Question about a Fleischer Popeye cartoon
Mark The Shark
In 1990 I recorded the Popeye cartoon, "Customers Wanted," from Channel 50 in
Chicago. This is the black and white AAP re-titled version. It started out like
any other retitled AAP B&W Popeye cartoon, but just before the AAP logo card
cross-fades into the (remade) "Popeye The Sailor/A Max Fleischer Cartoon/By
Arrangement With King Features Syndicate" title card, there is an abrupt cut
and the AAP logo card suddently becomes smaller for a second or two (that is,
it's framed wider). Recently, I obtained a public domain Popeye video
compilation (which includes this cartoon) and a Super 8 Niles print of the same
cartoon...and it's the same way on all three sources. I wonder what
happened...if United Artists' original negative was damaged and they had to add
replacement footage from a different film or whatever...and when this
happened...oh well.
Another puzzlement: I wonder why when AAP replaced the Paramount logo with
their own...why the edit is a smooth one on the Black & White cartoons (with
the music running smoothly without disturbance) and the color cartoons have
such a sloppy, obvious edit with no regard for continuity of the music.
I guess at this point in my life, now that I know so much about the Fleischer
studio and its cartoons, it's come down to really pointless, stupid trivia to
ask about.
Chris Sobieniak
(Mark The Shark) wrote:
>I know this is silly, trivial and pointless, but I have
>to ask this.
OK. I do the same too if I did!
>In 1990 I recorded the Popeye cartoon,
>"Customers Wanted," from Channel 50 in Chicago.
>This is the black and white AAP re-titled version. It
>started out like any other retitled AAP B&W
>Popeye cartoon, but just before the AAP logo card
>cross-fades into the (remade) "Popeye The
>Sailor/A Max Fleischer Cartoon/By Arrangement
>With King Features Syndicate" title card, there is
>an abrupt cut and the AAP logo card suddently
>becomes smaller for a second or two (that is, it's
>framed wider). Recently, I obtained a public
>domain Popeye video compilation (which includes
>this cartoon) and a Super 8 Niles print of the same
>cartoon...and it's the same way on all three
>sources. I wonder what happened...if United
>Artists' original negative was damaged and they
>had to add replacement footage from a different
>film or whatever...and when this happened...oh
>well.
Who knows, they probably did if they didn't care too much about how they
treated the films in the days when AAP were just getting into printing
dozens and dozens of copies of the same cartoon for many TV stations to
use. I just think it was just a bad think that the sort of cartoon
buy-out of the '50s had to happen.
>Another puzzlement: I wonder why when AAP
>replaced the Paramount logo with their own...why
>the edit is a smooth one on the Black & White
>cartoons (with the music running smoothly without
>disturbance) and the color cartoons have such a
>sloppy, obvious edit with no regard for continuity of
>the music.
I dunno. Possibly it was harder to do it with color film than it was on
black and white or else they didn't have the original soundtracks to use
when they would do something like that. The portion of the
Fliescher/Famous Studios library that was sold to U.M. & M. TV Corp
(later NTA) and Harvey Films (for the '50s Noveltoons) did it so much
better with having the audio of the former dubbed it while the newer
opening/closings were spliced in. Seems like AAP went the route of
simply editing the negatives of the cartoons in that fashion with the
disregard of keeping the continuity checked. This was also done with
the pre-1948 WB cartoons, which after time, became very noticable over
how AAP had used the cheapo Eastman Safety Film to create those
openings, yet the Popeye openings are rather hardly faded at all (either
better storage or higher film stock was used).
>I guess at this point in my life, now that I know so
>much about the Fleischer studio and its cartoons,
>it's come down to really pointless, stupid trivia to
>ask about.
For me, it's more of the way NTA would cover up the Paramount name, the
Techicolor name and the copyrights to the individual cartoons with those
black bands (usually resulting in having a newer copyright for U.M. & M.
TV Corp mention somewhere) or having the titles as white text on a red
background. They way they can optically matte that stuff out kinda
impressed me somehow (kinda like the NBC mike on episodes of Graucho
Marx's "You Bet Your Life").
Still, at least it was better than MGM's handing of their toons where
they would cover up the Technicolor name in a Sharpie! ^_^
"I'm not interested in 27 movie channels of Japanese TV, but these days,
you need cable if you want to watch anything, it's ubiquitous."
- Thomas Wells, 41, Commerce TWP. Computer Salesman
(from The Detroit News, 6/28/2002)
Domo Arigatoo Gozaimasu!
From the Master of Car-too-nal Knowledge...
Christopher M. Sobieniak
--"Fightin' the Frizzies since 1978"--