American Broadcasting Company (Closed Captioning Bumpers)

1st ID (1981-1982)


Visuals: On a black background, there is a blue chat symbol spinning in with trails following it. It ends up in the upper-right of the screen; the gold text "Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired" zooms out to the symbol's lower left (as the empty space in the symbol turns gold), and two white lines come from both sides of the screen near the bottom, and a gold ABC logo flashes in between the lines.

Technique: Scanimation.

Audio: A "twiddling" synth noise at first, then a dramatic tune with a few drumbeats.

Availability: It was seen before programs to remind the deaf, so check old tapes.

2nd ID (1982-1984)
Visuals: On a starfield, there is a three-dimensional, glitter-like chat symbol spinning in. It faces clockwise and then the text "Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired" zooms out. 2 lines draw separate in the upper-left corner, and the ABC logo appears between them.

Variant: On movies presented by the SFM Holiday Network, the action freezes before the ABC logo appears. Another variant has the blue text "Logo Courtesy American Broadcasting Companies, Inc." appear in its place.

Technique: Scanimation.

Audio: A space-themed sounder.

Availability: See 1st ID. The variant was used by SFM Entertainment on their syndicated SFM Holiday Network presentations.

3rd ID (1984-1985)
Visuals: There is some sort of desert mesa (presumably in the southwest US), at first under a dark sky. The chat symbol (similar in appearance to the previous ID) spins out of the sky, and centers itself on the right side of the screen; as this happens, the sky lightens to blue, and a nearby rock has sand blown onto it, revealing the ABC logo and the text "CLOSED CAPTIONED", in silver, seemingly embedded in the rock.

Technique: Primitive mid-80s video effects.

Audio: A dramatic synth sounder.

Availability: See 1st ID.

4th ID (1985-1987)
Visuals: Unusually, there appear to have been multiple different variants of this ID that were used by ABC. Here is a list of the known variants and how they animated:
 * The first variant (seemingly the most common one) has an entirely-silver ABC logo zooming out to the lower-right and then flashing briefly, on a blue background with many chat symbols (as seen in the previous IDs) embedded in it; the white serifed text "CLOSED CAPTIONED" appears below the ABC logo, centered on the screen.
 * The second variant appeared to be used on programs aired after ones that had the first variant; here the ABC logo moves from the bottom right and into the center of the screen, growing larger in the process; the logo flashes, and "CLOSED CAPTIONED" text appears as it did before.
 * The third variant had the ABC logo flying in over a starfield, then rotating around to become a silver chat symbol; the "CLOSED CAPTIONED" text then appears below.
 * The fourth variant also has a starfield, but this time it's stationary; here the chat symbol flies in from the left, centers itself and flashes; the ABC logo flies in from the right and centers itself inside the symbol as it turns into a glowing blue outline.
 * The fifth variant has the ABC logo zooming out onto a dark blue background with multiple ABC logos embossed on it; it zooms out onto one near the center of the screen and flashes; the "CLOSED CAPTIONED" text then appears below.

Technique: All the variants have decent mid-80s video effects and animation (appearing to be the work of the then newly-established CapCities/ABC Video Group, based out of LA and which provided various video services for ABC and its O&O stations); nothing too special, though.

Audio: The first through fourth variants all had variations of a majestic synth tune; the fifth one has a mellow, woodwind-style tune instead.

Availability: These bumpers were the last closed captioning bumpers ABC used; from the fall of 1986, chat symbols in the corner of the screen when programs began would be used instead.