3M Video (UK)

Background
3M Video was the home video division of 3M United Kingdom, the UK branch of American conglomerate manufacturing company 3M (itself founded as Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing).

(February 1983-January 1984)
Visuals: In darkness, the screen brightens up into a light blue background, we see an animated cylinder with a plain facial expression. Suddenly, a man with an all-white suit and a triangular head walks in from the right and excitedly paints the cylinder yellow, much to the surprise of the cylinder itself, and carries it to a row of rainbow colors made up of circles. The man places the cylinder in an empty socket on the yellow row and hammers it down with a mallet. Feeling a sense of accomplishment, he grins while leaning on the mallet, then the background turns black, and the rows glow their respective colors and zooms back to reveal it is part of an inverted triangle with the top section cropped. Then the 3M logo in its corporate font appears in white. The text "V I D E O", also in white but in a much smaller font appears in a gap in the triangle.

Variants:


 * A still version of the finished product, with thin rainbow lines and the 3M logo made up of what appears to be TV static, was also shown.
 * A sped-up version also exists.

Technique: Limited animation, similar to a lower budget Hanna-Barbera production.

Audio: A Moog jingle that ends with a long-lasting synth note with "BOOM!!!" sounds in sync with the animation. The short version used the last few seconds of the normal audio followed by a cartoon-like sound effect that sounds like a yodel, which then abruptly cuts to silence as camera zooms back.

Availability: Seen on many pre-cert releases from the company around the UK.