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20th Anniversary of BBC Balloons

Where did it all go wrong? Red bee? (October 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
:-(
A former member
WHERE oh where has the time gone? Yes on 4th October 1997 these first appeared. Also how old where you 20 years ago Razz Shocked

FA
fanoftv
I was 12, and loved the surprise of the rebrand. The first thing I saw was the frog CBBC ident at the end of superman before the start of Live & Kicking and the new logo being added to the titles. Even more of a surprise was the lovely balloon first appearing (for me) before the news update and then grandstand with the new logo featuring heavily.
JO
Jon
Idents should either be very much of their time or timeless. This fits into the former category. BBC Two’s 90s idents are the latter. BBC One’s current idents neither.
DE88, ToasterMan and Rory gave kudos
LO
lobster
whilst the BBC Balloons will always be dear to me, i can't help but feel the slow plodding nature of them does look dated now.

for sure, they have much higher production values than a lot of things on screen at the moment which look like they've been knocked up in an afternoon in After Effects, but.... I don't think these would suite BBC One on screen today.
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
The first thing I saw was the frog CBBC ident at the end of superman before the start of Live & Kicking and the new logo being added to the titles.


Same for me. I strongly suspected a new BBC1 ident was going to launch that day, but didn't know what it would be, and was dismayed to read later in the morning on Ceefax that the globe had been replaced by a hot air balloon. When I finally saw it before the weather at 12.12pm it was a relief to find that the balloon was the globe!

I was 21 so unbelievably it's nearly half a lifetime ago for me, but feels so much less than that!
VM
VMPhil
"The BBC is in every part of the country and every corner of the world, and we wanted to illustrate that by using a globe. The solution was a balloon, which moves by itself. I wanted it to act like a flag, visible against water, land and sky. When we tried to shoot [one], in Scotland, it rained for two days, and when the balloon eventually launched the bloody thing flew the wrong way. So we decided to computer generate it and take the shots we wanted separately. Most of them were built like that, but this one was done for real. It is one of my favourite pieces of work."

-Martin Lambie-Nairn
DA
davidhorman
Back before Oneness, when the Circles were rumoured to be on their way out, I contemplated knocking up a little something for April Fools' Day. Never finished it, though:

BH
BillyH Founding member
Seems a bit unthinkable now, but I didn't even notice the rebrand at age 9. It wasn't until early 1998 when watching back an old video from a year before that the previous symbol appeared, and I realised that it had changed since!

By the time the dancers appeared I definitely noticed the rebrand as I was posting on this forum at the time :p
TI
TIGHazard
Seems a bit unthinkable now, but I didn't even notice the rebrand at age 9. It wasn't until early 1998 when watching back an old video from a year before that the previous symbol appeared, and I realised that it had changed since!

By the time the dancers appeared I definitely noticed the rebrand as I was posting on this forum at the time :p


Same with me, although I'm a lot younger. I didn't notice the change from the dancers to the circles when I was 9. Well, that's kind of a lie because I remember noticing the Christmas ident that year (Snowball) but I didn't notice the total rebrand until Neon launched on a Saturday evening nearly a year later.
SP
Spencer
whilst the BBC Balloons will always be dear to me, i can't help but feel the slow plodding nature of them does look dated now.


Slow and plodding seems very much in vogue for TV idents these days when you look at the likes of ITV and Channel 4. And if only BBC One’s current idents had a pace to them that could be described as plodding, it’d still be an improvement.
DE
DE88
I was 9, and I noticed immediately.

Well, it *was* a pretty dramatic change - plus the virtual globe had been in use for two-thirds of my life up to that point...

Live & Kicking and the new logo being added to the titles


Of course, the TVC signage wasn't changed until just before that year's Children in Need, so a guess had to be made as to what the new signage would look like... Laughing Wink

http://i66.tinypic.com/153r6ur.jpg
VM
VMPhil
Though if they did update it with the official signage, it would probably be cut off after 'Televisi'

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