or Artisan logo to appear at the end as they distributed Disney- Paramount Projects until Artisan was bought out by Lions Gate.

Scare Factor: Minimal.

3rd Logo

(2003-2006)

Nicknames: "Majestic Castle," "Castle with Stars,Part III"

Logo: We are zooming through a suburban neighborhood at night.. After a while the neighborhood passes into a glitzy, Las Vegas-style environment, with bright lights, big buildings, and the like. After zooming past that, we see Cinderella's Castle (from the Magic Kingdom) appear as the Paramount stars fly in and encircle the castle, in an animation similar to that of the 1987 Paramount logo. The camera slows down and stops at the castle. When the stars finish encircling the mountain, the silver words THE Disney-Paramount PROJECT with Disney and Paramount in their respective corporate fonts, appear and shine below the castle.

Television Variation: Shortened to just the words appearing.

SFX: Excellent 3-D animation; everything looks so realistic.

Music: The complete Paramount fanfare, including the chimes at the beginning. For TV it was either the current Paramount TV fanfare or the outro of a TV show.

Availability: First seen on "The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh" whenever Playhouse Disney ran them (Disney Channel had just added the series to their afternoon lineup, but would drop it later in 2004, so Playhouse Disney, which is Disney Channel's pre-school slot, is the only place to find it there). Any and all Pooh-related merchandise after 2003 has a copyright for Disney-Paramount (in both their corporate fonts), with the usual credit to A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepherd. In 2004, this logo would have appeared on "Judge Judy," and later on "Boy Meets World" (which had no relationship to the company whatsoever, except probably it was produced by Touchstone Television which was a Disney subsidiary). On motion pictures with this logo, a Lions Gate logo appears at the end.

Scare Factor: Minimal.

4th Logo

(2006- )

Nicknames:"Majestic Castle II","Castle with Stars,Part IV"

Logo: Same as the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo,"THE Disney-Paramount PROJECT" replaces "Walt Disney PICTURES",with "Disney" and "Paramount" in their respective corporate fonts. The Paramount stars fly in at the near end of the logo,and there's no 'dot encircling the castle' animation.

SFX:Same as the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo.

Music/Sounds:Same as the 2006 WDP logo or the extended 2002 Paramount fanfare used in "Mean Girls"(however,this is a real movie by Paramount in 2004). The fireworks sounds are retained in both logo musics.

Availability:Current.

Scare Factor:None.

In-credit notice

(1988- )

Logo: On a black screen, we see "A DISNEY-PARAMOUNT PROJECT" in the font of the opening credits.

Variant: From 1988 to 1990, the text read "MARIO KASSAR AND ANDREW VAJNA PRESENT A DISNEY-PARAMOUNT PROJECT". From 1990 to 1995, the text read "MARIO KASSAR PRESENTS A DISNEY-PARAMOUNT PROJECT".

SFX: None.

Music: The opening theme of the film.

Availability: Seen on every Disney-Paramount Project.

Scare Factor: Depends on the tone of the opening credits.

_________________________

WetPaintLogo1993's take

5th logo

(2011- )

Nicknames: "DPP boxes" "Turning boxes" "Klasky Csupo"

Logo: On a cream-light grey background, three big, dark grey cubes appear by turning downwards (as if they're hidden at first). The left cube then turns downwards to reveal the Cinderela Castle from the 2006 WDP logo. The center cube then turns upwards revealing the Paramount mountain from the 2002 logo (minus the stars and the text). The right cube then turns downwards to reveal a letter P inside a black box ala the KlaskyCsupo logo. Then the other two cubes follow: the center cube turns downwards to reveal a black box with a letter P set in the Paramount script, as the left cube turns upwards to reveal a black box with a letter D in the Disney script. As this happens, the text "Disney Paramount" (with Disney and Paramount in their respective corporate fonts) appears in an unusual way (starting thin and then growing into its regular thickness), as "THE" flies from the far-left letter by letter into the left, while "PROJECT" does the same, but from the far-right and into the right.

SFX: The cubes turning, the letters appearing.

Music/Sounds: A low piano note, with camera-like clicks as the cubes turn. It ends with a 6-note piano piece as the logo finishes.

Avaliability: At the beginning and end of every Disney-Paramount Project.

Scare Factor: None.