Sterner Stuff

Background
Sternwest Productions began life as Stern-Co. Productions, established by Theodore Stern in 1956. He was joined by his son Phil, where he would serve as an uncredited writer and receive producer royalties before acquiring the company in 1962. The company had a distribution deal lined up with MCA TV/Universal Television which lasted until 1987. In 1979, Julia West would join the company and it was rebranded to Sternwest Productions. Initially producing television movies, they would move on to produce direct-to-video movies. Ever since 2006, Sterns and West had been confronted with allegations of divesting earnings from their company to help back lavish lifestyles, which was said to account for the low budget many of their films had. There were even allegations of them mistreating their son Devlin; this instance was what drove their other son Jerry to abandon filmmaking out of protest. Their daughter Renee was also forced into a strict health plan by West in order to get her to follow in her mother's footsteps, with Sterns bluntly preventing her from taking up directing. Even more allegations would come from former associates, such as Elliot Strange who accused them of co-opting his share of ownership for The Halloween Gang, forcing him to take an entirely different direction when producing his own adaptation in 2000, as well as authors Robert and Linda Dunn who accused Sterns and West of acquiring remake rights to their film Idols under deceptive means, and not contacting them regarding its production. Following the high profile failure of the company's last project, along with an expose released around the same time, the company closed.

1st Logo (1957-1978)
Logo: Basically an in-credit mention reading "A STERN-CO. PRODUCTION" or "in association with STERN CO. PRODUCTIONS"

Variant(s):


 * This would often share the screen with other logos.
 * Sometimes, the text would appear on a blue background.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: The closing theme of the program or none.

Availability: First seen on the short-lived Space Cowboys, later appeared on the short-lived Numbers, County Law and a number of television films distributed by Universal Television, save for When John Came Back and Poor Sweet Lola, which were distributed by Metromedia Producers Corporation and EMI Television Programs respectively.

1st logo (1979-1989)
Logo: We see various multicolored "SW"s on a blue background. The blue copies fade away as the others blink out. A giant yellow "SW" fades in with "STERNWEST" in white appearing in front of it, while "PRODUCTIONS" appears below the shape.

Variants:
 * Early on the logo takes place on a brown background.
 * A still version is seen at the end of movies.

FX/SFX: The words and shapes appearing and disappearing.

Music/Sounds: A bombastic horn fanfare, none, or the opening/closing theme of the movie.

Availability: Appeared on a number of TV movies. Also appeared on the film No Air, which was going to be a television film initially before it received a theatrical release.

2nd Logo (1987-2001)
Logo: On a white background, we see a robotic toy walking up to the viewer. The robot's chest is open, revealing a TV monitor with the word "Sternwest" in a black Peignot font.

FX/SFX: Live action.

Music/Sounds: Rhythmic robot noises.

Availability: First seen on the syndicated run of The Halloween Gang, and along with the Gecko Studios logo, plastered the Blessard Animation Productions logo on reruns of the first season in local syndication and home video releases through Family Home Entertainment. This was removed on more recent prints due to Blessard buying them back. It also appeared on the four episode special Nick At Nite's Commercial Corner, the unsold pilot for an American adaptation of Watch With Mother and various TV movies. This doesn't appear on Christmas by the Century: A Reflection on a Thousand Years of Holiday Spirit, which favors an in-credit mention along with the logos for Schaffer Productions, Bert Stratford Productions and The Fred Rappoport Company.

3rd Logo (2006-2021)
Logo: On a shimmering gold background, the company name forms letter by letter.

FX/SFX: The letters and shimmering.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Seen on a number of direct-to-video movies, as well as the infamous Kickstarter pilot The Next Wave. Also tends to plaster previous logos on newer prints.

Editor's Note: The logo is synonymous with amateurish Z-grade movies. It was around this time Sterns and West became more infamous; how they handled their finances was called into question due to the glut of low budget productions. Beyond that, the logo elicits a certain reputation amongst internet users; Sterns tended to copyright strike videos containing previous logos along with negative reviews. He had also attempted to DMCA SomethingAwful after one of his films was talked about on their site.