Evolution
And, no, I’m not talking about this picture:
But rather the evolution of “The Laughing Planet” as illustrated by our logo. Prepare for a pictorial journey about how
THIS 
became 
THIS
The entire endeavor has been quite a journey, pun intended to a degree. But no visual hallmark describes it better than the work that went into the face of the project as it were.
Way back when, in early 2004, Herb & I must have agreed upon the lame and tired title “Destination Unknown” without even using the google to learn that several clips had already been produced using that moniker. So after spending more than a small amount of time to produce this rather colorful logo,
we were stuck with a dilemma. Use the logo we created using an image stolen from Google Images, or find/buy an image of our own? Herb, ever the paranoid pragmatist, talked me into taking an actual photograph of a globe (hard to do it without getting a glare) and using that. After several hours shooting, re-shooting and emailing images, Herb landed on this design.
A vast improvement on many levels, to be sure. We PWNED owned it, for one, 2 and 3.
But to me, it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that the 1st iteration had. Color for one. This variation helped, a bit
but still didn’t quite pop (for me). At this point Herb was more than ready to turn over the reins to me, but being an utter neophyte using photoshop, I continued to defer in hopes he would tweak our logo per my incessant whining without giving up completely.
Eventually, after I had actually landed in Thailand to being shooting our new footage in High-def using producer Marc Johnson’s fancy new camera, we landed on a new name. Herb actually took a photo of his own mouth to devise the new image using our new title with which we couldn’t be happier today. (The title that is; his mouth is still a problem.)
Again, a vast improvement on many levels. But still no dice. The freaky face with no eyes, nose or ears would make small children cry. Not good for a comedy.
Alas, we relented and let real graphic designers take a stab using our old horror show and some words of wisdom to get them started. Here is what they countered with.
Good start! But, as we love to say in showbiz, “We have notes…” First, we are the “Laughing” Planet, not the “smiling” planet. Can you do something about that?
Yes! That’s what we’re talking about!
But…
Could you…? I dunno… Make it better somehow? Give it…ya know, a little something! Like more…POP. Pizazz? Zing?
That’s when I had another in the many “Simpsons” moments that life often brings me. I was like,
Dude. You know what all this totally remind me of? Remember the “Poochie” episode? They were trying to develop the new character, and all the producers were hunching over the animator’s shoulders trying to tell him how to do it “right”. He drew a dog, and the were all like, “NO, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude. ATTITUDE!”
Then, the animator, clearly flustered, was like, “Uh…what do you mean exactly?”
That’s when they told him to put sunglasses on the dog.
Herb stopped me. THAT’S IT! SUNGLASSES!
After tweaking the colors once or twice more, making the shades less opaque,
and the final moment of inspiration that led to the name of the project looking like a mohawk, we landed on the image you see splashed liberally around this website. Not that you need to be reminded of our lurvly finished product looks like, but here it is.
We hope this clearly shows once and for all that there was no connection whatsoever to our logo and that for the movie “Major League“, who we only learned weeks later bears some resemblance to our beloved chortling 3rd satellite of the sun.
