[citation needed] Rhino's mail-order catalogs and early LP labels featured the company's mascot character Rocky—a cartoon greaser rhinoceros wearing a black leather jacket, designed by bootleg cover artist William Stout, and later cartoonist Scott Shaw!.

Some of the label's earliest successes with re-issues were achieved by acquiring the rights to the White Whale Records catalog[citation needed] that included the Turtles.

[citation needed] Rhino was quick to get into the compact disc market, releasing dozens of oldies CDs at the dawn of the CD age in 1984.

In the late 1980s, Rhino transitioned into a complete entertainment company specializing in home video (initially VHS, then DVD and Blu-ray) reissues of television programs such as The Monkees, The Lone Ranger, The Transformers, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics collection, as well as compact disc releases of select artists and movie soundtracks.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, the company's head of A&R, Gary Stewart, signed artists who recorded new music, including Cindy Lee Berryhill, Steve Wynn, Rank and File, Gene Clark and Carla Olson, The Textones, and NRBQ.

[10][11][12] It was through this merger that the label reissued material from such artists as the Monkees, Eric Burdon, Fanny, Dannii Minogue, the Ramones, the Grateful Dead, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Beach Boys, Yes, the Doobie Brothers, the Cars, Chicago, Tom Paxton, Third Eye Blind, the Doors, War, Spirit of the West and, most recently, the Bee Gees; as well as soundtracks spanning the Turner-owned pre-1986 MGM and pre-1950[13] Warner Bros. periods, in addition to WB's own post-1949 period.

[a] Rhino's soundtrack releases include Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade, North by Northwest, Casablanca, King Kong, Doctor Zhivago, Superman, and Finian's Rainbow.

In 2003, co-founders and longtime executives Richard Foos and Harold Bronson left Rhino, reportedly due to frustration with the challenges of an increasingly competitive market.

In addition to dealing with archive material, the label also manages the U.S. distribution or worldwide production of compilations for more recent Warner acts, including still-active artists such as Enya, New Order, and Chicago.