Branding
As did former sister network Nick at Nite, The Movie Channel has used a myriad of unusual and sometimes bizarre logos and promotions. TMC's launch logo featured strips of film made to resemble a star with folded sides and another star inside it, in a fitting reference to its previous identity as Star Channel. In 1981, a text was added to include an uppercase "The Movie Channel" (with a slightly enlarged letter "M"). From early 1983 to the summer of 1985, the network also used a script logo, sometimes more often than its "star" logo; one slogan the channel used during this time was "The Heart of Hollywood." In the late 1980s, TMC began airing somewhat clever graphics for their time such as a "tour of Hollywood" movie open which closed with a shot of Hollywood with a faintly visible heart in the middle of the sky.
In May 1988, The Movie Channel changed its logo to feature a profile of a person's face with a pair of eyes and bridge of a nose visible (with various designs used), in a rectangle with the network's name in a Helvetica Extended font on two tilted lines on either side; many viewers have referenced on online blogs and video websites that this logo, due to the eyes being prominently displayed, had frightened them as young children. Ironically, this logo would be replicated somewhat in May 2008, when WGN America introduced a new logo featuring a set of female eyes rimmed with green mascara (this logo was replaced in the spring of 2009 with a more retro-styled logo). The channel was then guided towards creating a series of internal campaigns to emphasize the seeming paradox of a contemporary network setting that programmed recent and classic movies. The channel began running a few different computer animated 10 second feature presentation opens/network identifications. One of them was of a the logo at the time, a rectangle with a face visible with the channel's name above and below it, changing facial expressions at the open of a curtain set to calliope-type music. Another open featured the logo rotating to the front profile in front of a gray background with the face also colored gray accompanied by a steady drumbeat; the logo would then "wink." In a longer open, set in a family living room, someone strikes a match about to set fire to a newspaper with the logo on it. Noticing it is in danger, the logo shoots lasers from its eyes and escapes experiencing numerous calamities and seeing unusual sights from the logo's point-of-view such as a close-up of dog's face, the logo almost getting run over by a toy train, etc. until it reaches the safety of a television screen, all set to Indiana Jones-style adventure music.
The logo was changed again in 1997, with a new logo and the tagline "100% Pure Movies, 100% Pure Fun"; its logo featured a 3D computer-animated green ball with an acronym of the channel's name (at a tilted angle, and in lowercase), usually shown either to the side of the channel's full name also in lowercase letters or above the name. During this time, TMC adopted a very slick on-air look. The channel's slogan became "100% Pure Movies, 100% Pure Fun", and more predominantly used CGI graphics. The channel's announcer since then, Jeff Bottoms, offers bold, brash, and entertaining voice-overs. During the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade), The Movie Channel started running a wide variety of promos from a general movie trailer-type promo to including behind-the-scenes facts on the film. The channel still uses this technique today, although often in a more hybrid way. The channel also began using a unique way of telling viewers what movies were about to play next. It featured the announcer reading off that evening's main feature set to somewhat sophisticated graphics and the time it would be on while the information was displayed and music was played, this simple concept would be revised and rerevised many times over. This continues to be changed and updated.
A similar logo was used when the channel rebranded itself in 2001, featuring a one-dimensional circle with a lowercase "tmc" on it, surrounded with two lines on the corners "framing" the circle and the word "Movie" was rendered in bold type; used with the slogan "The Stuff Movies Are Made Of". In 2006, TMC introduced a new logo featuring three green/blue crescent-like slivers on the top and bottom sides of the channel's name, with the channel's name rendered in the Helvetica Extended type used in the 1988-1997 logo and the rendering of the word "MOVIE" in bold type as in the previous logo. The channel began using simpler state-of-the-art graphics by 2001 and by 2006, they became similar in form to Nick at Nite's 2002 to 2006 graphics package.
On April 1, 2010, The Movie Channel and The Movie Channel Xtra began branding its programming with digital on-screen graphic logos of the respective channels; the bug is an alternate version of the channel's logo with each segment of the channel's name stacked on top of each other, the only difference being the addition of the word "Xtra" when shown on TMC Xtra.
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