Loco logos

In 1975, the marketing geniuses at NBC-TV decided that they needed a new logo to replace the old logo that featured a peacock spreading its feathers.  The idea behind that logo was not because NBC carried a lot of shows about nature and avian plumage, but to promote the fact that they had brought color TV to America in the 1950s.

Younger readers might find this hard to believe, but in those days, people fortunate enough to purcha$e a color television would place them as close to the living room window as possible so that passersby could look in and see the miracle of Bonanza, in living color, far from the Ponderosa.

Anyway, by the 1970s, we were all used to seeing all sorts of spectaculars on color TV - the World Series, the Super Bowl, "Laugh-In," and one presidential resignation. NBC told the peacock to fly away and brought out a fancy new logo, just a giant "N".

Well, hot'a-mighty, didn't that look a lot like the logo of the Nebraska Educational TV network, which had been designed by the art department out there, at much less cost than the one million beans that NBC spent for their new design.

The  trademark infringement lawsuit was such a slam that NBC settled out of court, giving the Nebraskans some new broadcasting equipment and a mobile color unit to the tune of more than $800,000. They also had to come up with $55,000 to pay for a new logo for NETV.

And if I know my Nebraskans (and I don't), they had the art department come up with something and pocketed the 55G.

We logophiles were reminded of this the other day when the Indianapolis Irsays of the National Football League, who used to be the Baltimore Colts, unveiled their new uniforms for the 2020 season, which may or may not happen. The big deal was the introduction of a giant "C" with the outline of the state of Indiana dropped onto it, like a big tomato atop a cheeseburger.

But eagle-eyed onlookers were able to spot something that reminded them of the logo for Cathedral High School out there in Indianapolis:

The logo for the Catholic high school was developed by Jere Kubuske, a former coach there who has decamped for the warmer climate of Green Bay. He was howling mad on Twitter about five minutes after the Irsays unveiled their new duds:


"Good to know that even though I'm in WI now, I can still contribute to life in Indy. Thank you Colts for ripping off my logo for [Cathedral Football]," he wrote.

The Irsays, for their part, puffed up about their design, and said that THEIR "C" has seven holes in it, just as their classic uniforms from when they played in Baltimore, where they still belong, did. That's supposed to represent the nail holes in a horseshoe, although any farrier will tell you, a horseshoe has six holes, sometimes eight.

Steve Campbell, a representative for the Irsays (a team once owned by Bob Irsay, whose own mother described him as "a devil from Hell"), backpedaled thus:

We have great respect for our friends at Cathedral, and we would never purposefully take an idea from them to use as our own. That’s just not how the Colts do business. The new Colts Indiana logo was an independent creation that was designed by the NFL, as are most team marks and logos, and was not designed locally. The Colts and the league were unaware of the other logo, and we wouldn’t have moved forward otherwise. But we will look into the matter. Nonetheless, both the Colts and Coach Kubuske had the same goals at heart – promoting athletics and paying tribute to our home state.

One rule I have lived by is this: any explanation that contains the word "but" and "nonetheless" is what we call a whitewash to cover up nonsense and hoo-haw.