Budcat Creations

Background
Budcat Creations was founded on September 1, 2000 by Jason Andersen, Isaac Burns and Jonah Stich. The Iowa-based team has produced original titles and system conversions of previously or concurrently produced sports games for companies such as Electronic Arts and Majesco. On November 10, 2008, it was acquired by Activision and began production of the PS2 ports for the Guitar Hero series since Neversoft took over in 2007. On November 16, 2010, the studio was closed by Activision.

1st Logo (June 22, 2005-September 22, 2009)
Logo: On an ebony green background, an abstract-looking cat, colored in, white, and black, is seen. It suddenly raises its head up and regurgitates out a strange-looking controller, with wire and all, which drops down. The controller has a startling resemblance to the cat's face. As the camera follows it, it reveals the word "BUDCAT" on several different buttons, with the "B" in black with a white border on its button and the rest in white with black borders on the buttons. Below the buttons is the text "Creations, LLC". The wire then flickers out of existence.

Variants:
 * On Our House Party! for the Wii, the logo is constructed haphazardly out of random work supplies, while the name (without "Creations, LLC") is carved out of a metal plate.
 * On The New York Times Crosswords for the Nintendo DS, the logo takes up both screens, showing it in 2:3 full frame. It reveals that the cat just closes its mouth and looks at the screen, with the wire still in its mouth before disappearing.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A 5-note rock entry followed by the cat yawning and vomiting the controller out of its mouth. Then, we hear the controller fall to the ground and a zapping sound accompanies the disappearing wire as a final rock chord plays. At the end, we hear the cat belch.

Music/Sounds Variant: On The New York Times Crosswords, the belch sound is removed.

Availability: Uncommon. The animated version appears on Nacho Libre and The New York Times Crosswords for DS and Psychonauts for PS2. The still version was seen on Wii games.

2nd Logo (October 28, 2007-December 22, 2009)
Logo: In an olive green space, we see the cat from the previous logo, but with a humanoid bipedal design and slightly rearranged facial features. He is holding a guitar, whose base also resembles the logo, and is surrounded by a ton of speakers in various sizes, along with a pedalboard and amp. He blinks twice, before he raises his arm and strikes down a loud chord on the guitar, which is played through the speakers. The resulting sound is so loud, it throws the cat towards the screen and imprints a 2D version of the controller logo from before, while he falls down off-screen shortly afterwards. The controller design is slightly different, no longer having a white ring around the face, and now appearing to have a white base. Then, the speakers fade out before the letters of the word "BUDCAT", in the same style as before, appear one-by-one as each music note plays. After that, "Creations" appears below.

Variants:
 * On the PlayStation 2 version of Guitar Hero 5, the logo is ghostly white (the controller is now situated next to the text and "Creations" is missing) and projected onto a city building underneath the Neversoft logo in.
 * On the PlayStation 2 version of Band Hero, the logo is neon pink and is positioned underneath the light blue Neversoft logo.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: Two quiet clicks when the cat blinks, him yelling "HEOW!" and a short electric guitar tune. At the end, if you listen very closely, there is a faint voice saying "Budcat".

Music/Sounds Variant: Sometimes, the blinking and/or the "HEOW!" are removed. This depends on the game.

Availability: Common. Appears on the PlayStation 2 versions of Neversoft-produced Guitar Hero titles from Legends of Rock to Van Halen. It also appears on the Wii versions of said titles as well (although the first three said titles don't have the logo on the back cover of the Wii version).

3rd Logo (March 15, 2011)
Logo: We start at the wall of a shack. The camera pans down to reveal a deer head (with a cat's facial features) in the shape of the controller from the previous two logos with the antlers placed where the controller grips are, and the directional pad and the tip of the joystick acting as its eyes. Below it is "BUDCAT" (this time, "Creations" is missing) in the same style as the previous logos. The logo then zooms back a little, then zooms in rapidly as the logo ends abruptly.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A deep whoosh sound and the sound of a fire burning with a male voice saying the company name, followed by a roar when we zoom in.

Availability: Seen on Top Shot Arcade for the Wii, which was released posthumously after Budcat Creations was shut down.

Legacy: The controller's design is really unnerving, especially when considering this is the last game Budcat has ever made.