Blair Entertainment
Sean Beard, James Fabiano, Jason Jones, and Jess Williams
Captures by
Eric S., Shadeed A. Kelly, and V of Doom
Editions by
Eric S, Silversword55, CuriousGeorge60, and Bob Fish
Video captures courtesy of
LogicSmash and Broken Saw
Background
Blair Entertainment was a television production/distribution company established in 1983 by the television division of John Blair & Company following their acquisition of Rhodes Productions, repurposing the company to serve as the syndication unit of the TV sales representation agency. The company's program library was sold to All American Television once it shut down its operations in 1992.
Logo (September 16, 1983-1993)
Visuals: The word "BLAIR", in gold, flies from the bottom and moves to the top of the screen with 3D trail effects (usually over the closing scene of the show, other than that, it's a black background). "BLAIR" flashes and under that, a yellow-white backslash light writes out a purple-red, cursive "Entertainment". A light blue pair of lines is drawn both above and below the logo, and a stylized logo of some sort appears in the middle of the bottom pair (a white box with "JB", the initials of John Blair, created by green, red, and blue boxes and lines). A rectangle is seen in light blue, placing in "Entertainment". When the logo's completed, the background turns a shaded blue. The logo then shines.
Trivia: The "JB" logo seen at the bottom is the logo for Blair Television, when Blair formed the company around 1975.
Variant: On some TV shows such as Dracula, there is a sped-up version.
Technique: Motion-controlled animation and lighting effects.
Audio: Starts with a "whoosh" as "BLAIR" flies, then three light, relaxing and peaceful long tones (similar to NBC's signature 3-note chimes). After the first one, 3 digital-like notes are heard.
Audio Variants:
- Some versions use only two digital-like notes, the last 1.5 notes for a short version.
- Other versions are silent.
- The in-credit variants used the closing theme instead.
Availability: It appeared on some TV shows from the '80s, such as Divorce Court, Break the Bank (1985-86 revival), Strike it Rich and 80s syndicated prints of The Cisco Kid (these same prints were also used on the final season of SCTV as part of the Happy Hour segments hosted by Happy Marsden, played by cast member John Hemphill).The sped-up version can be found on the 1990 series Dracula, which is on DVD. Also appears on the Celebrity's Just for Kids prints of the two Lollipop Dragon TV specials. Was also seen on early '80s repackaged prints of SCTV in syndication, Nick at Nite, and Comedy Central, although the Rhodes Productions logo would be seen on certain 1977-81 episodes, due to having the original end credits. Can currently be seen on Amazon Prime's prints of Strike it Rich as part of Buzzr's channel there (the Fremantle logo appears after it).
