WB Should buy Classic Media

[Christmas_Boy]

Think about it…

1.) It would bring Underdog, Bullwinkle, UPA, Casper, Gumby, and other classic cartoons into the WB fold.

2.) It would unite the Rankin/Bass film library so they could do a definitive R/B. Christmas classics collection. (Since they own the Grinch and handle Charlie Brown they would have access to all of the classics if they wanted to put them all in one set.)

3.) WB would do more for these properties than Classic Media has been doing.


Any other pro’s or con’s anyone can think of?

 

[Goldstar!]

I'm not a big fan of Casper or Gumby, but Boomerang is such a mess right now that anything that would break the monotony would be welcome at this stage. Regarding the Rankin/Bass specials, it's indeed true that Classic Media currently owns most of them, since the majority of the R-B specials air on ABC Family every year except for the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman specials, which still air exclusively on CBS, and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, which is an ABC mainstay. It would be nice if Boom could air some of the R-B series such as Thundercats and The Comic Strip, which hasn't seen the light of day in literally years. Boom could air the latter 2, since all of the R-B projects made after 1974 are owned outright by Warner Brothers animation.

Personally, I'd prefer it if Warner Brothers could buy the Fox Kids library from Disney so that series like Eek! the Cat and Space Goofs could be seen on TV again, but I suppose that Classic Media would do.

 

[Christmas_Boy]

I'm noy a fan of Casper and Gumby either but there are people out there who are so I'm sure they'd love to see their favorite characters out there again.


WB actually owns the most R/B specials, Classic Media just owns the best. I"d rather see WB buy them than Disney who owns ABC Family just to see them all together again.


I had forgotten about the series but WB already owns THundercats and THe Comic Strip, they're post 1974 after all. So WB owns them and still wont air 'em.


I agree on the Fox KIds library. I"d love to see Peter Pan & the Pirates again but Disney refuses to air them in America but they release them on DVD in the UK and Australia. Go figure.

 

[Mandouga]

Classic Media may be a "lower profile", but it is doing fine as it is right now. It doesn't need to become another part of "the machine". It's a long story, but suffice it to say if they were to allow WB to buy them out, not only would be a spur-of-the-moment, short-term decision, but Classic Media would be selling out.

 

[Silverstar]

It all boils down to the same thing: Boomerang needs a wider variety of shows.

I wouldn't want any company to "sell out" or become the victims of a hostile takeover for that to happen, though. It would be nice if Turner were to merge or join forces with some other media giant with an extensive cartoon library. That would be just what the doctor ordered.

 

[Toonatic]

I see no cons in that. That would be a great idea. WB should also get the animated Star Wars cartoons (Droids, Ewoks, Clone Wars Micro-Series) since they already have the new Clone Wars series and that way Fox can own the live-action stuff while WB handles the animation.

 

[Christmas_Boy]

I have no issue with Classic Media selling out because they have mismanaged their properties for years. Here are some examples...


In 2002 they blundered the 40th anniversary NBC network airing of MIster Magoo's Christmas Carol so it didn't happen.

At a trade show they had Little Lulu, which they own, identified as Little Lotta, which they do not own.

They release edited versions of their properties after already releasing then uncut like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

They do not have a good reputation for handling the properties they represent and the list goes on.

When Entertainment Rights bought Classic Media a lot of us thought that things would change considering how ER handled the Filmation library but they kept the same NY staff at CM and things are worse than ever.

The reason things are the way they are is that Classic Media is a company that buys up other people's creations just to market the likenesses. They rarely release their content to DVD (Look at how much stuff they own compared to what has been released.) This is why they tried to buy up the Muppets, they bought Veggie Tales and Little Golden Books. WB at least makes an effort to release the films they own. You not only see these great collectors sets but now there's the WB archive. Classic Media would never do that because they're not in it for the films, they're in it for the marketing of the characters even though people aren't going to remember those characters if the films aren't out there.


But there's another pro. If WB bought Classic Media they'd likely buy Entertainment Rights and thus own the Filmation library too. What would be left then for WB to get to represent 70's animation, Ruby-Spears (who have ties to Hanna-Barbera anyway.) That's what I think is great about WB owning the Looney Toons, MGM shorts, and Hanna-Barbera now, there is a lot of related behind the scenes talents behind all of those studios unlike Disney and Walter Lanz. This makes them able to do great compilation sets and retrospectives and the like.

 

[Trevor]

They do not have a good reputation for handling the properties they represent and the list goes on.

And you think Warner Brothers would handle the properties better? I'm just thinking of how if Warner Brothers bought Classic just how much more stuff Warners would have to do remasters on, since most fans would want to the old cartoons in their best possible quality on DVD/Blu-ray, and considering that Warner Brothers is constantly remastering other stuff such as the Looney Tunes and older cartoons, would the Classic Library be too much for Warner's to handle? Instead of getting clean hi-def transfers, would we just get stuff that was transferred from 40+ year old film with rips and tears in the film and the usual dirt that builds up on film (or even just DVD's made from SD masters that were made in the 70's/80's)?

 

[Zen Man]

I have no issue with Classic Media selling out because they have mismanaged their properties for years. Here are some examples...


In 2002 they blundered the 40th anniversary NBC network airing of MIster Magoo's Christmas Carol so it didn't happen.

At a trade show they had Little Lulu, which they own, identified as Little Lotta, which they do not own.

They release edited versions of their properties after already releasing then uncut like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

They do not have a good reputation for handling the properties they represent and the list goes on.

When Entertainment Rights bought Classic Media a lot of us thought that things would change considering how ER handled the Filmation library but they kept the same NY staff at CM and things are worse than ever.

The reason things are the way they are is that Classic Media is a company that buys up other people's creations just to market the likenesses. They rarely release their content to DVD (Look at how much stuff they own compared to what has been released.) This is why they tried to buy up the Muppets, they bought Veggie Tales and Little Golden Books. WB at least makes an effort to release the films they own. You not only see these great collectors sets but now there's the WB archive. Classic Media would never do that because they're not in it for the films, they're in it for the marketing of the characters even though people aren't going to remember those characters if the films aren't out there.


But there's another pro. If WB bought Classic Media they'd likely buy Entertainment Rights and thus own the Filmation library too. What would be left then for WB to get to represent 70's animation, Ruby-Spears (who have ties to Hanna-Barbera anyway.) That's what I think is great about WB owning the Looney Toons, MGM shorts, and Hanna-Barbera now, there is a lot of related behind the scenes talents behind all of those studios unlike Disney and Walter Lanz. This makes them able to do great compilation sets and retrospectives and the like.

If I'm not mistaken, WB owns the Ruby Spears catelog too. Although I don't know which shows they have exclusive rights to.

 

[Jeff Harris]

Any other pro’s or con’s anyone can think of?

As a matter of fact, I talked about the "Great Time Warner Shopping Spree To Come" at my site late last year. Here it is for your perusal. One of the potential properties I talked about was Classic Media. I also posted pros and cons of such a purchase. Here it is, unabridged:

Classic Media

Why They Would Buy Classic Media: To refresh your mind, the New York-based company formerly known as Boomerang Media owns the Filmation library, Postman Pat, Big Ideas Entertainment, Harvey Entertainment, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Underdog, Lassie, UPA, the classic Rankin/Bass titles not owned by Time Warner, and other properties. Classic Media has numerous intellectual properties that could be embraced and reintroduced by the various units of Time Warner. Some Classic Media properties, particularly Gerald McBoing-Boing, George of the Jungle, and Casper, have recently been a part of Cartoon Network's lineup, and it's possible that new productions featuring characters like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Underdog, The Lone Ranger, Richie Rich, and others could arise. Harvey characters could return to comics as could characters like Solar: Man of the Atom, Magnus: Robot Fighter, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (well, they're already returning to comics, but these characters could find their way into the expanding DC Universe). Classic Media is one of those companies with built-in fans but with limited audience reach, something Time Warner could expand if they controlled the unit outright.



Why They Shouldn't Buy Classic Media: Time Warner tend to treat older properties rather shabbily these days. Until recently, Looney Tunes rarely aired on American television. The Hanna-Barbera characters that aren't Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo are largely forgotten by and unknown to today's audiences. A company that is filled with older properties like Classic Media would be largely seen as a group that has access to a few properties that could be harnessed and revamped for newer projects and a library that would be shuttered completely. They could bolster the Boomerang channel, but overall, would be seen as a tiny intellectual property division of a huge entertainment company.

 

[Christmas_Boy]

“And you think Warner Brothers would handle the properties better?”

Absolutely. WB CARES about their DVD releases. Classic Media bungles them when they release them at all.



“considering that Warner Brothers is constantly remastering other stuff such as the Looney Tunes and older cartoons, would the Classic Library be too much for Warner's to handle?”


You can only remaster a film so far. After you have remastered it in hi-def, which we know Warners does based on their own behind the scenes features. Their standard all through this DVD era has been 1 frame of film is scanned and restored at 1GB per frame of storage. When a DVD is 4-8 GB and the highly over rated blu-ray (I’ve talked to several heads of DVD companies and they have all said on this older stuff Blu-Ray is not going to present the material much more differently than a standard DVD can.) is the same ratio with the scale up how much higher and how many more times can you restore a film over and over? There is a limit to the resolution you’re going to get and the quality you can achieve. We also know that when Turner was buying these old films he was restoring and preserving them long before there was a DVD format. That program has continued to this very day at many of the studios meaning that these films aren’t just restored for their DVD releases most of the time. Quite often they have been restored years ago so they’d be ready for release and we have no idea just how far ahead of releases restored material is.


WB could also do better that Classic Media because one thing CM did was transfer many of their libraries to PAL and destroyed the masters resulting in the animation moving far too fast when transferred back to our own format standard. Where is the sense in that?



Jeff - Great article. I have been saying this about WB and Classic Media since around 2001 or 2002 when I heard stories from people who worked there. But you are in error on one fact. I was told that Classic Media doesn’t own the Jay Ward films, they have a distribution deal on it much like WB now does for Charlie Brown.


Another interesting fact about WB is they have no idea on what they own. I was told a few years back that there was a guy who had a deal to reprint all of the Looney Toons comics and WB then couldn’t determine IF they actually owned them so they were never reprinted. IT would be great to see them get that straightened out since they own DC Comics and thus have a publishing arm ready to print the material again. Speaking of that, I’m surprised they didn’t grab Marvel. Could you imagine the boost in sales they could have had by crossing Marvel and DC characters together into elaborate narratives for the first time ever? How could they have passed that up?

With MGM, I thought WB passed that by a few years ago when Hobbit movie talks last broke down due to MGM/WB rights?

 

[Trevor]

“considering that Warner Brothers is constantly remastering other stuff such as the Looney Tunes and older cartoons, would the Classic Library be too much for Warner's to handle?”


You can only remaster a film so far. After you have remastered it in hi-def, which we know Warners does based on their own behind the scenes features. Their standard all through this DVD era has been 1 frame of film is scanned and restored at 1GB per frame of storage. When a DVD is 4-8 GB and the highly over rated blu-ray (I’ve talked to several heads of DVD companies and they have all said on this older stuff Blu-Ray is not going to present the material much more differently than a standard DVD can.) is the same ratio with the scale up how much higher and how many more times can you restore a film over and over? There is a limit to the resolution you’re going to get and the quality you can achieve. We also know that when Turner was buying these old films he was restoring and preserving them long before there was a DVD format. That program has continued to this very day at many of the studios meaning that these films aren’t just restored for their DVD releases most of the time. Quite often they have been restored years ago so they’d be ready for release and we have no idea just how far ahead of releases restored material is.

You also have to remember that Warner Brothers isn't only remastering their animated stuff but also their live-action stuff, and they would only restore, much less release, what they think they would be able to make money on. And if they figured that it would cost more to remaster and put out on DVD than just taking a 30-year-old tape and putting that on DVD, then they would just use the 30 year-old tape. Or instead of doing a proper DVD release for sale through stores, Warner Brothers would put the DVD out through their Archive division (ie. Yogi's First Christmas) or another DTC company (ie. Echelon has the rights to Casper's First Christmas as a DTC). All that was used for both of those releases were the old broadcast masters that were made back in 1979/80 on DVD-R's, not the regular metal DVD's. You would call that "better"?

WB could also do better that Classic Media because one thing CM did was transfer many of their libraries to PAL and destroyed the masters resulting in the animation moving far too fast when transferred back to our own format standard. Where is the sense in that?

From what I've read it was either Hallmark or L'Oreal who made those transfers back before Classic Media even acquired the Filmation library (and as I recall they were transferred to digital tape in SD). So aside from slowing-down the animation and properly synching the audio, how much better could Warner Brothers handle stuff that only has masters on tape? That would be like asking Warner Brothers to make 1080p masters of Full House for Blu-Ray from the original analog tape masters of the raw footage. At best they might be able to get a 720p picture, but 1080p would be out of the question. And if the film had been transferred from film that was faded, then Warner's wouldn't be able to get a much better picture from the PAL tapes unless they had someone do a digital repainting of each frame. Not to mention that some of the cartoons that Classic Media own most likely have rights issues that are maybe keeping the cartoon in legal limbo.

 

[Christmas_Boy]

“You also have to remember that Warner Brothers isn't only remastering their animated stuff but also their live-action stuff, and they would only restore, much less release, what they think they would be able to make money on.”


But how much of their properties have ALREADY BEEN RESTORED/REMASTERED? There’s only so many films they can restore and they only need to do it once. After it’s become a digitized file there is no more picture or sound regeneration for quite some time.


“And if they figured that it would cost more to remaster and put out on DVD than just taking a 30-year-old tape and putting that on DVD, then they would just use the 30 year-old tape. Or instead of doing a proper DVD release for sale through stores, Warner Brothers would put the DVD out through their Archive division (ie. Yogi's First Christmas)”

That Yogi’s First Christmas DVD gets a lot of knocks but I have the video tape from 1990 and I can tell you that film has never looked so good. I thought this was the case of a muddy print when I got the tape 20 years ago but there was actually some brightness to that film on the DVD release.

“ or another DTC company (ie. Echelon has the rights to Casper's First Christmas as a DTC)”


Where’s Casper’s First Christmas sold on DVD?

“All that was used for both of those releases were the old broadcast masters that were made back in 1979/80 on DVD-R's, not the regular metal DVD's. You would call that "better"?”

Yes I would. Did you not read what I wrote? Classic Media transferred the masters to PAL and this has replaced the masters. WB would never do that.


“From what I've read it was either Hallmark or L'Oreal who made those transfers back before Classic Media even acquired the Filmation library (and as I recall they were transferred to digital tape in SD). So aside from slowing-down the animation and properly synching the audio, how much better could Warner Brothers handle stuff that only has masters on tape? That would be like asking Warner Brothers to make 1080p masters of Full House for Blu-Ray from the original analog tape masters of the raw footage. At best they might be able to get a 720p picture, but 1080p would be out of the question. And if the film had been transferred from film that was faded, then Warner's wouldn't be able to get a much better picture from the PAL tapes unless they had someone do a digital repainting of each frame.”

I was told this first hand by a CM employee years ago. The idiot who transferred the tapes was some dingbat woman who didn’t know the difference. These dingbats are out there. Ever see the episode of History Detectives when Gwendolyn Wright thought she could screen a piece of 80+ year old damaged film through a projector?


While it’s true you can’t get HD quality from video tape (I never said you could) WB would preserve these films from further destruction and restore them to the best they can. That is a fact.


“Not to mention that some of the cartoons that Classic Media own most likely have rights issues that are maybe keeping the cartoon in legal limbo.”


That is not the case. They don’t release stuff because their primary objective is to license properties. To date none of the Magoo theatrical shorts have been released but the TV episodes have. There are no rights issues with the cartoons CM holds hostage. They just choose not to release them.

 

[Trevor]

But how much of their properties have ALREADY BEEN RESTORED/REMASTERED? There’s only so many films they can restore and they only need to do it once. After it’s become a digitized file there is no more picture or sound regeneration for quite some time.

With the Looney Tunes Warner Brothers has only remastered a portion of the entire catalog. As some asked a few weeks ago when the Home Theater Forum had their "Ask Warner Brothers" chat, some asked about seeing any "new" Looney Tunes remasters and Warner Brothers answered that they are constantly working on those to be issued in future releases (even though they don't have any plans for more "Golden Collections" right now).

That Yogi’s First Christmas DVD gets a lot of knocks but I have the video tape from 1990 and I can tell you that film has never looked so good. I thought this was the case of a muddy print when I got the tape 20 years ago but there was actually some brightness to that film on the DVD release.

I've talked to people who have it, and I've been told that the quality of the DVD is at about the level of what you would expect to see on digital cable or satellite via S-Video. In other words, Warner did not do anything to the special and just digitized the broadcast master.

Where’s Casper’s First Christmas sold on DVD?

Okay, maybe Echelon only prints it between September and December, since I bought the special from them as a DTC on DVD-R back in October. So it has been released, but only as a DTC, not as a regular store release.

Did you not read what I wrote? Classic Media transferred the masters to PAL and this has replaced the masters. WB would never do that.

Yes I did. But PAL has nothing to do with it since here in Region 1 there are tons of DVD releases of shows where the masters are in PAL. PAL is just a region coding because that is the signal format for analog television used in Europe and other places whereas NTSC is used here in North America and Japan. But probably what is really good working with PAL is that the frame rate (approx. 25 fps) is a lot closer to the original film than NTSC is. Film produced since the 1930's has run at a frame rate of approximately 24 frames per second, while NTSC has a rate of about 30 frames per second. So even if Warner had the original film masters they would have to do the exact same synchronization for the audio and video. PAL has nothing to do with it.

That is not the case. They don’t release stuff because their primary objective is to license properties. To date none of the Magoo theatrical shorts have been released but the TV episodes have. There are no rights issues with the cartoons CM holds hostage. They just choose not to release them.

I was just on wikipedia, and from what I've seen on there there are a lots of rights issues. Just to name a few:

Pre-1974 Rankin/Bass: Classic Media only controls the Television material. The Theatrical Library is held by StudioCanal and is released via Anchor Bay (or whatever its called nowadays)

George Of The Jungle, while Classic does hold parts of the rights to it, other parts are held by CBS Television Distribtution.

Warner Brothers controls all the Richie Rich & Casper stuff that was made by Hanna-Barberra

Apparently Classic Media only controls a few of the Little Lulu shorts with a variety of other parties, including Republic Pictures/Paramount.

And people still don't know if Classic holds the 1969-1971 Filmation series The Hardy Boys, so if they do then Classic may only have certain rights to it, while the rest would most likely rest with Simon & Schuster and its parent company CBS.

 

[dth1971]

Warner Bros. shouldn't try to acquire Classic Media/Entertainment Rights! But maybe I speculate in the future Disney could buy Classic Media/Entertainment Rights (since Disney made live action George of the Jungle and Underdog movies).

 

[Jeff Harris]

Warner Bros. shouldn't try to acquire Classic Media/Entertainment Rights!

There's no more Entertainment Rights. Only Classic Media.

But maybe I speculate in the future Disney could buy Classic Media/Entertainment Rights (since Disney made live action George of the Jungle and Underdog movies).

Well, by that logic, NBC Universal could also buy Classic Media because they made live-action Rocky and Bullwinkle, Casper, and Dudley Do-Right movies and a Casper animated series, not to mention put many of those characters in theme park attractions in Florida. And Warner Bros. or 20th Century Fox should have bought Marvel because they made more Marvel multimedia properties based on Marvel characters than the company that owns them (WB made three Blade films and a live-action series via their New Line division while four X-Men movies, two Fantastic Four films, and two Daredevil flicks were made by Fox; and for added bonus, Universal made a Hulk movie [and distributed another], an Incredible Hulk TV series, and a Howard the Duck film).

Plus, nowadays, like I mentioned, a lot of Classic Media properties have been showcased prominently on Time Warner-owned units, particularly Cartoon Network, which was the American home of three Classic Media productions (George of the Jungle, Gerald McBoing Boing, and that recent Casper's Scare School movie and TV series).Plus, Time Warner also owns a pair of Richie Rich live-action movies and the original cartoon plus two Casper animated specials and the Casper and the Angels.

Believe me, Warner Bros. is deeper in Classic Media than Disney ever could be.

 

[dth1971]

And if Warner Bros. acquires Classic Media, which owns the Filmation library, maybe Warner could re-release the Filmation Archie series DVD's (1968 Archie Show and Archie's Funhouse) and release Archie's TV Funnies and U.S. of Archie on DVD finally. Same for other Filmation properties - Groovie Goolies, Fat Albert, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Isis, Space Academy, Ark II, Mission Magic, Hero High, Lone Ranger, Zorro, Lassie's Rescue Rangers, Waldo Kitty, Uncle Croc's Block, Fabulous Funnies, My Favorite Martians, and Hardy Boys. (Warner owns the rights to Filmation's 1966 Superman, 1968 and 1970's Batman, 1967 Aquaman, New Adventures of Gilligan, Gilligan's Planet, 1980 Tom and Jerry/Droopy, Tarzan Lord of the Jungle, the 1972 Treasure Island animated movie, the 1974 Oliver Twist animated movie, the live action Shazam! series, and even the 1972 Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies special seen on ABC's Saturday Superstar Movie).

 

[Christmas_Boy]

“With the Looney Tunes Warner Brothers has only remastered a portion of the entire catalog. As some asked a few weeks ago when the Home Theater Forum had their "Ask Warner Brothers" chat, some asked about seeing any "new" Looney Tunes remasters and Warner Brothers answered that they are constantly working on those to be issued in future releases (even though they don't have any plans for more "Golden Collections" right now).”


You’ve just repeated what I said “they are constantly working on those to be issued in future releases (even though they don't have any plans for more "Golden Collections" right now).” Eventually they will be done.


“I've talked to people who have it, and I've been told that the quality of the DVD is at about the level of what you would expect to see on digital cable or satellite via S-Video. In other words, Warner did not do anything to the special and just digitized the broadcast master.”


I never said they did do anything to it but the point is it looks much better than the 1990 official VHS tape release. That one looked like a muddy Australian animated film from the late 60’s. While this DVD isn’t perfect the film looks a lot brighter than I thought possible.


I knew you meant online store. I was asking what online store sells Casper?


“Yes I did. But PAL has nothing to do with it since here in Region 1 there are tons of DVD releases of shows where the masters are in PAL. PAL is just a region coding because that is the signal format for analog television used in Europe and other places whereas NTSC is used here in North America and Japan. But probably what is really good working with PAL is that the frame rate (approx. 25 fps) is a lot closer to the original film than NTSC is. Film produced since the 1930's has run at a frame rate of approximately 24 frames per second, while NTSC has a rate of about 30 frames per second. So even if Warner had the original film masters they would have to do the exact same synchronization for the audio and video. PAL has nothing to do with it.”


When you transfer to from Region 1 to Pal then back again you get a film running faster than it should. It’s especially apparent on panning shots.


“ I was just on wikipedia, and from what I've seen on there there are a lots of rights issues. Just to name a few:

Pre-1974 Rankin/Bass: Classic Media only controls the Television material. The Theatrical Library is held by StudioCanal and is released via Anchor Bay (or whatever its called nowadays)”


And just how is this an issue? Studio Canal has released the R/B films they own. The issue is Classic Media NOT releasing the films they own.

“George Of The Jungle, while Classic does hold parts of the rights to it, other parts are held by CBS Television Distribtution.”


And they RELEASED George to DVD already. Again, how is this an issue?


“Warner Brothers controls all the Richie Rich & Casper stuff that was made by Hanna-Barberra”


And WB has released some of this stuff. How is this an issue?


“Apparently Classic Media only controls a few of the Little Lulu shorts with a variety of other parties, including Republic Pictures/Paramount.”

Yet they haven’t released the ones they own. How about Magoo and the UPA shorts? You know, stuff like that. This is why WB needs to own Classic Media.


“And people still don't know if Classic holds the 1969-1971 Filmation series The Hardy Boys, so if they do then Classic may only have certain rights to it, while the rest would most likely rest with Simon & Schuster and its parent company CBS.”


Classic Media doesn’t even know if they own that but WB doesn’t know if they own the Looney Toon comics either. It still doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t releasing material they clearly own.


“Warner Bros. shouldn't try to acquire Classic Media/Entertainment Rights! But maybe I speculate in the future Disney could buy Classic Media/Entertainment Rights (since Disney made live action George of the Jungle and Underdog movies). “


Disney owns the Fox Kids and the ABC libraries and won’t release those nor much of their own stuff. Why should they buy another company to sit on? WB buys out libraries and RELEASES them. They own the majority of the classic cartoon characters so Classic Media would be a great fit for them.


Also, CM doesn‘t own George of the Jungle. They have a licensing arrangement with the Ward estate. The Ward family spent decades acquiring their films and would never sell them out. .



“There's no more Entertainment Rights. Only Classic Media.”


Wrong! Entertainment Rights BOUGHT Classic Media. Then they kept CM open as their American branch. Know what you’re talking about.


“Believe me, Warner Bros. is deeper in Classic Media than Disney ever could be.”


Yep.

 

[Trevor]

I never said they did do anything to it but the point is it looks much better than the 1990 official VHS tape release. That one looked like a muddy Australian animated film from the late 60’s. While this DVD isn’t perfect the film looks a lot brighter than I thought possible.

Well VHS is never going to look anywhere near as good as DVD unless it is the home version of SVHS that you are talking about.

When you transfer to from Region 1 to Pal then back again you get a film running faster than it should. It’s especially apparent on panning shots.

That is if the master is on tape. But from what I've been able to find out about the stuff that Hallmark/L'Oreal transferred to PAL back in the 1990's was from film and not tape. Basically if it was already on tape, either analog or digital, Hallmark/L'Oreal didn't bother with it since it was already on tape in NTSC or PAL/SECAM. But the older stuff that was on film that they did transfer was not in NTSC/PAL or SECAM, so when they transferred it Hallmark/L'Oreal was not going from NTSC to PAL or SECAM.

What your referring to occurs on a number of shows that have been shot on film and then edited or just transferred to NTSC tape since NTSC has more frames per second than film or PAL/SECAM. (Of course, most of the time the characters look like they're moving slower.)

Wrong! Entertainment Rights BOUGHT Classic Media. Then they kept CM open as their American branch. Know what you’re talking about.

Your wrong about Entertainment Rights. True ER bought CM, but then in 2009 ER brought both companies under the Classic Media name. So Entertainment Rights is now defunct, and it is only Classic Media.

 

[Jeff Harris]

“There's no more Entertainment Rights. Only Classic Media.”

Wrong!

Entertainment Rights BOUGHT Classic Media. Then they kept CM open as their American branch. Know what you’re talking about.

Entertainment Rights bought Classic Media in 2006.The whole unit was rebranded Entertainment Rights worldwide and retired the Classic Media name. Boomerang Media, founded by the former owners of Classic Media and owned by venture capital group GTCR, bought Entertainment Rights in 2009. The new company was renamed Classic Media, and Entertainment Rights, the brand name, no longer exists.

Know what YOU'RE talking about.

And while we're at it, while Jay Ward Productions does own the characters of Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, and Dudley Do-Right, Bullwinkle Studios, a joint venture between Ward Productions and Classic Media, manages and oversees the properties in new productions and distribution of classic and new productions via DVD, online, and syndication. It's kind of like the relationship the Schulz family has with ICONIX with the Peanuts property.