Paramount cartoons- WHO OWNS THEM (the film rights)?????

I've spoken with the people who seemingly own the cartoons:

-Paramount
-Lionsgate
-Viacom


and I've also spoken with the UCLA Film Archive.


Who owns them?

They all didn't know.

As I quote in an old e-mail to Jerry Beck:

"Oh, the rights are so confusing."


If the owner is just public domain, then we need to remaster the cartoons OURSELVES along with Harvey and Paramount(just license to use their logo). I'm speaking to you animation experts.


If the owner is a "somebody", then people have got to shape up. It seems as if nobody cares, and brings a sniff to my eye.

Paramount cartoons and Terrytoons on DVD???? Will it ever come true?

Sorry for the hitaus.


If the executives at Viacom and Lionsgate don't think Betty Boop is hot, here is a situtation that is going to get hotter.

Aesop's "The Mouse Who Belled the Cat" and Ray Pointer's relation to writing a bunch of letters and such has finally...come true.

While we're waiting for 1980's revivals of The Alvin Show and Mighty Mouse to be out on DVD, people want the original Paramount cartoons and Terrytoons to be on DVD.


Yes, it's madness. Sheer madness.


No matter how much of the Viacom/Lionsgate executives don't give us the response we want- it still gives us more to ask for.

The Shout Factory and GAC Forums are having their forums devoted to getting these classics on DVD. The rights are seemingly confusing. Does Paramount own Betty Boop or does Lionsgate own Betty Boop?


Check 'em out:


http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=13282


http://www.shoutfactory.com/community/1864/thread.aspx#7236

The Emerald Isle

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Semi-OT: An MGM short with the studio's orchestra playing a certian firefighting piece

The tune that the MGM Orchestra is playing is the same tune played throughout GABBY's "Fire Cheese" and the Famous Studios Screen Song sequel, "The Big Flame-Up" (minus the sing-along number), plus cartoons from various other studios as well. But to PD video fans, it's those two Paramount cartoons that the tune is well-known.

This tune is "The Merry Wives of Windsor Overture", not an execrpt of "The Merry Widow", as Fleischer/Disney historian Ray Pointer said it was an execrpt of "The Merry Widow". But it's not.

And oh, if you want to see the two- this post was going to be devoted to the MGM live-action short posted above but however....

Non-orginial prints of easily found orginials.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330277163840&indexURL=1&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting


UM&M, NTA and AAP altered EVERYTHING, execpt several Betty Boop cartoons.

So don't be mislead when finding a bunch of orginials that UM&M didn't alter that cartoon!

Finding incentives to get Paramount/Viacom to release classic cartoon library...

My blog's been kinda slow since good prints of Paramount cartoons stopped being posted on YouTube and traffic is gone, but I've still got it, Eddie! Boop-Boop-A-Doop, Boop!

Ok, so I made my own version of a Betty Boop quote from the Roger Rabbit movie, but still...

Anyways, I've been trying to help Viacom find incentives via letters.

I've heard there's a new direct-to-video Alvin and the Chimpmunks animated feature put out by

Paramount, and that would be a nice incentive to release "The Alvin Show", if the 2007 live-action feature didn't work out as another incentive.

A nice financial incentive would be to put out the color cartoons first. Sorry to upset Betty Boop fans, but I've heard that the UCLA masters with original titles are mostly the Technicolor, Cinecolor, and Polacolor cartoons. It would be cheaper to restore if most of the black-and-white UCLA material is altered by UM&M/NTA.

What could be good marketing techniques?

1. Partner with the Ad Council to use the restored clips for PSA's. Make 'em far fetched with pointless random clip selection, just....like....Disney!

2. Put a commercial for a DVD release on Nicktoons Network. Play 'em once or twice in a row during each break, and get an annoyance.

3. Make an official website devoted to these cartoons that isn't Harvey. First, get people to pay $1.99 a month to watch these cartoons on the website to make a profit. If you want to make it free, get ad support from the animation industry.

4. Re-release them in theaters! People will see the Harveytoon library with original Paramount titles. Plus it would encourage sing-alongs for the "Screen Song" cartoons. I remember going to a museum theater and in the end there was a sing-along to the jingle of the company the musuem was devoted to.

5. Put 'em on the new movie channel partnership with two certian "lion" studios , like Jerry Beck's open letter stated.

6. Slogan: "Your favorite vauge memories are back!"

Who's with me???

Off-Topic: "Oh, Mickey- Nabisco!"

It's been hard to find good prints of Fleischer films lately, although I will probably post "Play Safe" when I'm up to it. Even though it's off topic, I am going to post something from Max Fleischer's rival when the namesake person of the company was still alive and when the vise versa rival's founders were still working for Paramount. This is one of my favorites, although it looks kinda in terrible shape. It is a Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon selling Nabsico cookies and crackers, long before a certain dairy products (of mostly cheese) company acquired them and much longer before that company bought rights to General Foods products. Mickey's Surprise Party, released as part of the World's Fair.

There's no production credits in the opening titles, no Mickey Mouse head card (if there was, it may have been cut off in this YouTube post), no MPAA number (since it was advertising) and no reference to Disney in the end title. For the actual cartoon, it was probably a VHS or older DVD copy, so the color isn't that great, it looks much similar to the quality in the edited "Spirit of Mickey" VHS version.


Alongside from that, it was a fun way to sell cookies after what it seems like Great Depression victims having enough of elves and dwarves and all of those robust plots incorporated in advertising cartoons.


I'm not sure who animated this but it is one of my favorite Nabisco commercials (even though it was cinema) alongside with the old Ritz Bitz claymation commercials, and the Chips Ahoy commercial with Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)".

I like this because I normally associate Kraft/Nabisco with Nickelodeon characters such as Spongebob and Timmy Turner when it comes to merchandising and partnerships.

Disney Magic Selections and Keebler got Mickey away those Fig Newtons that he said he "liked" in the end, at least in my time!

And one more thing, it has a similar end title cue that the Paramount cartoons use for end title fanfares, and if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like the "Hunky and Spunky" end title piece.