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Author Topic: Favorite Title Cards  (Read 934 times)

Earwig

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Re: Favorite Title Cards
« on: February 08, 2013, 05:20:32 pm »
The new ones on season 16 as well as the previous 2 seasons on BBC and Australia and TVO(I think) are done using a scene of the show for the animation. On PBS only season 16 does not use the classic bumpers.  I like that classic bumper term you made up here. The classic ones almost all got used the same amount but they were used based on having something to do with the show. If it was a Buster show or aliens the flying saucer one was used . If it was a show about the whole gang then the tricycle or balloon one was used.
 So Binky gum would be seen in every season however only on a Binky show unless there was show about gum which I don't recall.

The new season as well as BBC last 2 seasons changed  to the new improved bumper because the shows were released in HD outside the US. An SD classic bumper would hurt your eyes up beside the HD wallpaper and title. It would be like VHS quality coming out of a DVD player.

There were 6 made in the first season of production which was 40 shows. then a few more got added each season like the Pal Alone and Fish ones with Arthur and the same one with Brain. The balloon , the tricycle where not the original 6.

There was one with Prunella with her crystal ball make many seasons ago and it was also created from a scene in one of the shows. It was because there was no Prunella bumper.  That one was used the least I would say. Perhaps the one with the Tibble octopuses was also not used as much.

On futher thought the one with the old car (I forget the funny name of the car) dragging behind the tow truck would be the least used one of the classic style.

Each season there was an effort to try to use them all as much as the others so the same one didn't get used all the time but eventually they all became used a lot.

In the original 6 there was one called MGM where Buster roared like a lion. It also had sound variations that would have been used in the first 40 episodes. He roared like a lion,  crowed like a rooster, and a couple of other animal  or sound effect noises.

The gong one was not the original 6 but came very early. That one was animated and colored in Montreal and you can see Francine's skin tone is darker the way it is in the more recent shows. The original 6 and a few more bumpers were animated in Montreal.

The bumper wallpapers have also been repainted and look quite amazing in HD if you have a good TV check them out. They are even a little 3D ish and very vibrant. They needed to be done again in 16:9 format. The original wallpapers were scans of paintings that Marc Brown did on card. They were very bright and colorful and lost a lot like color always does when it's scanned. They were very beautiful to see the original.

On the early bumpers  the checker circle has a jiggling cycle on it but that was eventually dropped in the later ones.

The wallpapers are independant of the animation so they are mix and matched.

A few of the old ones like the ufo and Pal along or the balloon would also need to be animated out the edge of the new 16:9 format if they were to be rescanned and colored in HD. Those ones moved beyond the circle all the way to the edge of the 4:3 frame.

Sorry that's probably more than you wanted to know about bumpers. They are actually quite complicated to do for what they look like.