Jackie the Lion

Jackie trained by Mel Koontz, was the second lion used for the MGM logo. He was a wild Nubian lion brought from the Sudan, and the first MGM lion to roar (recorded long after he was filmed; at least three different recordings of roars/growls were used), which was first heard via a gramophone record for MGM's first production with sound, White Shadows in the South Seas (1928). Jackie roared/growled three times before looking off to the right of the screen (the lion's left); in the early years that this logo was used (1928–c. 1933), there was a slightly extended version wherein, after looking off to the right, the lion would return his gaze to the front a few seconds later. Jackie appeared on all black-and-white MGM films from 1928 to 1956 (replacing Slats), as well as the sepia-tinted opening credits of The Wizard of Oz (1939). He also appeared before MGM's black-and-white cartoons, such as the Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper series produced for MGM by the short-lived Ub Iwerks Studio, as well as the Captain and the Kids cartoons produced by MGM in 1938 and 1939. A colorized variation of the logo can be found on the colorized version of Babes in Toyland (1934), also known as March of the Wooden Soldiers; an animated version (done via rotoscope) appeared on the 1939 Captain and the Kids cartoon Petunia Natural Park. Jackie died on February 26, 1952. He would later make a comeback at the beginning of the film Hearts of the West (1975).

In the early 1930s, MGM reissued some of its earlier, pre-1928 silent films with prerecorded music soundtracks and sounds; such films included Greed (1924) and  Flesh and the Devil (1926). For these sound reissues, the original Slats logo was replaced with Jackie causing many film authorities to assume that the Jackie logo had been in use before 1928.

In addition to appearing in the MGM logo, Jackie appeared in over a hundred films, including the Tarzan movies that starred Johnny Weissmuller. Jackie also appeared with an apprehensive Greta Garbo in a well-known 1926 publicity still. The lion is also known for surviving several accidents, including two train wrecks, an earthquake, and an explosion in the studio. In the most famous case, a pilot had to crash-land his plane, and left Jackie stranded in the Arizona wilderness for four days with some water and sandwiches[8]. Jackie received the nickname "Leo the Lucky".

For the films Westward the Women and The Next Voice You Hear... (both 1950), a still frame of the logo -- sans growling—was used at the beginning.