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NBC Universal Unveils New Logo Built To Thrill You Into Deep Relaxation

Since the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal, those who like the entertainment they get from NBC (a dishearteningly small number to begin with, unfortunately for the company) have wondered whether being taken over by a giant like Comcast, which people frequently know only as "my cable company" (as in "my cable company is terrible" and "my cable company can't come until a week from Thursday") would mean anything bad on the entertainment side.

Like, say, a collapse of identity.

In order to stem those fears, NBC Universal today unveiled a new logo. Now, this is not the NBC Entertainment logo, which will apparently still involve the peacock. But the NBC Universal logo used to look like this.

This is their new logo, and I promise you, I am not joking. It is not a prank; I downloaded it from the NBC press site.

I sat here for quite some time, thinking that I might try to write a list of Ten Things This New Logo Says To Me. But then I thought, "At least nine of them would be, 'We Give Up.'"

I understand writers and critics are a bunch of crankypants meanies who kick the stuffing out of NBC at a moment's notice, and I'm sure that's frustrating, but nobodywants the network to stop being so beleaguered more than the people who actually have to watch its shows (other than Thursday night comedy) for work.

We want you to get your groove back, NBC Universal! But it's difficult to believe that no one in this process took one look at this logo and said, "Noooo, no no no, fellas, back to the ol' drawing board! Because the crankypants meanies are going to do things like point out that if you were the faculty advisor for the yearbook committee at the Daniel J. Travanti High School For The Mildly Delinquent, and a student brought in this proposed logo as his project only it said 'The Travantian!' instead of 'NBC Universal,' you would say to him, 'Brett, I want to help you, but your problem is that you're not applying yourself.'"

It has one advantage, though. It makes the logo look like an Escher woodcut. The SyFy logo guy is like, "How do you like me now?"

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.