Tommy Nelson

From the Audiovisual Identity Database, the motion graphics museum


Background

Tommy Nelson is the children's video division of religious book publisher Thomas Nelson.

Logo (November 2, 1999-October 12, 2010)


Visuals: On a sky background with clouds and in a close-up, a red balloon floats to the top of the screen, containing the letters that spell "Tommy". The letters in the balloon bump around inside. There is a rope attached to the balloon and it is connected to "NELSON", acting as a weight. A line cuts through the rope and the balloon flies off, leaving "NELSON" behind. The line now rests on top of "NELSON" and the letters that spell "Tommy" fall in their place in different colors. The trademark symbol, "™", hops over and rests on the right side of the line. As the sky background fades to white, some letters twinkle.

Variants:

  • On Alabaster's Song, there's a still version that fades after the WORD Kids! logo.
  • Starting in 2002, the "™" symbol was replaced with an "®" symbol.
  • This logo was adapted for the "Feature Presentation" screen. In this version, the logo is shortened, fading in when the "™" hops over the the company name and as the background turns white, "Feature Presentation" fades in with the background change.
  • At the beginning of Little Dogs on the Prairie, the logo fades in when the letters are falling, and after the background turns white, the word "presents" fades in below the logo.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A lofty theme plays until the line breaks the rope, as well as the sounds of the balloon deflating, the letters falling, and a violin mimics the hop of "™". As the logo is in one place, there is a quiet synth tune followed by the sound of a child laughing. At each twinkle, there is a triangle-like sound. The FP version has a male announcer saying "And now our feature presentation."

Availability: Found on Tommy Nelson releases, such as reprints of Adventures in Odyssey tapes and DVDs, and tapes of Jay Jay the Jet Plane. It also appeared on the VHS and DVD release of Alabaster's Song (1996). The original CBN release of the latter cartoon doesn't have that.