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BOOTLEG CARTOONS ON EARLY TV

J

JeffM

This is one for real old-timers, or maybe a pack rat who has a lot of old 50's syndication ad paperwork.

Back in the early 50's, when few cartoon packages were available for TV, some...shall we say enterprising...promoters assembled what were frankly pirated packages of cartoons "duped" from 16mm prints released (legitimately) by home-movie companies like Castle Films, Official Films, etc; in many cases rental-library prints copied splices, scratches and all. The "duped" negatives had their original titles amputated and replaced with meaningless "alias" titles like Pixie Tricks, Birds and Bees, Icy Daze, Bakery Boy, The Sheriff's Moustache, etc. to disguise their identities, and the prints were sold outright to small local stations as cut-rate programming.

Some of these bootleg distributors included Astra TV, Cinelab Inc, Trans-Video Artists Productions (whose "Krazytoons" package I remember seeing on TV as a kid in the 60's) and Medallion Pictures' "Cartoon Capers." These guys were sharp enough to avoid "duping" cartoons with big star characters like Woody Woodpecker or Mighty Mouse, but recognizable characters like Andy Panda, Krazy Kat and the Little King still showed up in some of them.

Anyone have any sharp memories (or even any fuzzy 16mm prints?) of these wayward toons?
 
I wonder if Commonwealth is included in this lot - they took old silent cartoons (mostly Paul Terry) and added music tracks (primarily from the Valentino/Major Records library). These were run to death on TV in the '50s and early '60s. I recall Farmer Al Falfa's name was changed to "Farmer Gray." Commonwealth might have also distributed the Van Beuren cartoons - the Little King, Toonerville Trolley, Tom & Jerry (changed to Dick & Larry to avoid confusion with the MGM cat and mouse), etc.

Not cartoon related, but WRBL in Columbus, Georgia used to run the Little Rascals - not only the Monogram/Interstate package available to TV before King World got their mitts on them (and butchered them), but also the Official Films "Famous Kids Comedies" home-only prints! And they continued to air both packages well into the '70s, instead of the King World prints.
 
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Commonwealth doesn't really qualify here as they were the "legit" distributors of the Paul Terry silents; they bought those, some of the Van Beuren color cartoons and the 12 Mutual Charlie Chaplin comedies directly from RKO Radio Pictures. Some of the others you mentioned, like Dick & Larry, were offered by Official Films. This again was a legit deal. Outfits like Astra and Transvideo were knocking off "dupes" of all of these, plus Walter Lantz, Rudolf Ising (MGM) and others.

Re the Little Rascals; a package exactly like you mentioned ran on WDIO-TV in Duluth, MN back in the early 70's. I think their source was whatever distributor had the films "in between" Monogram-Interstate and King World (possibly Walter Reade.) The varying titles (including Official) appearing on the prints was the result of Reade (or whoever) using whichever 16mm negatives Hal Roach Studios had on hand that were in good shape. Some of the Blackhawk Films home-only prints of the 70's and 80's contained portions of the Official "comic mask" titles as well. Again, just using what was handy.
 
So Commonwealth was an above-board distributor, getting its cartoons legally from Terry and RKO. Didn't they add framing animation to Van Beuren Rainbow Parade cartoons for a package called "Tales of the Genie"?
 
I've never seen "Tales of the Genie," so can't comment on that. Paul Terry gave up the rights to his silent "Aesop's Fables" when he broke with A.J. Van Beuren and what was then called Pathe' (later RKO) in 1929 to start his own Terrytoons, Inc. (Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, etc.) He retained both the rights and the name of Farmer Al Falfa, which dated back as far as 1915; probably why Commonwealth renamed the ol' coot "Farmer Gray."

Commonwealth advertised widely in trade mags in the 40's and 50's, selling films outright to 16mm renters and home users, leasing to TV. Their 35mm theatrical business was under a sister company called Guaranteed Pictures. They had features and serials as well as cartoons and shorts. NYC-based Commonwealth continued to operate thru the late 60's-early 70's; when they closed down their library was bought by Blackhawk Films of Davenport, Iowa.
 
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