Claster Television Inc.
By Eric Hartman, James Fabiano And Sean Beard
Background: Claster Television was
founded as Romper Room,Inc. by Bert and Nancy Claster in 1953.
It was sold to Hasbro in 1969 (who renamed the company for its
founders). It still exists as a full-blown unit of Hasbro today.
Bert Claster Productions
(Romper Room variation, date?)
Logo: In an orange box with red borders is a jack-in-the-box
(named "Happy Jack") with a similarly-colored clown
suit and a red derby. He bounces around, then bends towards the
front of the box to place, in Romper
Room font, the words "A Bert Claster Production."
Background/Romper Room Notes:
SFX/Cheesy Factor: Very simple, 1960s-1970s-style
animation.
Music: The end theme to Romper Room ("Pop Goes The
Weasel")
Availibility: According to TVparty.com, tapes of Romper
Room were erased for next day's episode. So the only place you'd
probably see this logo is if you found someone who taped the
episodes.
Scare Factor: High, the drawing of the clown was quite
creepy looking (especially for one that is named Happy Jack!!!!).
The presence of a synthesized version of "Pop Goes The
Weasel" may not help matters.
Claster Television Inc.
(1982 (or 1989)-2000)
Nicknames: "The Spinner",
"The Propeller"
Logo: We start with a shot of this stylized text on a blue
background:
Distributed By (small, in white)
(the claster logo) Claster
TELEVISION INCORPORATED (in white)
The Claster logo is in red with the text in a strange, bold,
italic font. There is a small line going above "laster".
To the left of "Claster" is a red parallelogram with 3
small, transparent lines inside. Now, to the animation. A white
star moves in a horizontal direction from right-to-left and spins
over all the letters in "Claster" until it reaches the
parellogram symbol and stays in place to spin there.
There is also a well-known in-credit variation of this logo seen
around the mid-80s. It was seen on "GI Joe" and "Transformers."
It's appearance is the same as the above, but in white and of
course, no animation. "Distributed By" was above, and
"A Division Of Hasbro Inc." appears below. There was
also an earlier in-credit variant with just text, in this format:
Distributed by:
CLASTER
TV PRODUCTIONS
A Division of Hasbro Industries
SFX: The spinning star.
Cheesy Factor: The star looks a bit cheap, but if anything
is cheesy, it would have to be the 1st music used. That music is
quite bizzare and borders on evil. One of the most bizzare synth-creations
since Embassy. Also, what is that parellogram supposed to
represent?
Music: 2 different themes were used. The 1st was what was
mentioned eariler in the Cheesy Factor. It was quite similar to
the jingle used for Embassy; a synth fanfare, sounding like
circus music. The 2nd jingle was quite tamer, using an electric
piano bridge.
Availability: Rare, should be retained on the Hasbro toy
line-related cartoons (such as G.I. Joe, Transformers, Jem, et al.)
whenever reaired. Don't expect this on Muppet Babies, The
Lionhearts, All Dogs Go To Heaven:The Series (they handled
syndication for MGM Animation), Reboot (US rights licensed from
Alliance Atlantis) or anything else Claster handled distribution
for, though--in those cases it was a distribution logo only.
Scare Factor: Moderate for the 1st music, and low for the 2nd. The font wasn't the easiest to look at either.