RKO Logo

[Paul Adsett]

Just learned some interesting facts about the RKO Radio Pictures logo, and the accompanying sound beeps.
Originally the logo, showing a radio tower on top of the globe, had an accompanying Morse code beep that spelled out "A Radio Picture," emphasizing parent company RCA's original intention to combine its two primary interests. These had changed by 1937 and the legend was changed to "An RKO Radio Picture." At this time the lightning bolt in the end credit and advertising logo was altered from three jags to one.
It never occurred to me that those beeps were actual Morse code!

[Ed Gordon]

On the movie THX 1138:

Trivia
George Lucas apparently named the film after his San Francisco telephone number, 849-1138, the letters THX correspond to letters found on the buttons 8, 4, and 9.

-IMDB

[Steven J. Kirk]

Was there ever a full colour RKO logo? The few colour films released seem to have a tinted version of the Black and White one.

[Jose Artiles]

Yes, from 1997 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erj2r0mu_sY

[Mike Newell]

I have the district feeling the RKO radio mast never featured in colour. They made few films in colour and ceased production in 1957 which was before studios really moved most of their films from Black and white. The only colour films I can recall are Jet Pilot, The Conqueror and Tycoon I think they have RKO built into their titles but not the mast sequence. Ironically, colorised versions of their movies do have colourised RKO titles. Example attached.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

Dangerous Mission has a color RKO logo.

Son Of Sinbad has a color / scope RKO logo.

[Mike Newell]

That’s interesting Mitchell so they did a colour version in 1950s.

[Ed Gordon]

RKO distributed the Pioneer Films production of Becky Sharpe in 1935.

The film was considered a landmark in cinema as the first feature film to use the newly developed three-strip Technicolor production throughout, opening the way for a growing number of color films to be made in Britain and the United States in the years leading up to World War II.

Their work with Technicolor goes back to the 1929 RKO film, Rio Rita, which had Technicolor sequences in it.

[Mark Barton]

During WWII in Hollywood, a sign was set up at the Warner Bros studios lot that read, 'In case of air raid go directly to RKO, they haven't had a hit in years'