Paramount Pictures - Logo

Logo

The distinctively pyramidal Paramount mountain has been the company's logo since its inception and is the oldest surviving Hollywood film logo. The logo appeared at the start of many cartoons. In the sound era, the logo was accompanied by a fanfare called Paramount on Parade after the film of the same name, released in 1930. The words to the fanfare, originally sung in the 1930 film, were "Proud of the crowd that will never be loud, it's Paramount on Parade."

Legend has it that the mountain is based on a doodle made by W. W. Hodkinson during a meeting with Adolph Zukor. It is said to be based on the memories of his childhood in Utah. Some claim that Utah's Ben Lomond is the mountain Hodkinson doodled, and that Peru's Artesonraju is the mountain in the live-action logo, while others claim that the Italian side of Monviso inspired the logo. Some editions of the logo bear a striking resemblance to the Pfeifferhorn, another Wasatch Range peak.

The motion picture logo has gone through many changes over the years:

• The logo began as a somewhat indistinct charcoal rendering of the mountain ringed with superimposed stars. The logo originally had twenty-four stars, as a tribute to the then current system of contracts for actors, since Paramount had twenty-four stars signed at the time.
• In movies of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the number of stars encircling the mountain sometimes varied. As an example, twenty-five stars are seen in the logo displayed at the end of the Marx Brothers The Cocoanuts (1929), and twenty-three are visible at the beginning of Horse Feathers (1932).
• In 1952, the logo was redesigned as a matte painting created by Jan Domela.
• A newer, more realistic-looking logo debuted in 1953 for Paramount films made in 3D. It was later reworked in 1954 for Paramount films made in widescreen process VistaVision. The text "VistaVision – Motion Picture High Fidelity" was often imposed over the Paramount logo briefly before dissolving into the title sequence. In 1968, the disclaimer "A Paramount Picture/Release" was shortened to "Paramount", and the byline "A Gulf+Western Company" appeared on the bottom. The logo was given yet another modification in 1974, with the number of stars being reduced to 22, and the Paramount text and Gulf+Western byline appearing in different fonts.
• A stylized version of the mountain was featured in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. The mountain retained its conical shape but with a red granite tone and a more angular summit under a red clouded sky to suggest the appearance of Mount Sinai for this single motion picture. Its circle of stars faded in with the announcement: "Paramount Presents – A Cecil B. DeMille Production."
• In 1975, the logo was simplified in a shade of blue, adopting the modified design of the 1968 print logo, which was in use for many decades afterward.
• The studio introduced a new logo in 1986 with a computer-generated lake and stars. This version of the Paramount logo was designed by Dario Campanile and animated by Apogee, Inc; for this logo, the stars would move across the screen into the arc shape instead of it being superimposed over the mountain as it was before. When Gulf + Western became Paramount Communications, and continuing until 2002, the Paramount logo would appear first followed by the underline and the byline beneath it. An enhanced version of this logo debuted in 1999.
• In 2002, a completely new version of the logo was introduced in which shooting stars would fall from a night sky to form the arc while the Paramount logo would fly into place between them. The Viacom byline was changed five years after the company's 2005 split.
• In December 2011, a new logo was animated by Devastudios, Inc. The new logo includes a surrounding mountain range and the sun shining in the background. Michael Giacchino composed the logo's new fanfare. The first film to introduce the logo was Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, only with a different fanfare. The logo will include the "100 Years" disclaimer until the beginning of 2013.
• In early June 2012, Paramount released a graphic poster, created by Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, with 100 films represented as badges around their logo.