The MTV Films logo is another that I don't think enjoys half the notoriety it deserves among aficionados of logo-induced terror. I surely can't be the only person whose experience of seeing Beavis and Butt-Head Do America during its theatrical run was somewhat marred by the horror of having a giant astronaut come lurching toward me from the great black abyss right beforehand. I mean, within the proper context, astronauts can be incredibly unsettling, no? There is an element of the uncanny in them - human-shaped, and yet their human features are obscured. You can't see who or what is buried beneath all of that aluminised Mylar. All I know is that this particular 'naut seems to be thirsting for my blood the instant it sets its sights on me - as it drifts serenely on by, already you can see its fingers stirring in your direction. Just when you think it's safely out of range, it moves in very suddenly for the kill. Even this uncomfortably close and personal, when you're forced to gaze directly into this aggressor's non-existent face, still no human characteristics reveal themselves. You see only what's reflected back at you in that monstrous fishbowl - namely, the MTV logo, and what appears to be the astronaut's torso and assorted appendages dangling about beneath them. Except, the way it's positioned, it almost looks as though that could be your torso and appendages spread out before you. Meaning that you, too, are an uncanny space demon floating across the vast unknown? That the two of you have been fused into one horrifying entity? The backwards MTV logo certainly helps fuel the impression that something is desperately askew in the far-out reaches of space.
MTV Productions begot MTV Films in 1996, as the Gen-X baiting media team grew increasingly ambitious about giving their established properties the big screen treatment. Their initial release, Joe's Apartment (a feature length expansion of a short by John Payson), went with a more subdued logo directly acknowledging the company's television origins (in which the MTV "M" was shown filled with TV static, while a chorus of cockroaches screamed on in approval), but by Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (the film that helped shore up their critical and commercial credibility), they'd decided to embrace the full power of the theatrical setting by adopting something of greater visual intensity. The astronaut itself was a familiar image among MTV viewership, it being a nod to the "One Small Step" ident that had featured on the channel at the time of its launch in 1981. Only whereas that ident was colourful and invigorating, mildly subversive in its playful appropriation of an iconic moment in human history while championing space exploration as the heralding of what tremendous possibilities could still lie ahead, the MTV Films logo plunges the viewer directly into the cold, dark horrors of outer space - a formidable vacuum of insurmountable otherness in which even your fellow Earthlings seem to have shed their familiarity. Of course, depending on which MTV production you're watching, the logo might inevitably lose some of its impact if our spaceman attacks to the sounds of "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow. It's at its most effective when viewed in its silent form - or, as in the case of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, with muted, ominous audio - reminding us of that stark reality suggested in the promotional tagline to that science fiction slasher that everybody knows. Whatever terrors are waiting to greet us out in the atmosphere, whether human or otherwise, are going to strike without making a sound.
MTV continued the astronaut theme into its succeeding logo, which first appeared in 2005, and did little to quell the feelings of astrophobia brought about by its predecessor. Instead of contending with just one astronaut, we now found ourselves face to face with an entire auditorium of the fishbowl-headed devils as they communed for a theatrical experience of their own, complete with packets of zero-gravity popcorn. At least this time, rather than having the astronaut close in us, we begin with an intense close-up and then zoom out, even if it's all to reveal just how frighteningly outnumbered we are. Once again, emphasis is given to what's reflected in their visors and, on this occasion, it's something comforting and familiar - good old planet Earth - but viewed from a startling distance, affirming that we are now out there among the otherness looking in. Since the astronauts are watching Earth, is the implication that our terrestrial lives are all a great spectacle to them? Or are they slowly but surely drawing their plans against us? (Again, you can't be totally certain what's actually lurking inside those suits.)
By 2010, MTV had opted to tone down the uncanniness and re-emphasise the funkier side of astronauts - their next MTV Films logo was a straight-up remake of the classic (and entirely non-threatening) "One Small Step" ident. Then in 2013 they experimented with ditching the astronauts altogether, with a logo instead comprising a montage of various close-up shots of the human eye (possibly to compensate for its conspicuous absence from their logo history up until now). But as we all know, what's old is new, and with that in mind, we should've guessed that, sooner or later, the original MTV Films astronaut would come creeping back to terrorise us in one form or another. As of 2019, beginning with the VOD release Eli, the cycle of interstellar dread has been kick-started for a whole new generation.
A very happy 40th anniversary to you, MTV.
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