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Saturday, October 15, 2011

A TALE OF TWO WARNER SYNDICATION PACKAGES


A favorite topic ----- AND it's a pet topic of MINE, too, and I feed it and hold it..anyway. :) of us on animation boards is the two theatrical and television packages-----pre-1948 [supposingly copyrighted before 9/1/47 but acutlaly meaning released before August 1948] and post-1948 [(c) after 9/47 but actually meaning "released after July 1948" and later "most black and whites" [Porky, Daffy, or Porky/Daffy Looney Tunes plus said umbrella's one-shot "Puss 'n' Birdy", 1943, possibly the last B&W WB cartoon only] released after 1935].

With onscreen titles evolving to the more standard formula fonts on the first title [story through music], and excluding the director credit, by 1948-49, and the use of both Technicolor and Cineoclor with Tech's increasing backlog vs Cinecolor's stronger efficiency, though admittingly inferioir status and look,  and the studios being more than just "'toon places" ["Roger Rabbit" might just have a missing part about THAT, since it was about live vs toons and took place in the "Technicolor backlog" era.] , causing a VERY schizophreniz release schedule, a obessed hisotrian might ask these--"Why are these Daffy or Elmer shorts from 1948 that I saw with the little man with from the draft boards from form some years earlier, the ones with fancy shamcy Stories, Stalling, Blanc, Foster, Animation, aleternating in the filmography with those other shorts with Elmer and Daffy with credit letting for story, animation, etc. more similiar to those Looney Tunes also from 1948-1949 that I see with Duck Dodgers, Roadrunner, Taz, Granny, etc.


And why shorts that authors like the Leonard Maltin's, etc. list as from late forties of those later have credit fonts after the cartoon title that make 'em look like they belong with  those considerably older 1939-1946 'Holiday for Shoestrings",Sniffles and others from the late Depriession-WAR era?" Questions like that.

The answer, as mentioned, of course, is the skewered release dates in 1947-1949 due to the aforementioned film labratories having trouble getting the shorts released at the time, and tbe other priorties like movies and live shorts and KFWB radio that Warner [and MGM had similiar problems of their own, espeically with their even higher budgets for the Tom and Jerry's!] so depending of the film lab of choice, a cartoon copyrighted in January 1947 would come out in March 1948 BUT one copyrighted later might be finsihed in February 1948 ort even EARLIER. This gets confusing in the crux of the point of this blog's post:
++++THE LAST OF THE DO-DO's..No, THE LAST OF THE PRE-1948 [Associated Artists package] CARTOONS vs the FIRST post-48, production, release.

For everybody's information, Columbia, Paramount and Warner Bros. seem to be the only studios excluding Republic and  Bob Clampett's TruColor "You're a Grand Old Nag" not only using Technicolor, whcih Republic didn't afford:
COL., PAR. WBR=Cinecolor and Technicolor
PAR.=also [example many Popeyes of the time Polacolor]

These used the famous "odd geometric shape below the WB shield" thingy to contain the production number [before 1946], the Vitaphone number.

See http://www.davemackey.com/animation/wb/index.html -animation historian Dave Mackey's excellent site.

Since this ideals with the cut off year,the entire year of 1947-1949, production numbers given, not release numbers. Not all are known though..The pre- and post- 1948, again, is given BASED on the name for them and is NOT to be taken LITERALLY, as noted thru the entire post.  Release date,Lab,prod.number and reissue status are given example "I Taw a Puddy Tat",  April 17, 1948-which was Bugs Bunny's 8th anniversary, by the way:)-, Cinecolor, #1072, pre-1948 [i.e., former "a.a.p."].


LIST of WB CARTOONS FROM 1948-1949 MARKING THE REISSUE CUT OFF DATE [by prod # see next] with known open title release numbers beginning with the first released and one of the first produced "post-1948 shorts","You Were Never Duckier"[title, original release date, labatroy, production # where known, package.


Below list excludes all Technicolor cartoons released prior to 1948, all black and white cartoons released before [cheating, since until the late 1960s those were still in the Sunset/Guild set, , and the list also excludes the Cinecolor short return of 1947 due to the pre-1948 and post 1948 [as called] reissue packages having '48 as cut-off...

Also noted are such things form time to time as opening, rings, Technicolor credit,etc.Some of the copyright noticed even get mixed when you get to the production numbers marked 1080-1087 [the last of the pre-48 shorts to be released]




This covers production numbers from 1046 to 1096 [the last Cinecolor WB short with a known prod.#, with the final, "Dough for the Do Do" aka that "Porky in Wackyland Wannabe" also being Cinecolor but the blue ribbon policy keeping the open ring title off. However, the MPAA listings also provide a clue:" the short mentioned's a "13573", much higher than the ones below [frankly, the staff credits, just Blanc and Stralling due to the remake status of this, look vintage 1947 to me though copyrighted 1948 on the reissue print.:-)]

[All shorts copyrighted from 1948 to 1949 and were released from 1947-49. Only those with known production numbers, as detailed above, shown. Cut off time dates mentioned.]


PART ONE-Post and Pre-48 shorts thru "The Up-Standing Sitter", prod.1087, July 3, 1948]. Some of the remaining WB shorts (C)1947-48 released after July 1948, thus winding up in the WB [not AAP] package were Cinecolor, and have the only lab notice with most others now in Technicolor.

--------"You Were Never Duckier", August 7, 1948, Technicolor, #1046, the first released and maybe first produced post-48
--------"Buccaneer Bunny", June? 1948, Technicolor,  #1047, pre-1948
--------"House Hunting Mice",  September 1947, Cinecolor, #1049, pre-48, uses customed lettering for entire cartoon credits
--------"Bugs Bunny Rides Again!", Junr 1948, Technicolor, #1050, pre-48 [rare COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR notice in full caps, repeated in the mid-1950s. Possibly the first Warner Bros.cartoon to use the "Eastman" or IB tech "By Techn ", rather than "In.." before the lab credit.

---------"Haredevil Hare", July 24, 1948, Technicolor, #1052, pre-48 [the very last in release ONLY], same fonts for credits as "House Hunting Mice"


[CUT OFF: All remaining Technicolor shorts are post-1948, and all remaining pre-1948 shorts, of course, are Cinecolor.Due to still scattered and inconsistent discrepancies between the packages that got the following shorts and the continuing tow of two labs through 1949's releases, the full informaiton as on the above will continue]


--------"Hot Cross Bunny", August 28, 1948, Technicolor, #1053, first Bugs  Bunny in later package, post-48
--------"Doggone Cats", October 1947, Cinecolor, #1054, pre-48 [1946-47 style credit sequence]
--------"Kit for Kat", October 1948, Technicolor, #1055, post-48 [released exactly a year after the short produced before it, "Doggone Cats"]
--------"Scaredy Cat", December 18, 1948 Technicolor,  #1056 [first Porky and Sylvester thriller], post-48
"The Foghorn Leghorn", October 23, 1948, Technicolor, #1057, post-48
--------"The Stupor Salesman", November 6, 1948, Technicolor, #1058, post-48
--------"Porky Chops", February 12, 1949, Technicolor, #1061, post-48
--------"Daffy Dilly", October 7, 1948, Cinecolor, #1064[??], post-48 [note: bears 1947 copyright, originally, but Blue Ribbon print has 1948 a la "Bone Sweet Bone", more below.]
--------"A Lad in his Lamp", October 1948, Technicolor, #1065, post-48
--------"Hare Do", January 15, 1949, Technicolor, #1068, post-48
--------"What Makes Daffy Duck?", February 14, 1948, Cinecolor, #1069, pre-48
--------"I Taw a Puddy Tat", April 17, 1948, Cinecolor, #1072, pre-48
--------"A Hick, a Slick & A Chick", March 13, 1948, Cinecolor, #1073, pre-48
--------"Daffy Duck Hunt", February 1949, Technicolor, #1078,  post-48
[the next three have "Copyright 1948 by Vitaphone Corp.]
--------"Riff Raffy Daffy", November 20, 1948, Cinecolor, #1079, post-48
--------"Long-Haired Hare", June 14, 1949, Technicolor, #1080, post-48
--------"Curtain Razor", May 28, 1949, Technicolor, #1081, post-48
--------"Bone, Sweet Bone", May 22, 1948, Cinecolor, #1082, pre-48, bears 1947 -the last-in original showing but IRONICALLY a 1948 copyright like "Daffy Dilly", see above in Blue Ribbon reissue print.]


['48 copyrights on shorts below]

--------"The Bee-Deviled Bruin", May 14, 1949, Techncolor, #1084, post-48 bears, ahem :), 1948 copyright date credit, post-1948
--------"The Up-Standing Sitter", July 3, 1948, Cinecolor, #1087, the last pre-1948. Copyright 1948[!!!!!!!].


[All remaining are post-48 Tech.shorts except for, as noted, some Cinecolor shorts.]
--------"Dough Ray Meow", August 14, 1948, Cinecolor, #1088
--------"Frigid Hare", Sept? 1949, #1089
--------"Fast and Furryous", 1949, #1092
--------"Odor of the Day", October 2, 1948, Cinecolor, #1093
--------"Windblown Hare", July 27, 1949, #1094
--------"Holiday for Drumsticks", March 1949, Cinecolor, #1096

I would gratefully appreicate if these titless' production ID's were known:
"A Horsefly Fleas',"Hare Splitter',"The Pest who came to dinner",and 1948 copyrighted- 1949-released titles with more stylized fonts on staff credits
 ["Mouse Mazurka", "Knights Must Fall"]


Unfortunately, many 1980s refencve books, and some beofre and after, wrongly gave a handful of the Cinecolor titles wrong release dates like "Horsefly Fleas" as late 1948, due most obviously to Leonard Maltin's using copyright dates but retaining the release year ["House Hunting Mice","Two Gophers From Texas", and "A Hick, A Slick, & A Chick", and in Jeff Lenburg's books "I Taw a Puddy tat" being other casualities here--execpt for "Hick, Slick, and a Chick"'s catchily scored-open-and title wizard Don Foster's imaginative open, the others have had the Blue Ribbon reissues.


Also the 1948 release the "Upstanding sitter", one of the only pre-1948 Warner cartoons to have a 1948 copyright [and the only time like it in the original open title, with no  Blue Ribbon anyway] used to be placed in July 13, 1947, rather than July 3, 1948. See the filmogrpahy above. Many of the Cinecolor shorts, of cours,e were reiussed in 1955 or so with Tech.prints, as labeled [the overlapping A WARNER BROS.CARTOON legend over that of PRINT or COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR print, as was seen on these rereleased and the cartoon dept.'s then-new releases], and all of the Cinecolor shorts were originally made and released with or without a Blue Ribbon rerelease print in Technoclor.

[Thanks to Dave Mackey's site, the various CORRECT reference books, and Thad K.'s What about Thad site, among others.]

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