MTV Home Entertainment

MTV Home Entertainment was the home video licensing arm of MTV. Since late 2001, MTV has primarily distributed its home video releases worldwide through Paramount Home Entertainment, a unit of Paramount Pictures, which Viacom (now "Skydance Corporation") inherited through its acquisition of Paramount Communications itself seven years prior. Prior home video releases in the U.S. and Canada from 1994 to mid-2001 were distributed through Sony Music Video, while prior home video releases elsewhere from 1996 to 1999 were distributed through CIC Video.

1st Logo (1994-1996)

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Visuals: Over an orange sunset background, two masked dark blue men emerge from each other, pulling chains that are attached to a box of the same color, which materializes and stretch in until it forms a square shape. The screen then cuts to a wide shot of the two men and the box, revealing that the chains are actually connected to the ends of the box. The men continue pulling, causing the box to split and form the familiar MTV "Big M" logo. When it's completely formed, the stylized "TV" letters fade in on the right side of the "M" at the same time as "HOME VIDEO", which is shown below in Helvetica.

Trivia: This is simply a shorter version of the MTV "Mirror" ident, but with the words "HOME VIDEO" appearing instead of "MUSIC TELEVISION". The same applies to MTV Productions around the same time.

Technique: Stop motion animation.

Audio: The sounds of dragging are heard when the men are pulling the box, followed by a loud, echoing thud when the letters appear (different from the original ID).

Availability: Seen on early Beavis and Butt-Head videos such as "Work Sucks!" and "The Final Judgment", as well as The Best of Liquid Television and The Grind workout tapes.

2nd Logo (1996-1998)

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• 
  The logo
• 
  The slogan

Visuals: A large white circle blinks briefly before it returns from the left side of the screen, leaving lavender shadows behind as a trail a la the James Bond intro. It then stops just shy to the right side of the screen as another circle slides in and merges with it, doubling in side and sliding to the left. The circles blink different colors throughout as well in the following order: red, green, red, yellow, red, then yellow. As the circle stops in place, it stretches into an slanted ovoid as a red arrow slides out of the left, and a photo realistic finger pops in and presses it, turning green and causing it to glow. The MTV logo, also italicized, then appears over the circle and releases radial waves outwards, followed by two larger ones that first wipe away the finger and turn the play button white, and then invert the colors as "home video" slides in below from both sides of the screen. After a few seconds, the logo fades out and the slogan "stick it in. press play." fades in a futuristic font, and then fades out.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Audio: A James Bond-esque tune that tenses throughout the logo and ends with a nine-note electric guitar tune. Beeps also are heard throughout, tensing into Morse code at the end. As the slogan fades in, the sound of a VHS tape being inserted into a VCR can be heard.

Availability: Seen on later Sony Music Video releases of MTV shows. It was also seen on the Australian The Ren and Stimpy Show VHS release Incredibly Stupid Stories despite that release having Nickelodeon logos on the packaging.

3rd Logo (1998-2009)

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Visuals:

• 1998-2002: Four ovoid rings zoom in and constantly rotate throughout the runtime, surrounded by shadows of each other and filled with color-tinted footage of water that shifts hues throughout, as the arrow and oval from before fly in and spin around. As the arrow spins around like a clock hand, the oval counts down the numbers "5" through "1", every time it flips. After it reaches "1", the arrow comes together with the over, the rings fly away, and the oval reveals the MTV logo from before as "home video" flips in rapidly below. Everything floats around for a brief moment before the screen glitches, showing a pitch black blurry version of the logo split between RGB channels, and then shows the standard logo in a green tint. The logo shows consistent glitching throughout before it suddenly shorts out and the screen glitches away.
• 2002-2009: The logo starts off like the early VHS version, but the rings/oval are larger and the arrow is smaller in the countdown sequence, there are no glitchy shadows, and the color is always cyber green (with these 2 elements present throughout). When the slightly larger logo comes together, the screen instead inverts and glitches slightly to reveal the final result, as well as a higher-res MTV logo. The logo ends with a slower, green-tinted, looped version of the static, then cuts to black.

Trivia: Despite the name change in 2001, newer releases continued using the "home video" name for this logo on-screen, with some 2002 releases even using the name on either the packaging and/or labels.

Technique: 2D CGI.

Audio: A heavy techno drum-and-bass theme (which also samples parts of the "Amen Break") is heard throughout, adding in additional beeps and blips, before ending with a soft synth pad. Alongside the music, voices are heard throughout: a computerized female voiceover (supplied by the "Kathy" voice in the text-to-speech program on Mac OS 9) counting down from 5 to 1, a robotic voice (supplied by the "Trinoids" novelty voice in the same text-to-speech program, albeit transposed 3 semitones higher) quickly saying the company name, and a robotic male voiceover (supplied by the "Fred" voice in the same text-to-speech program) saying "Stick it in. Press play." At the end, a series of beeps are heard, and then a blast of static.

Audio Variant: Sometimes, a synth hip hop-esque theme is heard instead. The voices and the sound effects remain the same.

Availability: Seen on VHS and DVD releases of MTV shows such as Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection, Daria: Best Friends, Jackass, MTV Yoga, and Æon Flux: The Complete Animated Collection. Some DVDs, like Daria: The Complete Animated Series, and some MOD DVD-R releases, skip this logo altogether. This first appeared on some Sony Music Video releases including Beavis and Butt-Head: Hard Cash.