What's in a logo

 So, I can't believe I haven't posted something quite like this before!  Oh well, better late than never.

Of course, one of the most recognizable icons of the Tower of Terror is its HTH logo.  What fans might not realize at first glance, however, is that every iteration of the Tower has its own unique logo!  Unfortunately, Disney's own marketing and merchandising often muddies the waters, releasing generic merch with mixed up logos to multiple parks.  However, indeed, the intent seems to be that each version is acknowledged as unique, and gets an icon to match.

We'll start off with the first version: Florida's.  This one, much like the version of the ride it represents, is distinctly gothic in style.  The letters are in sharp, thin font and surrounded by dragons and a crown.  Here it is on the ride's unique lobby tapestry.

A while back, I made a cleaned up version in plain black and white for reference:

It's surprisingly difficult to find a plain image of this logo on the first few pages of google; I ended up making this reference from an old merchandise product photo of a mug or a coaster.  Anecdotally, this logo seemed to be rare on merchandise for a while, replaced by the simpler "just the shield" design intended for Paris and DCA.  However, thankfully Disney seems to have remembered this version again, as it reappeared on a 2022 set of Loungefly Minnie Ears sold at the Florida Parks.

Photo from minnieearcollectors.com, source

The next logo to debut was supposed to be Paris', but it was "stolen" by DCA.  Disney intended for Walt Disney Studios Paris to have a Tower of Terror from the start, fully designing the ride but acknowledging it needed to be built a bit after opening.  Still, knowing where the ride would be and what it would look like, Disney included this logo as an Easter Egg on a building near where they knew the Tower would emerge.  Unlike the gothic spikes of Florida, the newer design would feature a blocky art deco look.  Subsequently, the logo was pared down, losing the spiky dragons and crown.  Within the shield, a slightly different, thicker font was used for the lettering as well.

My 2016 photo of the DCA Tower logo banner, from likely my last-ever ride on the DCA Tower.

A plain version for reference.

So how did DCA end up with this design?  Quite frankly, by being something of a failure.  When DCA flopped, management scrambled to add a new thrill ride to draw more visitors, and the quickest solution was to delay Paris Tower further and send the already-planned design to California.  That said, the Paris and California versions were NOT perfect clones of each other; to save budget, Imagineers altered parts of the façade to be painted illusions rather than actual sculpted architecture, as eventually revealed by the infamous Mission Breakout paintjob (the elements in question are truly sculpted in the Paris version).  There's also the matter of DCA's unusual ride sequence I detailed here.  However, the general art deco look and logo were indeed cloned and given to California first.  There's some circumstantial evidence that there might have been a unique Tower design in the works for DCA, that was discarded in favor of stealing Paris' version when the park ended up more desperate than anticipated.

This "shield" logo is probably the most common one to appear across all Tower merchandise, regardless of which park or iteration of the ride it is supposed to represent.

Now, while we're talking about Paris...

2017 photo by Pyrokenisis

For the most part, Paris seems to use the original intended shield logo, as seen on its lobby banner.  However, note that the lobby banner is NOT identical to the one at DCA!

For the Paris Tower of Terror's 10th Anniversary celebration, Disneyland Paris released a new HTH design for limited edition merchandise, finally giving Paris its own unique logo again.  This is the rarest logo from what I can tell; it might have been limited JUST to that merch line.  At any rate, it took me quite a few google searches trying to find it; I was half convinced I dreamed it up!

Disney-released promo image

Black and white version to compare with the others

It's arguably the most elaborate logo, with extra spikey font, metallic finishes, and a Great Gatsby-styled background evoking hotel gates.

Given the fact that two H’s could stand for either Hotel Hightower or Harrison Hightower, this logo appears again in modified form in Hightower’s office. The wallpaper of Harrison Hightower’s office has this design: Two H’s made out of swords, entwined in the tail of a dragon.

re-creation of the wallpaper design found here

...And now we're back to dragons, I see! Well, now that we've come full circle, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of the different icons for each hotel. Have fun spotting the different ones!