Nickelodeon Movies

Background
Nickelodeon Movies is the motion picture production arm of American children's cable network Nickelodeon, founded on February 25, 1995. In 1993, Nickelodeon made a deal with 20th Century Fox (now acquired by Disney) to produce films based on their properties such as their original Nicktoons, but no movies were made under this deal due to the Nick/TCF contract expiring later in 1995. Nickelodeon Movies was established to produce movies based on their shows, as well as other original family films.

All of their movies are distributed by Paramount Pictures (except for The Loud House Movie and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, both of which are distributed by Netflix, and The J Team, which is distributed by Paramount+), as when Nickelodeon Movies was founded, its parent company Viacom (now Paramount Global) had merged with Paramount Communications. Their first film was Harriet the Spy, released in 1996.

1st Logo (July 10, 1996)
Logo: A rhino is shown running on what appears to be clouds (in a send-up of the first TriStar Pictures logo), as the camera slowly brightens. However, he repeatedly bumps, slips, and crashes into the "clouds" in the logo, which turns out to be cardboard cutouts with lights on a movie set. The rhino trips over the Nickelodeon logo, shaped like a cloud, and crashes into the screen. The rhino pulls himself off the screen and hangs onto the Nickelodeon cloud on a black background, causing the cloud to turn into the familiar splat design. The rhino swings a bit on it and then smiles at the screen.

Variant: On 4:3 full-screen prints, the logo is both choppier and in open matte.

Technique: 2D animation and 3D visual effects in a style called "Blendo". This logo was produced by Colossal Pictures in San Francisco on Macintosh and Silicon Graphics computers with Softimage Toonz, PowerAnimator, Photoshop (clouds and texture maps) and Flame (compositing) software.

Music/Sounds: Dramatic orchestral music that starts getting messed up as the rhino trips, along with yelping from the rhino as he bumps and stumbles around the set. The music builds up as the rhino crashes into the screen, segueing into a rap-style vocal version of the Nickelodeon jingle.

Availability: Seen only on the company's first film, Harriet the Spy.

2nd Logo (July 25, 1997)
Logo: On a black and gradient background, we see  soda being dispensed into a large cup. When it is done pouring, a lid with a straw closes the top, and the cup drives around the screen like a racecar until it brakes and falls. The lid comes off, and the soda spills out, with the Nickelodeon wordmark on it.

Trivia: This logo pays homage to a Nickelodeon Productions logo from 1995.

Variants:
 * On full-screen prints, the logo is choppier.
 * On 35mm film scan prints, the logo is in open-matte.
 * On the trailer, the Paramount logo stretches into a still alternate render of this logo.
 * On TV spots, as well as the film's making-of special, "MOVIES" is seen below in the same font as "NICKELODEON".

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: Soda pouring and car sounds. The brake sounds are accompanied by the jingle from the 1985 "Nick Nick Nick" ID.

Availability: Only seen on Good Burger (1997).

3rd Logo (1997)
Logo: On a white background, we see an movie camera with "NICKELODEON" (in its well known font) and a green filmstrip with "MOVIES" on it unfolding from one of the filmreels.

Technique: None.

Music/Sounds: The opening theme/voiceover of the trailer.

Availability: Rare. This logo was made specifically for the first trailer for The Rugrats Movie, although it was used as a print logo from the company's inception until the premiere of the 5th logo.

4th Logo (November 20, 1998)
Logo: We see Slap T. Pooch (a character from the short, "What is Funny?", which was aired on Oh Yeah! Cartoons in that year) walk in out of nowhere on a black background, as he spots a blob of goo. It then goes to a really close zoom on his face and hand as he starts fidgeting with it. It then gets stuck to his fingers and he struggles to throw it off. Once it does, it starts bouncing off the walls and then gets stuck to his foot. He then jumps around to remove it, making more spots on the ground. A shadow then appears over Slap, then a giant purple monster foot stomps on Slap and the goo, turning the latter into the Nickelodeon footprint as seen on the gates to the Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, CA. The camera pans to reveal it, then Slap falls off of it.

Trivia:
 * The way the giant foot smashes Slap is a possible shout-out to Monty Python's Flying Circus, where sketches would often abruptly end by something like a giant foot or a weight coming down from the sky and crushing whatever was on the screen (for example, the giant foot is what ends the show's intro).
 * The logo was creative directed by George Evelyn, and animated by Chuck Gammage Animation based on a character (from the Oh Yeah! Cartoons pilot of the same name) created by Bill Burnett and designed by Vincent Waller.

Variants:
 * On trailers, a oval reading "MOVIES" in the Arial Narrow font accompanies the footprint.
 * On full-screen prints, the logo is choppier.
 * On 35mm film scan prints, the logo is in open-matte.

Technique: 2D animation produced by Colossal Pictures and outsourced to Chuck Gammage Animation.

Music/Sounds: A cartoon soundtrack accompanied by cartoon sound effects and music cues, culminating in a hip-hop mix of the Nickelodeon theme accompanied with a tuba "wah-wah" sound effect that reverberates. The drum sample used is from "Think (About it)" by Lyn Collins, a James Brown-produced record.

Availability: It's only seen on The Rugrats Movie and its adaptation for the Game Boy. Although it appeared on trailers for Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, the film itself used the 5th logo.

5th Logo (February 11, 2000-December 21, 2001)
Logo: Depending on the movie:
 * Snow Day: A man shovels the snow off the walk to his house and his dog is watching him, sitting down on the snow. Then, a giant snowball falls onto his house and completely destroys it in a very graphic manner. The dog runs off barking in a panic and the man does a double take. The snow falls off the snowball revealing a large ball with the word "NICKELODEON" on it. The background turns black and the ball then bounces to the middle-left of the screen, with a small  ball and a  ball with "movies" on it following, and then it fades out.
 * Rugrats in Paris: The Movie: There is a special Parisian variant which is nearly the same, except the regular man is replaced with a stereotypical French man raking leaves in front of his house in the fall season, and the Eiffel Tower can be seen in the background not too far from his house. The ball smashing the house is now just the big ball with "NICKELODEON" on it, then the logo resumes like normally, and the live-action dog appears on the bottom-right of the screen, barking at the logo once before it fades out.
 * Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: We start with the Nickelodeon ball bouncing to the middle-left of the screen alongside the smaller  ball. Then Goddard runs into screen with a synthesized bark. He looks at the logo and whimpers, knowing it's incomplete. He activates a laser beam on his back and creates the  "movies" ball (with "movies" in a noticeably different font than the previous two variants). He puts away the laser and curiously looks at the audience. This variant was also used in the TV special The Making of Jimmy Neutron albeit shortened.

Variant: On the ID versions of the first two, the logo plays as normal, but the "movies" ball is removed.

Technique: Live-action with overlaid miniatures and computer animation, produced by Curious Pictures. The Jimmy Neutron variant is all CGI, produced by DNA Productions and O Entertainment.

Music/Sounds:
 * The Snow Day version has a light whistling tune that abruptly stops when the house gets destroyed by the snowball, and then changes to either a tuba/whistling version of the Nickelodeon theme (om VHS and the ID variant), or a short rock tune with a choir singing at one point (on DVD, digital prints and TV airings).
 * The Rugrats in Paris version has an accordion playing the light whistling tune, followed by an accordion/tuba version of the Nickelodeon theme and a "bark" from the dog.
 * The Jimmy Neutron version has a funny sounding version of the Nickelodeon theme with a trombone, cartoonish sound effects, and the noises that Goddard makes, provided by Frank Welker.
 * The Making of Jimmy Neutron variant has John Debney's music playing over it.

Availability: Seen on the titles listed above, with each movie having their respective variants of the logo. The first two versions were also modified as IDs for Nickelodeon to help promote the respective movies.

Legacy: First logo to utilize live action, a concept which many of the 2000s logos followed up on. It is also the first of their several logos to have a similar theme that changes each movie.

6th Logo (June 28, 2002-June 13, 2003)


Logo: On a black background, a faint black crescent sphere (representing the moon) moves to the bottom of the screen, causing a crescent Earth, the sun, and a moving starfield to appear; this part of the logo parodies the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey. As the moon moves off-screen at the bottom, the Earth starts to wiggle and "sneezes", crashing into the camera. This causes the moon to bounce back onto the screen, revealing itself to be an ball with the Nickelodeon wordmark on it. The starfield suddenly transitions to a plain black background as the Earth becomes a spinning ball with "movies" on it, and the sun becomes a smaller  ball. The small ball flies around the screen before stopping in between the bigger balls. The ball then "sneezes" again, causing the  balls to briefly pop out. The ball then straightens itself out to finish the logo.

Variants:
 * A shorter version of the logo starts with the balls zooming out from the middle of the screen. Theme 1 is used and it starts off a bit delayed and as a result, part of the logo at the beginning is silent.
 * On Rugrats Go Wild, the logo is slightly darker and cuts to black instead of fading out.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds:
 * Theme 1: A dramatic 4-note fanfare somewhat reminiscent of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the opening theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. During the last part of the fanfare, we hear a loud sneeze, followed by a hip-hop version of the Nickelodeon theme.
 * Theme 2: Space ambience followed by a different-sounding sneeze and an electronic version of the Nickelodeon theme.

Availability: The long version is seen only on ''Hey Arnold! The Movie (with Theme 1) and Rugrats Go Wild'' (with Theme 2). The short version appeared during Nickelodeon's airings of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie between 2006 and 2013, despite the fact that the movie never used this logo at all originally; the movie itself used the 8th logo.

7th Logo (December 20, 2002)


Logo: We see a forest on a sunny day as if it was seen in the grass. Then, the curious nose of a white dog with brown splotches appears sniffing the screen. Then the dog sees the Nickelodeon Movie logo made by frisbees on the grass. We cut back to the dog, who licks the screen, turning it black.

Variants:
 * This was also used as a network ID, but with a few differences; the "movies" ball and the small ball are removed. The Nickelodeon ball is moved to the middle.
 * An open matte version of this logo exists on full-screen prints of The Wild Thornberrys Movie. Early full-screen prints have this logo cropped to 4:3.

Technique: A mix of stop-motion and computer animation created by Charged and 2/8/0-Design, both in New York City.

Music/Sounds: Before the dog appears, we hear a guitar tune over the sounds of children playing, followed by sniffing and grunting sounds from the dog. When the company logo appears, we hear a "country" version of the famous Nickelodeon theme. Composed by ShackedUpSound.

Availability: Rare. Only seen on The Wild Thornberrys Movie. It was also seen on a TV spot for Yours, Mine and Ours and was used as an ID in December 2002 and January 2003 to help promote the former film.

8th Logo (October 27, 2004, November 19, 2004, August 1, 2006)


Logo: On a black background, an explosion occurs. A -colored ball emerges from the explosion as several yellow streaks form in it. We zoom through the ball as the background fades to a kaleidoscopic sky. An rose grows, and dissipates into pillow or sheet-like objects as an  zeppelin flies through it. The sky background ripples before fading into a kaleidoscopic view of several fish swimming. The logo then transforms into an bubble, which floats outward and spawns two more bubbles that form the Nickelodeon Movies logo. The finished product is in an underwater environment.

Trivia:
 * The blue ball seen at the beginning of the logo is a possible callback to the "silver ball" logo that Nickelodeon used from 1981 to 1984.
 * The zeppelin is possibly a reference to the Nickelodeon blimp used for the Kids Choice Awards.

Variants:
 * There is a shortened version that starts when the logo forms.
 * On 35mm film scan prints of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, the logo is in open-matte.

Technique: CGI by Brand New School (which also created Cartoon Network's 2010 logo and bumpers).

Music/Sounds: A bouncy, Beatles-like tune with sound effects including explosions and ripples, ending with underwater sounds when the Nickelodeon bubbles appear.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the shortened version, some bubble noises are heard.

Availability: Only seen on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, as well as its video game counterpart for PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox, and the teaser trailer and video game counterpart for Barnyard.

9th Logo (December 17, 2004-December 15, 2006, January 13, 2009)
Logo: On a space background, we see a tinted Saturn-like planet with a shadow of the Nickelodeon wordmark on it. The camera moves away from the planet as a (somewhat rounded) 3D Nickelodeon wordmark zooms out from the bottom of the screen as the camera pans to reveal an moon (which resembles Venus), which the wordmark settles in front of. As this happens, two smaller and  moons spin around and stop on the right side of it to form the Nickelodeon Movies logo. The word "movies" (set in Futura) spins in around the moon to complete the logo, and the camera pans down to start the movie.

Variants:
 * There is a shortened variant on Yours, Mine and Ours that starts when the Nickelodeon wordmark settles in front of the orange moon, and the logo does not pan down.
 * On the Game Boy Advance version of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, the logo appears as a still image in print form.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: The opening theme of the movie or none.

Availability: Can be seen on Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Mad Hot Ballroom, Barnyard, Charlotte's Web, and Yours, Mine & Ours. Also seen on the Hotel for Dogs game on Wii and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie on Microsoft Windows and Game Boy Advance.

10th Logo (June 16, 2006)
Logo: We begin by zooming across a long brown oblong shape. As the rest of the screen is gradually lit up, it's revealing that it's one of the ropes of a wrestling ring. The background shows an audience rapidly taking photographs. The camera zooms down to the bottom rope once it reaches the end of the previous one and zooms past it in a similar manner. After this, the camera takes a 180 degree turn to reveal the bottom of the ring, where we see the Nickelodeon Movies circle logo as a boxing bell. The "NICKELODEON" ball is the bell, the "movies" ball is the clanger, and the dot is the screw keeping the clanger in place, all in their usual colors (with the rest of the bell being ). The bell rings twice and the logo fades out.

Variants:
 * On the trailer, the logo is on a black background, the colors are altered and the bell rings in three times.
 * On 4:3 full-screen prints, the logo is choppier.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: The sounds of the cheering audience and pictures being taken (which actually start over the Paramount Pictures logo), page turning-like sounds for the zooming of the ropes (quieter on the second rope), a swoosh for zooming to the lower rope and to the back of the ring, and the bell clanging. The sounds were provided by Musikvergnuegen.

Availability: This was a custom variant used for Nacho Libre, and as such only appeared on the movie.

11th Logo (2006)


Logo: We see a group of birds flying to the right against a blue daytime sky with clouds. As the birds start grouping together towards the right of the screen in the distance, a group of  birds fly to the left as both groups of birds form the Nickelodeon Movies logo. The birds eventually scatter as the camera pans down, seguing into the opening credits of the movie.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: The opening theme of the movie.

Availability: Unused. This was going to appear on Charlotte's Web, but it was suddenly scrapped and the 9th logo was used instead. The only way you can see this logo now is online.

12th Logo (February 14, 2008-June 12, 2009)


Logo: Against a black background, some fluid-like slime swirls out from the distance toward the viewer. The camera pans around and the slime forms the Nickelodeon logo with "movies" flying out letter-by-letter on its right.

Trivia: This was the last Nickelodeon Movies logo to utilize Nick's famous splat logo, and one of only three that did, period (with the first two logos being the other two).

Technique: CGI animation by Picturemill, who also animated the 2020 20th Century Studios logo.

Music/Sounds: Slime sounds, and the opening theme of the movie.

Music/Sounds Variant: There is a variant that uses slime sounds and a quirky orchestral tune, ending with a majestic finish (which sounds similar to the first six notes of the Nickelodeon jingle), created by Musikvergnuegen. This version seems to have never appeared in any movies or video games, but it can be heard [here].

Availability: Seen on The Spiderwick Chronicles, Hotel for Dogs (the Wii video game uses the 9th logo), Imagine That, and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

13th Logo (February 21, 2010-March 15, 2019)
Logo: We zoom out under an drop facing the camera, which is falling down against a white background. As the camera pans out and rotates so that the drop is viewed from a side perspective, the  drop falls off-screen, and shortly afterwards splashes on top of something, which the camera reveals to be the "i" in the current Nickelodeon logo. The drop splashes on the "i" upon impact, with the splash quickly forming the dot. As the camera zooms out to fully reveal the finished logo, "MOVIES" in purple fades in, followed by a small TM trademark bug fading in to the right of the logo.

Variants:
 * An earlier version of the logo, used in 2010, has the Nickelodeon logo zooming out on a black background, followed by "MOVIES" in purple appearing letter-by-letter as some purple rays shine behind them.
 * A variant was used on Nickelodeon airings of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. On a white background, the camera pans down to reveal the Nickelodeon logo and the word "MOVIES" in . This was only used when Nickelodeon used their last-scene-of-the-show credits from 2013 until sometime in 2016, as now most current airings have no logos at all. But it did come back one more time when Nick aired the movie on February 21, 2017, seven years after the logo debuted.
 * There's also a slightly longer version of the above variant, where it begins with the Nickelodeon logo to fall down on the ground and the word "MOVIES" is in a color.
 * A short version exists, which starts with the logo already being in place.
 * On the video game version of The Last Airbender for Nintendo DS, the logo is still and in print form.

Technique: All CGI animation by Devastudios, who also animated the 2011 Paramount logo, and the 2021 Warner Bros. Pictures logo.

Music/Sounds: None or the opening theme of the movie.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the video game version of The Last Airbender for DS, the 2009 Nickelodeon Productions theme is used.

Availability: Common.
 * Seen on recent movies produced by the company, starting with The Last Airbender and ending with Wonder Park.
 * It was first seen on the Nick@Nite promo for Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.
 * It was also seen on trailers for Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Playing With Fire, with the films themselves using the next logo.
 * This logo was last seen on the trailers of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, and makes a surprise appearance on a DVD version of the 2021 KCAs' TV spot of PAW Patrol: The Movie, while the films themselves use the 15th logo.

14th Logo (August 9-November 8, 2019)
Logo: On a white background, we see the current Nickelodeon logo from multiple angles appearing letter-by-letter in different ways, in a somewhat similar fashion to the 2017 Nickelodeon Productions logo. We cut to the finished logo, then the word "MOVIES" in Galano Grotesque (the font used for the current Nickelodeon branding) appears, making the letters in the Nickelodeon logo bounce for a second before settling back in their positions. The entire logo slowly zooms out before fading to black.

Trivia: This logo was made to fit with Nickelodeon's 2017 refresh by Superestudio.

Variants:
 * On Playing With Fire, the logo is shinier and the animation is sped up, causing the fanfare to be out of sync with the logo. The logo also cuts in and out instead of fading in and out.
 * A prototype version of this logo can be see on two trailers for Wonder Park, there is a prototype version of the logo. The film itself uses the previous logo instead.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: The beginning of the 2009 Nickelodeon Productions theme with a bombastic orchestral redux of the last five notes, composed by John Debney and Germaine Franco. The prototype version just has the opening theme of the trailer.

Availability: Very rare, due to its short lifespan. It was only seen on two films: the Paramount Players movies Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Playing With Fire, both released in 2019. The prototype version can be seen on two trailers for Wonder Park in 2018.

15th Logo (August 14, 2020-)
Logo: In a studio, we see SpongeBob SquarePants' hand. He grabs a lever and tries to pull it, but struggles at first, even putting his foot on it at one point. Once the lever is pulled, it causes some of Nick's trademark green slime to start flowing through a tube while electric sparks fly. The lights turn on, illuminating the Nickelodeon logo in several shots. The walls, ceiling and stairs drop to reveal a Hollywood-type area (with five palm trees on it) at sunrise while the Nickelodeon blimp approaches and "movies" is drawn in a cursive-like font. The blimp takes off toward the screen right before the logo cuts or fades out.

Trivia: During the lever scene, we can spot a sign which reads "Bikini Bottom Electric Co." (referring to the main location from SpongeBob SquarePants) and Nathan Love's name on it, plus a pineapple keychain (a nod to SpongeBob's house).

Variants:
 * A shortened version exists on international Netflix prints of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. The logo is faster and starts as SpongeBob starts trying to pull the lever.
 * Scope and still versions exist.
 * An in-credit version exists.
 * At the end of Blue's Big City Adventure and Fantasy Football, the logo is shortened to its final seconds, and it has a copyright stamp for the former below.

Technique: Computer animation for SpongeBob that is based on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run 's animation style (not unlike the style seen in the first movie it precedes) and the background, with the lighting and the "MOVIES" text being done in similarly 2D animation. This logo was done by Nathan Love.

Music/Sounds: SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny) grunting as he pulls the lever, then electrical noises as the slime flows, and finally, a dramatic orchestral recreation of the last five notes of the Nickelodeon jingle (similar to the previous logo), ending with a ding noise.

Music/Sounds Trivia: The Nickelodeon jingle in this logo was composed by Explosion Robinson (best known for composing the music for the current Nickelodeon branding since 2017).

Music/Sounds Variants:
 * On The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, we can hear SpongeBob yelling his catchphrase, "I'm ready!", at the beginning, and we can also hear him singing along with the jingle at the end, ending with a "Ta-da!".
 * There's a shortened version of the above variant where the blasting electric sound effect (while the lights turn on) is absent and only eight light clicks are heard, instead of twelve. The flow is also slightly sped up. This was heard on international Netflix prints of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.
 * Sometimes, SpongeBob's grunting noises are absent.
 * None for the still version.
 * The in-credit version just uses the ending theme.
 * The shortened version has the last few seconds of the music or the ending theme.

Availability: Current and common. Unlike previous logos, this is not only used theatrically, but also used on streaming films.
 * Seen on all Nickelodeon films since The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (also the first film to use the Paramount Animation logo).
 * This logo and the Paramount logo are replaced by the Elevation Pictures logo on Canadian prints of PAW Patrol: The Movie.
 * Also seen on Paramount prints of Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, as the Sky Originals logo for the British print and Huayi Brothers logo for the Chinese print plaster this logo and the Paramount logo on said prints of the film.
 * It most recently appeared on Blue's Big City Adventure and Fantasy Football.