Golden Book Video

Background

Golden Book Video was established by children's book publisher Golden Books as its home video unit. Its earliest releases in the 1985-1986 timeframe were probably the most well-remembered, featuring adaptions of popular Golden Books using illustrations shot out of the books with limited animation effects added. They also released other children's entertainment videos, often under the "GoldenVision" and "Golden Step Ahead" names. In 1997, the newly formed Golden Books Family Entertainment acquired the family programming along with the Alan Enterprises library from Broadway Video and began releasing videos through Sony Wonder.

On August 16, 2001, the assets of Golden Books were sold to Classic Media, L.L.C. (acquired by Entertainment Rights plc, then Boomerang Media, L.L.C., and later DreamWorks Animation, which is currently brought by NBCUniversal in 2016) and Random House (which now continues Golden Books as a standalone imprint) in a bankruptcy court auction, with Classic Media acquiring the libraries and Random House acquiring the publishing division.

Classic Media continued releasing the Golden Books Family Entertainment catalog through Sony Wonder until 2007, when it changed distributors to Genius Products after Sony BMG Music Entertainment shut down Sony Wonder, but was moved to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on June 21, in which the catalog was later transferred to Vivendi Entertainment (now "Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment") after Genius Products announced to exit the home entertainment business in 2009, and is now in the hands of Cinedigm after they merged Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment into Newvideo.

1st Logo (Opening) (April 10, 1985-1996)

Visuals: The screen is divided into two parts horizontally: the top half is black and the bottom half is a blue/lilac-sea green gradient, which depends on the quality. There is a book with its bottom side facing the camera, on the bottom half of the screen. As the screen zooms out it opens up and the pages turn, while a yellow pie-shaped sun flies up from the book, whose pages rise up and turn yellow. As this happens, the background becomes completely black. The pages and sun turn golden (or at least a recreation) as a golden rounded rectangle border zooms out and encloses the elements, with a space left where a ray of light wipes "GOLDEN" in a Serif Gothic-like font below it, forming the 1982-1994 Golden Books logo. The rounded rectangle "morphs" into a TV tube as "GOLDEN" zooms out to make way for "BOOK" which is wiped on similarly, and "V I D E O" which zooms out below that, with a shadow effect. The logo shines several times.

Opening Variant: On Campfire Thrillers, after the logo is completely formed, the black background fades to a darkened sky background seen in the film's opening sequence, with the logo superimposed over it. When the logo and music ends, the logo fades out and the video's opening titles start over the sky background.

Closing Variants:

In most cases, the "shining" part of the logo plays at the end, without music.
At the end of Three She-Ra: Princess of Power Stories, the logo fades in from a distance, slowly zooming up to the camera, and the color is bronze gold. Once it has practically overtaken the entire screen, it fades to the "She-Ra" logo zooming up, which stops and "shines" once it has come to a huge size. After that, it fades to the "Princess of Power" logo zooming in and shining, and then it fades to black. This was also seen on Three Hugga Bunch Stories, but only the Golden Book Video portion was shown.
On the release Three Fairy Tale Classics, the standard "shining" end variant is seen, but the logo spins into view from a far distance before resuming like normal once it is at the correct size.
On the original issue of the 1986 Golden Step-Ahead video Know the Alphabet, the full opening logo is seen at the end of the video after the credits roll with the 1986 theme music, rather than the standard "still" closing variant. The full opening logo was also seen at the end of the 1986 video Get Ready to Read, but silent.
On some 1985 video releases, a different animation was used sometimes, which is described as the second logo.

Technique: Traditional animation and Oxberry effects.

Audio: There were 2 majestic synth fanfares used on this logo.

The first is a modified stock music track from the KPM music library entitled "Prestige Logo (a)" by Paddy Kingsland, with extra looped synthesizer effects added to the final note to fit the duration of the logo.
The second fanfare is similar but an original composition with a different key, sounding somewhat more elaborately-produced.
"Prestige Logo (a)" was used up until mid-1986 (most likely due to music rights issues) and often featured the second logo at the end of the video; the second fanfare was used from late-1986 to 1996.

Audio Variant: An abridged version of the logo is used which plays a variation of the last few notes of the 2nd version music, and the GoldenVision logo follows it.

Availability: Seen on Golden Book Video releases from the era. It's still saved on copies with a print version of the logo which uses a different yet similar font for the words.

Some early 1990s releases had the trademark Golden Books Spine which was used on all later releases.
It appeared on the VHS release of the animated HBO special Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.
It can also be seen on some DIC Video releases, including earlier releases of Madeline and the 1989 video Little Golden Book Land: The Great Harbor Rescue.
It can be seen on select titles from the Baby Songs series including Christmas and Sing Together.
It also appeared on video releases of the rare anthology series A Bunch of Munsch.
All videos with this logo are now out of print but can be sometimes found wherever used videos are sold.
This was also found on the Scholastic DVD release and Amazon Prime Video print of Commander Toad in Space.
The closing variants don't appear on Australian releases of Golden Book Video titles from this period (the Video Distributors International logo is used instead).

2nd Logo (Closing, Alternate) (May 8, 1985-1994)

Visuals: The logo starts with the camera zooming in space, with an orange planet at the right of the screen and a blue planet at the left. Suddenly a comet appears and flies towards the center of the screen. When it reaches the center, it "blows up"-- there is a flash and the screen turns a yellowish tint, and a few yellow streaks emerge from the center and fly toward the screen, slightly moving left as they do so. A large Golden Book Video logo glowing blue zooms-out as the yellowish tint fades. The logo shines and zooms out with a yellow shadow effect.

Variant: On Commander Toad in Space, a registered trademark "®" symbol appears on the bottom right after the Golden Book Video logo appears, which fades out as the "shadow effect" occurs.

Technique: A mix of scanimate and traditional animation by Animagination, Inc.

Audio: A strange humming sound as the logo begins, with a "whoosh" as the comet appears followed by a synthesized explosion sound, a drone, and a gradual synthesized fade-out during the "shadow effect". Many of the sounds in this logo were sampled from the BBC's "Out Of This World" sound effects album.

Audio Variant: On a few videos, a female voice-over is heard saying, "The best of children's entertainment, presented by... Golden Book Video". This variant was put at the beginning of the video.

Availability: It was seen at the end of a handful of Golden Book video releases from 1985 (that have the "version 1" fanfare on the beginning logo).

This logo was spotted on VHS releases of Masters of the Universe - 3 Stories, Three Richard Scarry Animal Nursery Tales and Herbert the Timid Dragon and Other Tales, to name a few.
It was also seen on reissues of said videos well into 1991.
It also shows up in the middle of Masters of the Universe - 4 Stories (in-between the second and third stories).
It also appeared at the end of the 1993 VHS, Scholastic DVD and Amazon Prime Video release of Commander Toad in Space, long after it was no longer in regular use (likely due to that program's science-fiction theme).
In a few rare cases on some Canadian releases, this actually replaces the opening logo at the beginning of the videos (with voice-over), and was only spotted on a few releases, such as the 1986 release of Sandra Beech: The Pretend Box (to name one).

Legacy: It gained an infamous reputation for its ominous atmosphere, usually seen as out of place for a children's company. It does fit in well with the more sci-fi releases since the logo has a sci-fi vibe.

Golden Book Video

Golden Books Family Entertainment

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