United American Video Corporation

Background
United American Video Corporation (also known as "UAV Corporation", "UAV Entertainment", or "United American Video") was founded in 1984. It was the longtime competitor of GoodTimes Entertainment, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Celebrity Home Entertainment, and many other sell-through home video companies.

The company expanded beyond the public domain to include licenses for several major studios, and eventually launched UAV Gold and the UAV Silver lines, as well as Hep Cat Entertainment, Gemstone Entertainment and Ovation Home Video lines. UAV even had a brief tenure in Europe with the UAV Europe line, but it collapsed on the European public domain company crash in the early 1990s.

In 1992, UAV purchased the assets of VidAmerica and created the new Sterling Entertainment Group label, which eventually became the standard by 1998.

1st Logo (1984-1988)


Visuals: On a background consisting of an American flag, a white rectangle flips forward into view. Inside of the rectangle is a red segmented upside down trapezoid with a star in the middle and the blue script text "United American Video" also in the middle. The logo zooms back towards the top of the screen as it is replaced by a grey background with a red, white and blue line. Beneath the line is the white text, "For better picture quality, adjust tracking control on VCR."

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: None.

Availability: Not all tapes used this logo.

2nd Logo (1989-1991)


Visuals: On a mostly blue gradient starry background with black in the top right corner, we see an American flag come out of nowhere and zoom out at the top of the screen. We then see a brief shine where the American flag zoomed out, and the large letters "UAV," which are blue with red stripes and are meant to resemble the American flag form after the shine. After this, we see a white star zoom out and rest on the "A." The text "United American Video Corp." appears below the letters.

Variants:
 * On some tapes, the text is not shown at all.
 * Sometimes, the words "For best picture quality, adjust tracking control on VCR." appear on the background before the logo begins.
 * On some releases, that is preceded by a screen saying "These classic cartoons were mastered from the best original film print available. Slight imperfections common in early cartoon animation may be visible."
 * A variant exists for Dutch releases . The first screen has the Dutch flag on it, then the stars from the European flag slide in. The flag and the stars zoom out, and the rest of the logo proceeds as normal, with "EUROPE" below the logo instead.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A tremendous "whoosh" sound that slowly increases in volume, followed by a thunder rumbling sound. It closely resembles a jet flying close by.

Availability:
 * Seen on releases from the era such as Southern Comfort, Lovers & Liars, Gold Rush, Godzilla vs. Megalon, some Jay Ward cartoons such as The King And Odie Show some tapes of The Andy Griffith Show and some early public domain cartoon tapes including Looney Tunes, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Popeye, and Superman.
 * Some tapes such as Sunshine Porcupine does not have this logo at all.
 * The Dutch variant is only known to appear on the Woody Woodpecker en Vrienden.

3rd Logo (1991-1998)


Visuals: Against a black background, a giant, two-toned blue letter A comes lazily sweeping from the back, joined by (turning around, in small white font) the letters making up the word "CORPORATION", and from the sides by the letters "U" and "V". A red bar indented with the word "CORPORATION" comes up from the opposite direction, spinning slowly like an axle, until it stops to interlock with those letters. The entire logo then immediately shifts to face toward the upper left and pauses for about 1.5 seconds, then the entire animation plays in reverse (like a palindrome, meaning one half of the logo is playing forward, and the other half is played backward).

Variant: Some tapes that show the company's tracking control screen has the logo fade in and fade out at the point where the letter A and the word "CORPORATION" appear. This variant was first shown in 1993 and last shown in 1995.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: Same as the previous logo.

Availability:
 * Can be found on tapes from this era such as public domain cartoon tapes, public domain movies, tapes of The Andy Griffith Show, UAV Gold releases, Animalympics and some old Davey & Goliath tapes, which are easy to spot out because the logo covers most of the company's video cover.
 * It also appeared on the 8 min. series of workout tapes including the Kathy Ireland series.
 * It surprisingly appears on the 1999 VHS of Gulliver's Travels (1939 film), due to the fact the tape label has the Sterling Entertainment Group logo while the cover has the Ovation Home Video logo.

4th Logo (1996-1998)


Visuals: A supernova (a large explosion from space) happens on a starry background. The UAV logo in the previous logo, this time with "ENTERTAINMENT" in gold lettering on the red bar, flies into view. Once the logo is into place, light beams come out of it, and pans ever so slightly towards us. The supernova (as well as the light beams) then disappears, leaving the UAV logo floating in space.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: An explosion, then a truncated whoosh from the previous logo (which is much softer), and a synth note.

Availability: Seen on some later UAV Corporation tapes such as Gilad tapes, Kansas City Confidential, and Moses: Egypt's Great Prince. Used in tandem with the previous logo until 1998. It is unknown if this was seen on any of the DVDs UAV released.