Jean-Reiss Home Video

Background: Jean-Reiss Productions created a home video line in 1987, with all product distributed through New York Video. This practice continued until 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment acquired NYV in late 2000 and subsequently put J-R's video line on moratorium. Thereafter, all J-R product was distributed through TCFHE.

1st Logo (1987-1991)

Nicknames: "Searchlights", "The Prestige Films Searchlights Meets the H-B Swirling Star"

Logo: On a black background, we see a searchlight moving from left to right (a la the 20th Century Fox and the 1990 King World logos) and moving back to the left side. We later see another searchlight on the left side as it criss-cross with the other searchlight as it moves to the right side revealing the word "JEAN-REISS" in a Microgramma font below. On it, the swirling star (May-June 1987 version) animates, as per usual, then, a long, elongated rounded rectangle with the words “HOME VIDEO” (in the same font) on each side, flips in,

FX/SFX: The searchlights moving. The name revealing, the animation of the swirling star, the foreground text.

Cheesy Factor: Way off-the-wall here. The searchlights look a bit choppy and horrible, the flipping is badly done, the superimposing of the swirling star isn’t that great and the formation of "JEAN-REISS" is quite simply a disgrace.

Music/Sounds: A swoop sound when the searchlights appear, then a horn and piano fanfare.

Availability: Rare. JRHV did release a morass of product almost 200 titles, but are all out of print. Most of the titles are in slipcovers released after 1989; the very first titles to use this logo on the packaging (usually orange clamshell cases with a New York Video byline) do NOT have this logo, but rather the July 1987 swirling star logo.

Scare Factor: Minimal.

2nd Logo (1991-2000)

Logo: On a black background, we see a white flash typing in "JEAN-REISS" in a Data 70 font and in a green gradient color. A large flash then appears under "JEAN-REISS", which creates the words "HOME VIDEO" in the same color as the "JEAN-REISS" text.

Variant: There was a variant seen on the opening of J-R cartoons on VHS. It's the same as the normal variant, except "P R E S E N T S" appears instead of "HOME VIDEO".

FX/SFX: The white flash creating "JEAN-REISS", the large flash creating "HOME VIDEO", or "P R E S E N T S" for the variant.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: The variant is seen on the 1992 VHS of The Simpsons Spotlight: Volume 2 ("Some Enchanted Evening"/"The Telltale Head") as the last part of the opening before the Simpsons intro starts. The opening of the VHS also contains the FHE/USA/IVE blinking FBI warning, the New York Video logo, VCR tracking reminders, and a preview of The Simpsons Spotlight: Volume 3 (Bart Gets an "F"/Bart's Dog Gets an "F"). The normal version is seen on other later releases from the company.

Scare Factor: None to low.