Gracie Films

Gracie Films is an American film and television production company, created by James L. Brooks in 1986. The company has produced many award-winning films and television series, some of which include Broadcast News and Jerry Maguire, but most notably, The Simpsons. The company is primarily associated with film studio and distributor Sony Pictures Entertainment, but it still has an office at the 20th Century Fox lot due to the indefinite contract Gracie Films has had with Fox for the last 20 years for The Simpsons.

The Gracie Films production logo depicts noisy movie patrons at a movie theatre hearing a woman in the back row saying, "Shhhhh!", so the title, the company's name, can be projected and that the company's musical signature can be heard.

Gracie Films Distribution is a distribution company formed in the New Year's Eve 2012. They formed distribution of classic films originally from movie studios

Some standard/special versions of the company's logo/jingle were made to fit television shows. There is a list of variants on this site, but unfortunately, they haven't been updated since the end of Season 21.
 * The Simpsons:
 * On Treehouse of Horror episodes (excluding I, VI and XIX), there is a pipe organ playing the jingle and a girl screaming (which sounds more like a whistle), in II and III, the organ played, but with no scream, on IX, the organ played, but the scream was replaced with Regis Philbin screaming, "My eyes, my beautiful eyes!" and on XV, the scream was replaced with Homer screaming through this logo and 20th Century Fox Television logo, similar to The Blunder Years.
 * Sometimes, music from the credits runs into the logo, e.g. Tony Bennett's Capital City being overrun into the logo is the first ever variant of Gracie Films (from Dancin' Homer) and also in The Old Man and the "C" Student, NRBQ's cover of The Beatles' song 'Can't Buy Me Love' not only overran into the Gracie Films logo, but for the first time, overran into the 20th Century Fox Television logo.
 * The first jingle outside the Treehouse of Horror series was in Lisa the Greek where the 'shush' is replaced with a whistle and the music is played by a marching band.
 * On occassional episodes, a different version of the jingle is played to suit an episode. Like on 'Round Springfield, Summer of 4 Ft. 2 and Lisa's Sax where a saxophone version is played.
 * Sometimes, there is no sounds at all being heard in the logo, and replaces them with some sounds in the episode, e.g. in Bart vs. Australia, the sounds are replaced with a didgeridoo.
 * Sometimes, there is no music and sounds at all for the logo. These are made of two variants: a silent variant was used on original prints of "There's No Disgrace Like Home" and sometimes, the closing theme playing over the logo.
 * The only time the logo can be seen within the episode was in You Kent Always Say What You Want, where after being interrupted by the 20th Century Fox TV logo when saying 'The truth is-', Homer on a white screen whispers to the fourth wall, "OK. What I was going to say was-," before the 'shush' interruption and the end credits.
 * There can be dialogue in the logo, e.g. in Lady Bouvier's Lover, Abe Simpson was talking about the time he first saw Jacqueline Bouvier before getting interrupted by the 'shush', in which he says "I'm sorry."
 * These kind of variants are inspired by the 'Deedle-Dee Tag' of Deedle-Dee Productions as heard in nearly every episode of Mike Judge's animated comedy King of the Hill.
 * The only visual variation of this logo on a Simpsons episode was in the episode Last Tap Dance in Springfield, where after the "Shhh!" we hear Little Miss Vicki (a character in the episode) say "Tappa, tappa, tappa" and then the logo's main animation slides up to take up the top half of the screen, while the bottom half has an animated black-and-white scene of a cat rubbing its eyes (with fake prop arms from offscreen) and smiling (this was in an old Miss Vicki movie Lisa was watching).
 * Homer has the most dialogue in the variants he has been heard in.
 * "You're cut too, Shushy!"
 * "Baby made a boom-boom."
 * "Cobras!"
 * "Save me, Jebus!"
 * "Don't shush me, you rich bastard!"
 * "Larry Flynt is right. You guys stink."
 * "Oh, boy. Buffalo testicles."
 * On Simpsons episodes starting with Season 2, there is a shorter version of the logo without the murmuring. Earlier Season 2 episodes carried the normal logo. The expections of the logo were the episodes "When Flanders Failed", "Stark Raving Dad", "A Star is Burns" and Season 7 episodes (up to The Day the Violence Died) use the normal logo instead.
 * On the DVD release of Season 15, the 2003 logo was used instead alongside the 2007 logo of 20th Century Fox Television.
 * In two episodes, the jingle is played at the start of the logo and then a sound is heard. In All Singing, All Dancing, Snake Jailbird shoots his gun to stop the music as in the credits and says, "You too, Gracie music dude. Gaw!" and in Elementary School Musical, a cow moo is heard at the very end of the jingle.

It is often speculated that the main chorus of the 1990 song entitled King of Wishful Thinking by the British pop band Go West can be heard in this musical signature. This has been fervently denied by some members of the successful pop band, though others have expressed their displeasure.
 * Other Variants:
 * An even shorter version is found on the short-lived Phenom, which cuts off the first two notes along with the murmuring and "Shhh!".
 * On the webisodes of The Critic, the logo is in the center of the screen, is brighter and blue, and is still. This variant uses the end theme of the show. A silent version also appears on The Simpsons Arcade Game and is downloadable on XBLA and PSN.

The company's production office is located in the Sidney Poitier Building on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California.

References in The Simpsons

 * Homer once claimed in his first ramble that he created Gracie Films.

Animation Production Manager/Coordinator for Gracie Films

 * Ken Tsumara (1993-1995)
 * Joel Kuwahara (1995-1998)
 * Richard K. Chung (1999-2001)

In Charge of Production at Gracie Films

 * Peter Schindler (1987-1989)
 * Richard Sakai (for feature films only, 1987-1994)
 * Michael Stanislavsky (1989-1991)
 * Michael P. Schoenbrun (1991-1993)

Vice President of Gracie Films

 * Denise Sirkot (1993-1997)

Notable TV series and films

 * The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-1990)
 *  (1987)
 *  (1988)
 *  (1989)
 * The Simpsons (1989-present)
 * War of the Roses (1989)
 * Sibs (1991-1992)
 * Phenom (1993-1994)
 * The Critic (1994-1995)
 * I'll Do Anything (1994)
 * Jerry Maguire (1996)
 * The Daytrippers (1996)
 * Bottle Rocket (1996)
 * As Good as It Gets (1997)
 * Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
 * What About Joan? (2001-2002)
 * Spanglish (2004)
 * The Upside Down Show (2006)
 * The Simpsons Movie (2007)