Klasky Csupo

Background
In 1982, Klasky-Csupo (pronounced "CLASS-key CHEW-po") was formed in a bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, California. The name of the company derives from the last names of the two producers, Omaha native Arlene Klasky and Hungarian-born animator Gábor Csupó. During The Tracey Ullman Show 's days, Klasky-Csupo produced the animated Simpsons shorts, consisting of 48, before The Simpsons became a full-time network series in 1989. After those initial skits, Klasky-Csupo worked with 20th Century Fox Television and Matt Groening to produce the first 3 seasons of the animated sitcom until 1992, when Film Roman took over production. In 1990, the duo cut a production deal with  Nickelodeon, and there they made Rugrats, one of the first three Nicktoons, and one of the network's successful animated series. After that, Klasky-Csupo made other successful animated shows such as The Wild Thornberrys, ''AAAHH!!! Real Monsters, As Told By Ginger, Duckman (for USA Network and Paramount Network Television, distribution currently held by CBS), and The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald'' (a promoted cartoon available exclusively at McDonald's restaurants from 1998 to early 2001), among others. The company also produced Spy vs. Spy cartoons for Cartoon Network's MAD. However shortly after The Rugrats Movie came out in 1998, Nickelodeon and Klasky-Csupo started to get into contract disagreements combined the riseing popularity  of SpongeBob Squarepants, but the straw that broke the camels back was with the 2003 release of Rugrats Go Wild!, which was a financial disappointment. As a result many shows from the company were cancelled in the fellowing year and All Grown Up was put on hiatus in 2006 before officially being cancelled in 2008. The company went dormant for a while, but Arlene Klasky and Gábor Csupó officially revived the company in 2012 and announced that they are currently working on some "top secret projects". On July 16, 2018, then Paramount Players and current Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins revealed that the pair, along with co-creator Paul Germain have officially confirmed that a revival of Rugrats is in the works, which will include 26 new episodes, and a new live-action movie, which will feature the babies re-imagined in CGI form, until the latter was pulled from the release plan.

1st Logo (October 30, 1989-August 7, 1999, May 4, 2001-2002)
Nicknames: "The Graffiti", "Avant-Garde Scribbles", "The Storyboard", "Weird Stuff"

Logo: On a white background with shapes that change frequently, we pan past a row of box outlines. Each box has a drawing of an object turning into a letter. Here they are:
 * 1st Box: Blue cubic shapes forming a green "K" in an Arial Bold Font, which is not centered.
 * 2nd Box: A dark blue hat that is originally depicted as a top hat before it stretches into a peaked hat, then turns into a boot, which then turns into an "L" in a Baskerville-like font that is centered correctly.
 * 3rd Box: An orange pattern that shrinks and turns into a choppy, lowercase "a" in a Shatter LET font that is positioned in the upper right corner of the box.
 * 4th Box: A light blue cone with rings surround it that turns into a crayon with a layer on it, then turns into a silhouette of a lizard, then turns into a silhouette of a snake, which turns into an "S" in a Gill Sans-like font that sits in the bottom-left of the box.
 * 5th Box: A pink silhouette of a cow that turns into a butterfly, then quickly turns back into a cow, but from a different point of view, then turns into an alligator, and finally a circle-jagged, grungy "K". It is centered like the dark blue "L" in the 2nd box.
 * 6th Box: An acrobatic performer forming a tan "Y", which hangs a little off the bottom-right corner of the box.

The next five squares have a scribble write the stenciled "CSUPO" on them (in Helvetica); the first few letters are blue, but the P is  teal when it is being drawn, but then it turns to orange once it's finished, and the O is purple. Everything described up to this point happens in a very fast pace. After this we zoom out, during which "I N C.", in red, appears letter-by letter. Then we see the complete boxes arranged with "KLaSKY" on top of "CSUPO". In "CSUPO", the "C" is red, the "S" is yellow, and the "U" is blue. Then the logo turns black and white while the "Y" turns purple a second later.

Variants:
 * A still version of the logo (with graffiti still dancing and the logo already black and white with "Y" purple) was spotted on Stressed Eric.
 * An abridged version with higher-pitched music was used on Duckman with the music somewhat resembling the next logo.
 * An in-credit variation was on Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on HBO Storybook Musicals and on the credits for the music video of "Shadrach" by Beastie Boys.
 * A version exists on the first two seasons of AAAHH!!! Real Monsters where the logo fades out early and the music trails off into the Nickelodeon "Scribble" logo.
 * On prints of The Wild Thornberrys season one episodes "Matadi or Bust", "Valley Girls", "Lost and Foundation", and "Born to be Wild", and on at least the first seasonAaahh!!! Real Monsters episode "Cold Hard Toenails/Attack of the Blobs", on the Shout! Factory DVD releases of the two series, the logo itself is slowed down, while the music plays at its normal speed while also being accompanied by a quote from each episode that would've played on the Nickelodeon Animation Studios "Haypile" logo (on Real Monsters, it was slowed down to accompany the trail-off into the NAS logo). This is due to the fact that said logo is strangely omitted from these prints of the episodes.
 * On a December 2001 CBS airing of "A Rugrats Chanukah", the logo has been shortened so that it starts with the 6th box in"KLaSKY"and cuts to the Nickelodeon logo before the said "Y" becomes purple.

FX/SFX: Dazzling animation of the objects forming the letters in the logo.

Music/Sounds: A bit complicated, but here it goes:

Throughout the entire logo, a 24-note synth-cello line (sounding much like an old portable Casio keyboard) plays that adds vibrato to its last two notes. A catchy drum-machine loop (time signature possibly 5/4) and a strange film projector-like sound (sounding much like a bingo machine) play as well; the former stops once the logo zooms out, while the latter stops when the transition to B&W starts. As the letters pan, there are also corresponding sound effects with the actions of said letters:

During the formation of “CSUPO”, a scribbling sound is heard (which was omitted in 1992) along with two old-timey car honks (abridged to one in 1992), soon followed by a dog “yipping” six times in a high-pitched fashion, similar to a Chihuahua’s barking. As the logo zooms out, a warm synth gradually glissandos to G-5 (on a piano scale) along with a bass note playing in the same key, albeit four octaves lower, the latter of which sustains for the remaining time. An elephant trumpets twice as the logo nearly finishes its transformation to B&W.

Music/Sounds Trivia:
 * The early variant of the logo music appears at the end of the song "Alanis", from Neil Cicierega's Mouth Sounds.
 * It is rumored that Mark Mothersbaugh (the frontman of Devo and composer for Rugrats) did this logo's music.

Music/Sounds Variants:
 * In exceptional cases, it uses the closing theme, like Stressed Eric and the Rugrats episode "I Remember Melville/No More Cookies".
 * On Bird in the Window, the logo is silent.
 * A version exists on the 1998 pilot of The Wild Thornberrys where the logo plays as usual, but with the 1998 "Robot" logo audio instead. The pilot aired on September 1, 1998, and the "Robot" logo was introduced on October 8, 1998, so the "Robot" logo might had been intended to debut on this pilot, but for unknown reasons, was changed back to the "Graffiti" logo, but keeping the "Robot" audio intact. Interesting, but still very strange, not to mention that all other episodes with this logo use the normal music/sound variant.


 * On Santo Bugito, a slightly rearranged version of the music is heard.

Availability: Uncommon. Can be seen Rugrats episodes from the era on DVD and VHS. However, some episodes of Rugrats had this logo even after 1999; "The Magic Baby/Dil We Meet Again" (aired May 4, 2001) is one example. This is most likely because the episode was intended to air with the first part of season 6 (the last batch of episodes to use this logo), but it got pushed back. Another strange case is that 2002 VHS releases of Rugrats, Halloween for one example, also used this logo in place of the next one. It's also seen on home media releases of Duckman, Santo Bugito, and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters. The in-credit variant appears on reruns of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on HBO Family, as part of HBO Storybook Musicals, and the music video for the song "Shadrach" by the Beastie Boys, which was actually where this logo premiered. Also seen on early episodes of The Wild Thornberrys. The "Boxes from Hell" variant is extinct, as the pilot hasn't been released or aired since its original airing in 1998. Don't expect to see this on the first three seasons of The Simpsons as the studio only did the animation for the show and didn't produce it.

Editor’s Note: This logo is well-known inside and outside the community from its constant airplay on Nickelodeon, mostly from the off-the-wall music, animation, and design.

2nd Logo (October 8, 1998-October 20, 2008, July 13, 2012, November 30, 2012)
Nicknames: "Splaat", "The Face", "Super Scary Face", "(The) SSF", "Robot"

Logo: Over a static purple background, a black ink stain on a blue background with a liquid effect appears by splattering all over the screen. A hand passes by and drops magazine clippings of eyes and a mouth in yellow-orange bars onto the liquid background (the eyes seem to wiggle like Jell-O) to make a face. The face then says the company name as white blocks fly out from his mouth. The blocks arrange themselves to form the K-C logo (like before, but refined to match the print logo). During the face's screen time, there are holes in the liquid background which reveal some of the purple background that emerge from the center and slide off screen from many different directions. After that, the background and the face disappear like a CRT television turning off, and the "Y" in "KLaSKY" turns purple and flashes faintly.

Trivia:
 * Strangely, this logo appeared on early airings of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Wet Painters/Krusty Krab Training Video". This was an editing mistake made by Nickelodeon when they first started using split-screen credits; normally, Nick makes custom credits for each of its series and its producers. K-C was the only company at the time, besides Frederator, that produced multiple Nicktoons, and Nick created a generic one for these shows [which mentioned Klasky and Csupo as producers and included Splaat], but, on the said episode of SpongeBob, Nick accidentally used the K-C split screen credits for that episode. This was fixed in 2006 and the United Plankton Pictures logo has been seen on the episode ever since, but it's still one of the oddest editing mistakes ever made.
 * On the VHS releases of Rugrats in Paris, the "computer voice" uttering the Klasky-Csupo name is actually closed captioned. The same happens on The Wild Thornberrys Movie, but Splaat's voice is oddly, in a funny way, was referred to as the "computized voice". Not only that, but the sound effects after Splaat's disappearance are also closed captioned (including the lip-flapping sound being referred as a "voice blubbering" and the duck quacking sound labelled as "novelty horn honks").
 * On October 2015 to May 2017 airings of Hey Arnold! on The Splat, this logo appeared instead of the Snee-Oosh logo for the same reason stated above. This was fixed by the time the programming block was rebranded into "NickSplat". Strangely, only TeenNick SD was affected with this error, as TeenNick HD had the correct logos.
 * At the July 2012 Comic-Con venue in San Diego, California, the day before Klasky-Csupo was relaunched, Arlene Klasky mentioned that she found, as claimed, "a bunch of fan mashups" of their production logo, in which she also added that the mashups might have been created in part with how many people explained their experience with the logo as kids, and how it "scared" them, so she later decided to give the "robot" character a name: Splaat. Splaat was also given arms, legs and a more noticeable ability to speak; his voice is done by Greg Cipes. The character was originally intended to be in an animated PSA, with Splaat explaining his confusion onto why these mashups exist, and then adding that he is, in fact, not a robot, but rather an ink splat, which is how his name originated. He stars in his own web series, which you can see here. You can see Splaat's PSA here, or the full Comic-Con event here. It is also worth mentioning that, according to Klasky, this logo was not intended to be scary.
 * On a February 12, 2016 airing of an episode of Rocko's Modern Life on The Splat, this logo appeared instead of the Games Animation logo for, again, the same reasons stated above.

Variants:
 * Video games from the company have a still, slightly bigger logo which completely skips Splaat. All of the boxes and letters in "KLaSKY" (except for the "Y", which is smaller) are medium gray, the letters in "CSUPO" are white, and "INC." (like in the first logo) is on the right of "CSUPO". The background can be either black or white.
 * There is an alternate variant where the animation was cheaper (e.g. the liquid just waves like a flag, there's no static purple background [which explains very few holes emerging from the center once the liquid background has splattered onto the screen], the eyes of Splaat are flipped vertically instead of being animated to look down/up). There is a black background instead of a static purple background (since the logo transitions from black at the end of the credits); the logo blurs and cross-fades to the KC logo rather than disappearing like the TV turning off (along with the the purple "Y" in "KLaSKY" zooming in over the regular "Y") and, to top it all off, Splaat constantly looks at the viewer (in the normal logo, Splaat stares at the blocks, but the blocks are placed directly in the center of the  screen, so it appears that Splaat is looking at the viewer) throughout his screen time and smiles as if he accomplished something before the logo wipes to black. On the studio's reopening video, the variant is in 16:9 full screen at 1080p high definition, it is cut to where the hand drops the magazine clippings, the background of the clippings is in a more lighter shade of yellow, and after the we hear the duck quacking twice, the logo flies off to the right of the screen. The "boing" sound effect is not heard.
 * This logo comes in 3 versions: a standard 4:3 version (for TV shows and full frame versions of their film output, though some films have slight letterboxing), a 1.55:1 widescreen version (matted to 1.85:1 for theatrical features released in the US (1.66:1 in Europe) and to 1.78:1 for both home video releases of those films and the final season of All Grown Up), a 16:9 HD version (for the studio's reopening video) and a 2.35:1 scope version (seen at the end of The Wild Thornberrys Movie).
 * A filmed variant exists on The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. The animation is choppier and in a more washed-out color scheme, and moves at a much faster pace, resulting in the audio being out-of-sync. To accommodate this, the ending sound effects are sped up (this also occurs on the alternate variant).
 * On The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald tapes (save for episodes 3-6) and airings of their Nicktoons with split screen credits, the logo cuts to black just as the "Boing" sound effect plays.
 * On NickSplat's airings of their shows, the logo starts when Splaat is on-screen, silent due to the credits being superimposed, and it's in warp speed. It is also worth noting that the filmed version logo is used, considering the graininess at the end of the logo.
 * On a Region 4 DVD release of Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, the logo is cut off after the lip-flapping sound (presumably due to a manufacturing error)''.

FX/SFX: The "animated" paper-clippings that form the face, the static background, the ink, and the print logo. All CGI animation, plus what appears to be cut-out animation for the moving hand and the moving of the face's lips.

Music/Sounds: A "splattering" sound when the ink appears, and a bouncy "beeping" version of the 24-note bass jingle from the 1989 logo plays during Splaat's screen time, except the first measure of the jingle has been cut, meaning that only 18 notes are played. Another "beepy" instrument plays the same jingle in the background, only it comes in a quarter measure late. The company name is stated in a robotic voice (hence the "Robot" nickname. The voice was supplied by the "Boing" novelty voice in the text-to-speech program used on Mac computers). After the company logo appears, we hear several cartoon sound effects: a tiny boing, a lip-flapping sound, a duck quacking twice, and the classic Hanna-Barbera/Hoyt Curtin boing.

Music/Sounds Variants:
 * Sometimes the music is in warp speed (most likely on PAL television or media due to speedup).
 * On the still video game variants, it's silent.


 * On early television airings of Rugrats episodes with this logo, the logo theme is low-pitched.
 * Some 2010-2013 Nickelodeon USA airings of Rugrats with the split-screen credits omit the boing sound at the end.
 * On the first season Wild Thornberrys episode, "Nigel Knows Best" (the only season one episode from the show to have this logo), the boing sound gets cut-off before it fully finishes and in between the transition from this logo to the Nickelodeon Animation Studios "Haypile", you can hear the last note from the last logo play.
 * On Rocket Power, the last note of the end theme of said show trails off into the logo (a rock chord before the jingle plays). Some Rugrats episodes also had the last note of the end theme echo into the logo.
 * On 2000-2009 airings of the K-C shows, the boing sound trails off and cuts off into the kids laughing sound (or before August 2001, an airplane-like sound with 7 xylophone notes heard over it) in the Nickelodeon logo of the time.
 * From September 2000 until August 2001, on some split-screen credit airings of their shows, the audio of the promo from the split-screen credits sometimes played over this logo's audio (including Splaat's voiceover).
 * When CBS aired The Rugrats Movie and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, a generic theme played over this logo.
 * On DVD and VHS releases of their Nicktoons as well as the pilot episode of As Told by Ginger, the ending sound effects have a reverb trailing into the Nickelodeon "haypile". This can also be found on the VHS releases of The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonaldbeginning with the third tape, “The Visitors From Outer Space”.
 * There is a bizarre audio variant found on Russian airings of As Told by Ginger which has a grouchy-sounding male voiceover speaking over the logo's music: "Klasky-Csupo (pronounced like "zupa"). Blblbllblblblbllblbl." The timing varies depending on the episode, as does the tone, as different voiceovers were seemingly recorded for every episode this version appeared on. On later episodes, the voiceover has a weird echo/reverb effect.
 * Another audio variant found on a Russian airing of The Wild Thornberrys features a male voiceover (different from the one above) saying, "Film Klasky-Csupo Incorporated" after Splaat speaks.

Availability: Fairly common. It can be found on episodes such as those of later Rugrats seasons (starting with the episode "Runaway Reptar"), Rocket Power, The Wild Thornberrys (earlier episodes had the "Graffiti" logo), As Told By Ginger, and on All Grown Up, all of which are currently airing on TeenNick's NickRewind; it is also shown in place of the previous logo on airings with split-screen credits. Debuted on the rather obscure cartoon The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald. This logo was used on K-C films from The Rugrats Movie to Immigrants (which used this logo at the end; not counting Rugrats Go Wild!, which used the next logo below). It's also at the company's website too, and can be found on the main page when first being browsed. The alternate variant only appears at the end of The Wild Thornberrys Movie and the video for the studio's reopening. The still variant appears on Rugrats in Paris: The Movie for PS1, Rugrats: Royal Ransom for PS2 and GameCube (both with the white background) and Rocket Power: Beach Bandits, also for PS2 and GameCube (with the black background), among others. Recently appeared on Psyko Ferret. This logo also appeared on the obscure Rugrats spin-off Rugrats Pre-School Daze. This did not appear on Klasky-Csupo's first live-action series, What's Inside Heidi's Head?, because it was a series of interstitials as opposed to a series.

Editor's Note: This logo appears to be a metaphor for Klasky-Csupo's rather inspirational rise to fame from humble beginnings as an animation studio. Just like 'Graffiti', this logo is famous inside and outside the community thanks to its constant airplay on Nick, again from the unique animation and SFX, as well as Splaat's unnerving design. It's not unusual to call this probably the most infamous "scary" logo of all time, thanks to Splaat's design as well as the "in-your-face" nature of the animation; there is a staggering amount of logo remix videos and other (usually, quite low in production quality) videos related to this logo.

3rd Logo (June 13, 2003; 2007; October 20, 2008; October 24, 2018)
Nicknames: "The Rooster", "Crazy Rooster"

Logo: On a green city skyline, we see a rooster's silhouette on one of the buildings (depending on the aspect ratio used, the rooster will be either in the top-left corner of the screen, or the center). The sun rises, and the rooster wakes up and opens its eyes (from the previous logo, as evidenced by yellow edges around them). It crows loudly as the blocks in the K-C logo float around. When the rooster is finished screaming, the sun brightens, as the rooster mysteriously disappears, and the K-C logo appears in the center. It looks "grungier" than the one in the past two logos.

Variant: The logo comes in two formats, A 4:3 fullscreen version and a 2.35:1 scope version.

FX/SFX: All CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A very loud techno theme, made using samples from Zero-G's Chemical Beats sample library. Before the rooster wakes up, a voice says "Wake up". Also, there's a, "POP!" sound when the rooster opens its eyes. A faint robotic whisper of the company name can be heard at the end.

Music/Sounds Variant: On a special "sizzle reel" Klasky-Csupo made for their 25th anniversary, the 2.35:1 scope version is used at the beginning, however we do not hear the faint robotic whisper. Instead, we hear techno-like music that starts the video.

Availability: Rare. Seen on the 2003 film Rugrats Go Wild (both start and end) and the start of the 2008 film Immigrants (the second logo is seen at the end). Most recently appeared on Gabor Csupo's 2018 demo reel.

Editor's Note: While not as famous as the previous two logos, it's still a quite creative and nice logo.

4th Logo (December 22, 2016-)


Nicknames: "Splaat II","The Face II", "Super Scary Face II", "(The) SSF II", "Splaat's Return"

Logo: On a white background, we see the Klasky Csupo logo in the same grungy font as the previous logo. Suddenly, Splaat comes in from the left side of the screen, and pushes the logo off the screen. Unlike the second logo, Splaat's eyes don't jiggle.

FX/SFX: Splaat pushing the logo.

Music/Sounds: The same cartoon sound effects from the end of the 2nd logo, as well as some different sound effects when Splaat appears, such as a bonk sound, and a crash sound.

Availability: It's a special logo created for the web series RoboSplaat. It is unknown if it will be used on the company's other projects.

Editor's Note: One of the reasons RoboSplaat was created as a response towards the logo editors who edited them, so this logo is more like a combination of the 2nd and 3rd logos.