Sci-Fi Movie The Moon Would Have Been Put Into Orbit

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... If the Litton Logo Police Were Still Patrolling Outer Space

but say what you want it still looks like a man on a toilet

Logo for Sci-Fi Movie The Moon

I was never a card carrying member of the Logo Police when I worked at Litton Systems Canada Ltd and later at Litton Industries.  Oh, I did a bit of sleuthing for the Force now and again, sniffing out internal fliers, memos and shower invitations that took liberties with the Li.  But, when it came to taking on companies that monkeyed with our trademarked symbols, it was a crack team of lawyers and PR directors from both sides of the border who manned the walls firing off lawsuits and writs at anything that moved.

Hollywood's man on toilet logo

Pre-Internet, a logo, its pantone colours and its careful designed typeface were as much a part of the company treasures as the patents for everything from dithering mechanism in ring laser gyros to the secret recipe of the chicken pot pie sold by Stouffers back in the sixties (when Litton owned Stouffers hotels, their frozen foods and their chunk of the Cleveland Indians). 

In the 70s and early 80s Litton Industries and all its divisions used a stylized i atop a capital L. In Canada, our division was allowed to put the Li inside a maple leaf (see picture of the logo on a shoe bag we used to handout at trade shows).  

As I heard it after I (unsuccessfully) moved down to corporate, Maple Leaf outline or not, the Li logo was doomed when a member of the Board in Beverly Hills opined that he thought the logo looked like a man sitting on a toilet.

The infamous Li Logo

Within the PR world it was a giant stop-the-presses moment. All around the Free World our martinis were put down. Our Export A's were left to smoulder in executive dining room ashtrays. Slide projectors were fired up and everyone careful examined the Li logo.  

Who would question a board member? Every man, woman and AI module suddenly agreedthat the Li did look a man sitting on a toilet.  

The logo that replace the Li

It didn't take long before all the divisions worldwide were flushing the toilet logo for a simple Litton with conjoined tees and an overly tall i.  Logo police were given scorched earth orders.  Soon no Li was to be found on building signs, PN and SN plates, letterheads and in our case in Toronto even service award clocks. 

So thorough was the removal, the only Li I could find in my collection of Litton ephemera is that same shoe bag mentioned previously.

I was watching the sci-fi movie "Moon" on Netflix last Wednesday evening. It was a good British yarn about a bad American company. Lunar Industries had a mining operation on the moon. They were using short shelf life clones to do their work.

I couldn't enjoy the film because every time I saw Lunar Industries' logo on moon vehicle bumper, I had an uncontrollable urge to unfreeze the Litton Logo Police and get them back to work.  You see the Lunar Industries logo was everywhere on the moon and it was a logo we have all see before. The Lunar Industries Li and the Litton Industries LI are only an orbit or two apart.

And you know, sitting here in my attic office looking up at the waning moon through my tiny little window, I can't help but think that be it down here or up there, the Li still looks like a man sitting on a toilet.

Pix of the logo on a give-away shoe bag. Popular at air shoew and bowling lanes around the Free World