Davidson & Associates

Background

Davidson & Associates (or simply Davidson) was an educational software company founded in 1982 by husband-and-wife Bob and Jan Davidson and headquartered in Torrance, California. During the mid-90's, the company acquired several smaller game developers, such as Blizzard Entertainment, Funnybone Interactive and Animation Magic.

In July 1996, Davidson, alongside Sierra On-Line, was acquired by CUC International for $1.8 billion and was the base of the subsequently formed CUC Software (later Cendant Software and Havas Interactive). In October 1998, Davidson was merged with fellow studio Knowledge Adventure, and in the process divested Blizzard Entertainment, which later became a division of Vivendi Universal Games.

1st Logo (1994-1996)

Visuals: On a black background, a red scribble is drawn in. "Davidson" is written first in a childish font, then morphs into a serif-type "Davidson" and the scribble morphs into a red "D" shape.

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: Sketching sounds followed by a synth orchestra.

Availability: Generally seen on Davidson's product previews, which were bundled with their games.

2nd Logo (1996-1997)

Visuals: On a white background, all the letters of "Davidson" walk and bounce in from the right side of the screen, all scattered in a crowd. Then, the red "D" shape from the previous logo slams down and sends all the letters flying, before they all fall down one-by-one in their normal positions.

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: A bunch of high-pitched chattering from the letters. A voice says "Here we go.", and there is a boing sound as the "D" falls down and a "Whee!" from all the letters as they fly away, followed by a synthesized tune as they re-appear, a "Ta-da!" and then them laughing.

Availability: It was seen on games such as Mega Math Blaster.