They found the TAT logo

 For every group, niche, community, on the internet or off, there is bound to be one urban legend attached to it. Something that seems odd, but also has some basis in reality. When it comes to the logo community there are many myths and urban legends that have been investigated over the years. Say what you will about them, but they've done some good work, they get shit done all in the name of preservation, and for every logo that has been deemed a myth, a lot of them have been cracked over the years, and more recently, what is perhaps the most elusive logo of all time has finally been found, for real. This is the story of the T.A.T Communications Company logo.

After ending his partnership with Bud Yorkin in Tandem Productions, Norman Lear would launch T.A.T. Communications Company with Jerry Perenchio. Lear was a legend in his own right, though mostly undone based on what had come out about him, but that's beside the point. If a show had the right amount of episodes, they could be sold off for syndication, and, well, this is Norman Lear, practically every show he was involved in back then had multiple seasons with multiple episodes.

Lear would elect to have reruns of his series distributed under his own labels. The Tandem series would be distributed under PITS Films, while TAT would distribute shows they produced themselves. After a few years, Lear and Perenchio would acquire Avco Embassy Pictures and would rebrand TAT under the Embassy Television name, folding PITS into it as well.

The PITS and TAT logos would gradually be phased out in favor of Embassy's logo, then over the years a series of sales and buyouts would see Embassy's catalog getting acquired by Sony, and if you know Sony you know what that means... a slaughter... for every one of its past identities. While some captures of logos that would otherwise be plastered over were at the very least rediscovered or not removed, TAT wasn't as lucky. It was gone. PITS was spared from this by pure luck, as TBS reruns had used old syndie prints for their airings, but there was no trace of TAT's.

For years, all people had to go by was personal recollections, and they would shape what was believed to be the actual logo. Now, one's memories are incredibly unpredictable. How you recall something would change depending on how old you were or what was going on with you. I'm speaking from experience, a lot of what I remember either didn't happen the way I remembered it or got embellished, and I think that went for people who hedged guesses to what TAT's logo actually was.

I won't fault anyone for going with what was essentially an unverified lead, but that's all they had to go by. If you knew about the PITS logo, and for logo enthusiasts back then it was impossible not to since there was an upload of that logo as early as 2006, one may assume the TAT logo shared some of its qualities. I mean come on, it was the late-70s, an era of taping before a live studio audience and conservative budgets, you seriously think we were gonna get an elaborate closing logo this time?

Now, for guesses to what the logo was like there were some simple guesses, like a star just rising up against a printed on card background. Because this was easy to replicate, and because the logo was becoming notable at that point, people began to make mockups, which is all well and good but... two things. One, they were amateur and often made by small children, and two, there were people who would often pass these logos off as the real thing.

While it didn't stop efforts to find the logo, it made things a lot more annoying. A classic case of clout chasing, no community is immune to it. By then, the search had gone cold for many years with no new leads coming forth... until a partial capture of the logo surfaced and disproved earlier theories. There is an animated TAT logo, there's an idea to what it was like, but the search was far from over.

As the logo community would work to try and become more professional, and distance themselves from certain portions of it, they would rebrand themselves under the Audiovisual Identity Database, and with it, try to build a social presence that extended to YouTube. Worth bringing up because of a dedicated series the channel hosts, Reconstruction Zone, where TAT Communications served as the basis for the first episode. People would create mockups for lost logos to provide a visual basis for them, and holy shit they didn't fuck around with it. Really putting their best players forward.

From there, the search otherwise stayed cold... and then the logo was finally found. The finder, Bored's VHS Pile, would discover the logo at the end of a rerun of The Jeffersons recorded on betamax, it was finally over, and not a single ounce of skepticism, it was one for one with whatever was there on the partial find.

As a little tidbit relating to Reconstruction Zone, JacopoTheAwesomeBoy's take on the logo, though not one-for-one, was the closest to what the actual logo turned out to be.

For my perspective, I didn't expect much for the TAT logo and my suspicions turned out to be right. I assumed the logo would just appear via a zoom out transition, with the star vanishing entirely, but no, it just settles between the top of the T and the A.

This was just one of many rare logo discoveries made by the logo community. It goes to show that when the situation calls for it, they can truly get shit done. It's more than just finding a logo, it's all in the of preservation, unearthing rare material and the thrill of the hunt, and just think, it was all accomplished before the end of the year.

Glad to see that the era of fake TAT logo finds is behind us, and all that time and effort wasn't for nothing, so with that said... what's next?