Blue Sky Studios

Credits

Descriptions by
Logoboy95 and thehugetvfan

Captures by
Logoboy95, thehugetvfan, FlyLetterman, SubparMario63 and SuperMax124

Editions by
SilverSword55, BenIsRandom, thehugetvfan and BaldiBasicsFan

Blue Sky Studios
Founded:	February 22, 1987 (37 years ago)
Predecessors:	Fox Animation Studios
Founder:	Chris Wedge Carl Ludwig Eugene Troubetzkoy Brown David Brown Michael Ferraro
Key People:	Robert Baird (Co-President) Andrew Millstein (Co-President) Brian Keane (COO)
Defunct:	April 10, 2021 (3 years ago)
Fate:	Closed
Successors:	20th Century Animation
Location:	United States
Parent:	Walt Disney Studios

Background

Blue Sky Studios was founded in February 1987 by Chris Wedge, Carl Ludwig, and four other artists and technicians who had previously worked on the 1982 Disney film Tron while employed at MAGI/Synthavision. Blue Sky produced the famous Nicktoons "Blob" ident which aired on Nickelodeon from 1992 to 1999. Blue Sky has also produced full-length animated movies beginning with Ice Age in 2002. In 1997, the studio was acquired by Twentieth Century Fox (now known as 20th Century Studios). On January 5, 2009, the studio was moved from White Plains, New York to Greenwich, Connecticut. Blue Sky Studios also animated 20th Century Fox's final logo for the studio's 75th anniversary, the Fox Star Studios logo, the Fox International Productions logo, and the final Searchlight Pictures logo under the Fox Searchlight Pictures name.

On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company officially confirmed its acquisition of 21st Century Fox's key assets, including Blue Sky. The purchase was completed on March 20, 2019. On February 9, 2021, Disney announced they would close Blue Sky in April of that year, stating that functioning a third animation studio wasn't viable due to the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, various upcoming films from Blue Sky were cancelled, but their animated film adaptation of the webcomic Nimona was revived by Annapurna Pictures, Netflix and DNEG Feature Animation, and was officially released on June 30, 2023. On April 10, 2021, the company ceased operations, and its assets are now owned by Disney. The last official production from the studio, Ice Age: Scrat Tales, was released as a Disney+ miniseries on April 13, 2022.

At the time of closure, they were well known for the Ice Age and Rio franchises, and the films Robots, Horton Hears A Who!, Epic, The Peanuts Movie, Ferdinand, and Spies in Disguise. Scrat from the first title was the studio's mascot starting in 2013.

1st Logo (March 15, 2002-February 4, 2005)

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Visuals: On a black background, there is the text "Blue Sky" in white, with a blue paint stroke strike underneath. Copyright info is seen at the bottom of the screen.

Variant: Sometimes, the logo appears in a white oval. This was possibly a prototype variant of the next logo.

Technique: A still, digital graphic.

Audio: Part of the soundtrack from the trailer, or none.

Availability:

• The original version made its only known appearances on two TV spots for Ice Age. It was long rumored that this logo appeared at the end of the film's original theatrical release, but it did not in reality.
• The variant appeared on the Robots video game and the GBA and NDS ports of Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, while the next logo was on the actual films.

Legacy: It was unknown whether this elusive logo was real or not for a long time, until it was discovered on the aforementioned TV spots and video games.

2nd Logo (March 11, 2005-July 13, 2012)

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  Robots

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  Robots (open-matte)

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  Original

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  Later

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  Later (scope)

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  Rio

Visuals: On a plain white background, there is a plain white oval-shaped shield with a blue outline rotating over the text "Blue Sky", in the same font as the previous logo. Then the text "s t u d i o s" fades in underneath. The logo fades to the opening shot of the movie.

Variants:

• On Robots (the first movie to use this logo), the logo is set against a turquoise (sometimes blue) background with "studios" in white. The logo fades out and the opening scene begins.
  • On the Ice Age: The Meltdown video game, it fades to black instead.
• A still print version appears on Angry Birds Rio and the Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Ice Age: Continental Drift video games.
• Starting in 2009, the words and outline zoom in slowly and have a drop shadow effect.
• On Rio, the background is black and "studios" is white, and the logo instead fades out.
• On the video game adaptation of the film, the drop shadow is lighter.

Technique: 2D computer animation, with the later variant adding a CGI effect. The still print version is a digital graphic.

Audio: None or the opening theme of the movie.

Availability:

• The original version seen on Robots (this logo's debut film), Ice Age: The Meltdown and the console ports of its video game adaption, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! and the 2-D version of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
• When the later version was introduced, the original version continued to appear on video games (in print form) until 2012, as seen on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Angry Birds Rio, and Ice Age: Continental Drift - Arctic Games.
• The later version can be seen on the 3-D version of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs as well as Ice Age: Continental Drift in both 2-D and 3-D (the original version is on the 2-D version of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and the print logo is on their videogame adaptations).
• Also seen at the end of TV airings of Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas (and at the beginning on home media releases of said special), and with a lighter drop shadow on the video game adaptation of Rio.
• The later version was last seen on trailers and some TV spots for Epic, while the next logo made its debut on the actual movie.

3rd Logo (May 24, 2013-April 13, 2022)

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Visuals: Over a white background, the logo starts with Scrat's acorn from the Ice Age films sitting on a solid blue surface. Scrat himself then appears in the distance, hops to the acorn and embraces it. Suddenly, the surface tips to the right. Scrat runs to the left and closer to the screen, causing the surface to tip towards the left, becoming increasingly vertical. Scrat panics and scrambles in vain to tip the surface back to the right, but ends up clinging to the vertical surface while his acorn falls off-screen. The camera then zooms out to reveal the vertical surface as the left side of the "B" in "Blue Sky" (in a similar serif font as before), with "STUDIOS" below. Scrat then loses his grip on the "B" and bonks off the left corner before falling off. A drop shadow fades in behind the text, and then the screen fades out.

Alternate Descriptive Video Description: Scrat hops over a blue surface, grabs his acorn, and snuggles it. The blue surface tilts right, then left, dramatically. Scrat scrambles, drops his acorn, and clings to the now vertical surface. The view widens, revealing blue letters on a white background: Blue Sky Studios.

Variants:

• Sometimes, Scrat is seen holding on to the "B".
• On Rio 2, it fades into the opening sequence.
  • On one trailer for Rio 2, it is raining confetti.
• On The Peanuts Movie, the text fades out, and a black rectangle outline draws in as the opening titles play. Then, black outline circles which become winter snowflakes begin to animate, as it dissolves into the opening shot.
• There is also a still version without Scrat. It is used mainly on video games and shorts.
  • On one trailer for The Peanuts Movie, the still logo is seen on a TV.
  • On the game Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure, the still logo is moved to the right. To the left is the 20th Century Fox print logo. It fades in and out.
• On trailers and TV spots for Spies in Disguise, the logo is made of metal and colored bluish-purple, and the background is black. The film itself has the normal logo instead.

Technique: CGI. Digital graphic for the still variant.

Audio: Just the sounds of the surface tipping back and forth, a "whoosh" noise as the camera zooms out, and Scrat (voiced by Chris Wedge) making noises; he does his iconic scream at the end as he dives off-screen.

Audio Variants:

• None or the opening theme of the trailer for the still version.
• On Rio 2, Scrat's scream segues into the opening theme of the movie.
• On Ferdinand, the sound effects are different, but Scrat's sounds remain the same.
• On Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure, the opening theme of the game plays over the logo.

Availability: Seen on later Blue Sky Studios films before its closure, starting with Epic and ending with Spies in Disguise (the last film released before Blue Sky's closure).

• Also seen on trailers and TV spots for the films that used this logo, as well as the games Snoopy's Grand Adventure and Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure, and the TV special Ice Age: The Great Egg-scapade.
• This appeared on Ice Age: Scrat Tales, which was produced prior to its closure, but was released afterwards. However, this logo and the 20th Century Studios logo do not appear on The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild since that movie was animated by Bardel Entertainment and released by Walt Disney Pictures.
  • On a side note, this also does not appear on Nimona as well, as 75% of the film had already been completed prior to the shutdown of the studio. Though Blue Sky Studios is listed in the credits, only the Netflix and Annapurna Pictures logos appear in the film.

◄ MAGI/Synthavision Fox Animation Studios

Blue Sky Studios

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