Hellas Kosmos International (Greece)

(198?-1996)
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Nicknames: "E<", "EK", "The E</EK of Doom", "The Personification of All That is Funky", "That Techno-riffic Logo Before Greek Ninja Turtles Tapes", "EK of Doom"; "EK of Death", "Hella Funky", "Hellenistic Techno"

Logo: Against a dark space background with stars and planets that slowly zooms in, a red rectangle zooms out, leaving a residue trail behind it. A red and blue chevron shape pointing to the left comes in from the right and morphs into an "arrow" shape as it passes through the rectangle. Soon after, two blue lines zoom out from the left leaving a residue trail like the rectangle did, arranging themselves onto the left of the "arrow", forming a segmented blue "EK" that is red in the middle. Then, the words "ΕΛΛΑΣ KOΣMOΣ" (written in Greek) are wiped in by a ball of light from left to right and the words zoom in for a second. Then, the word "VIDEO" (which is half light-blue, half dark-blue) appears piece-by-piece (since it is segmented). The rectangle then fills with white.

FX/SFX: The effects look primitive, even for it's time.

Music/Sounds: A loud "whoosh" is heard as the rectangle zooms out, followed by a dark, creepy synth-line that turns into a cool techno theme (which is stolen from the 1983 exploitation film Hostage/Savage Attraction), accompanied by a synthesized wind chime sound.

Availability: Rare. Can be seen on old Greek videos from the 80s and 90s, including Blood Nasty, The Dark Side, Deadly Embrace, Slaughter of the Innocents, Operation Golden Phoenix, Ski School 2, Relative Fear, Aenigma, Puppet Master II, and The Paper Boy, among others. Also spotted on some Greek VHS tapes of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Editor's Note: The jarringly loud "whoosh" at the beginning can catch one off-guard. The synth tune and dark background don't help either, but the techno riff sort of turns the setting from dark and creepy to upbeat and futuristic, in a loose definition of the word.

(1990-????)
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Logo: We begin with colored bars. After a few seconds, the bars sweep down (with a glowing blue outline of the screen the bars were on) to reveal a black background. On the background, two maroon scalene triangles flip down to the left center of the screen. Each triangle flips down from the opposite side. Next, a blue scalene triangle flips in and places itself to the right of the two triangles. The name ΕΛΛΑΣ KOΣMOΣ in blue flips in and places itself to the right of the logo. The word "INTERNATIONAL" in red flips up and places itself under the above text. After a few seconds, the logo rotates and flies away to the right of the screen with a glowing blue outline. FBI Warning information begins to scroll as the logo flips away.

FX/SFX: The pieces of the logo flipping in and out. Like the last logo, it looks rather primitive.

Music/Sounds: A calm acoustic tune. Actually an excerpt from Acoustic Alchemy's "Take Five".

Availability: Ultra Rare. Probably appeared on VHS releases from the company at the time. The only known release to use the logo is the Greek dubbed release of Mad Jake.

Editor's Note: None.