Warner-Pathé Newsreels

Logo (1948-1956)

Visuals: On a cloudy background is the WB shield from the era zooming up to the viewer. The inner contents of the shield (including the banner across the shield, with the company's name emblazoned on the banner in a bold font) fade away to a rotating globe with the Pathé rooster in front of it sitting on a weathervane-like perch. The rooster looks around, flaps his wings and crows as the text "WARNER PATHÉ NEWS" fades in front of everything with a copyright notice below. The logo is encased in a cloud outline.

Trivia:

The fanfare heard here was later made into a stock music track in the KPM library, complete with rooster crow intact. It has appeared in a few episodes of The Ren and Stimpy Show, such as in "Dog Show" and "Stimpy's Cartoon Show."
The same rooster effect was used on the 1953 Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon, Duck Amuck, where Daffy Duck tried to talk to the animator.
The rooster seen in the logo was named "Just Bill," a white Plymouth Rock owned by Earl Kelly of Stafford, Kansas. Bill was the winner of the Oklahoma Poultry Show in December 1947; one of the judges was Harry Warner, who was looking for a new rooster to appear in the logo (Warner Bros. had acquired Pathe News from RKO in August 1947).

Variant: A closing variant replaced the text with "THE END" and a miniature WB shield on the bottom left and an IATSE union bug on the bottom right.

Technique: Motion-controlled animation combined with live action.

Audio: A bombastic brass fanfare composed by William Lava (who later wrote the music for the Pink Panther cartoons and the DePatie-Freleng produced Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes in the late 60's) along with the crowing of the rooster, known as the "Warner-Pathé News Fanfare" which was reissued on some KPM albums.

Availability: Seen on most Warner-Pathé newsreels. It also appeared on TM Books and Video's I Love Toy Trains 9 at the beginning of the fake newsreel of the 1937 version of the Lionel Trains New York Central Railroad Hudson. Also seen at the start of the UB40 music video, Kingston Town.