Public Domain Highlights: Starling Films

Our next highlight from the Public Domain Grey Market was one of the last to promote the Looney Tunes, and ideally one of the worst companies to put out cartoons ever.

Starling Films was formed in 2004.  Their mission: release the greatest cartoons ever made for the family to enjoy, and fortunately for them, those greatest cartoons, or at least some of them, somehow or other ended up in the public domain allowing grey markets such as Starling to put out.  The main cartoons usually featured were Looney Tunes, Popeye, and sometimes Casper, Woody Woodpecker, and Mighty Mouse (the latter two only had one cartoon in the public domain).  The next step was to restore them to make them look better than ever.  Did they do a good restoration job however???  We'll keep you hanging as we find out on the next Dragonball Z............

Obviously we have to look at the art covers.  They appear to have been traced off of the cartoons themselves which is fine considering they truly represent how they looked in the cartoons.  A few characters may look a little off model since they seemed to have taken a random screenshot, but overall at least they look good on the covers.  However, save for Popeye and at least one Bugs Bunny, you may notice they never say "Looney Tunes Collection" "Woody Woodpecker Collection" or anything related to that.  Instead you got "Timeless Cartoons" "Cartoon Gallery" "Cartoons a Plenty" and "Cartoon Magic".  Perhaps this is to not gain attention to the copyright holders of these characters.










So you pop the disc in and turn on the cartoons.  Your first problem begins with the opening titles.  Starling claims these films as their own (hey...public domain, right???).  They went so far as not only putting their own copyrights on the cartoons, but also went through the trouble of renaming them.  For example:

This is the original title card to Fresh Hare as seen on the James Cagney set from Warner Bros.  But on the Starling Films DVD.....

"Fresh Hare" has been erased and a new title it typed out on the card calling it "This Hare's Fresh".  That's not all that they did, there's more........

But first, a background on cartoon restoration in general:  Cartoon restoration is something that is sometimes underappreciated since they are dealing with very delicate moments in animation where if done in a cheap manner, it can ruin pieces of the visuals.  If done correctly, which is enhancing the quality with new transfers, color correction, film dirt and scratch clean up, and leaving everything else alone in order to preserve how it originally looked, it'll look great and makes the cartoon hold up well.  Yes, trial and errors have occurred such as Disney's cleaning of the cel scratches that were filmed on or DVNR used in more than one occasion, but overall they've been preserved when restored and not altered in any way, shape, or form.  IF DONE INCORRECTLY.....like with Starling Films.....it looks WORSE than not being restored at all.

Hey Elmer, you're finger's on fire due to bad film altering.

Everything wrong you can think of is here. Freeze frames everywhere except when something is moving (causing it to look weird), enhanced sound effects on some of these, added effects on some scenes (a la George Lucas restoration of Star Wars), placing their own names on the cartoons themselves, censorship galore, and compressed imaging.  The black and white Popeyes are color-toned, the Porky Pig cartoons are of course the redrawn versions.  Everything else varies from print to print (if left alone).  Some look like they came from laserdisc (maybe), but who knows, maybe they did INTENSE cleaning to keep us guessing (and that's bad if they restored too much because then it no longer feels like on film).  Which brings us to today's DVD Review.....

DVD Review: Bugs Bunny That Wacky Wabbit!

Here, we take a look at the cartoons on this disc specifically to see how horrifying these releases are.  First off:

The Unruly Hare: Not in the public domain but what the heck.....incorrect opening and closing titles, original intro music gone, re-titled Wailroad Wabbit, edited, enhanced graphics throughout, cheap product placement. 

  

Fresh Hare: Incorrect opening and closing titles, re-titled This Hare's Fresh, original intro music gone, enhanced graphics, censorship (especially the last scene).

The Wabbit Who Came to Supper: Original intro music gone, renamed Bugs Bugs Go Away, enhanced graphics and imagery, smearing to censor background imagery, bad freeze frames, wrong end title

Foney Fables: Original intro music gone, renamed Funny Fables, enhanced graphics, Wartime references changed

Hamatuer Night: Original titles replaced with the AAP logo and Blue Ribbon titles (a la MGM's Vi-De-Oh for Kids VHS line), renamed Ham Night and with Starling branding, one of the worst censorship I've ever seen...a gunshot heard in the background was replaced with a badly dubbed over "Stop it NOW!!!!"

The Wacky Wabbit: renamed The Wabbit's Wacky, Starling branding, enhanced graphics

Pantry Panic (Woody Woodpecker cartoon): renamed Bleak Bleak, bad freeze frames, enhanced graphics, subliminal....messages in the end????????

Sports Chumpions: renamed Sports Legends and with Starling branding, enhanced graphics

Piss poor quality print.  You could do better, Starling

Gopher Spinach (Popeye cartoon): AAP print (to be fair, as with most copies circulating), renamed I Go For Spinach, enhanced graphics, bad freeze frames

Insect to Injury (Popeye cartoon): renamed The Termiteinator (really?????), enhanced sound effects that over modulate the original track (turn down your TV's if viewing), bad freeze frames, enhanced graphics

Floor Flusher (Popeye cartoon): renamed Popeye the Plumber Man, bad freeze frames.  This one Starling claims as their best restoration because of them getting rid of one big spec of dirt.  Not even close.

Falling Hare: Original Bugs Bunny WB shield opening replaced with typical one for Merrie Melodies, renamed Hare Power, bad freeze frames, censorship, and by far the worst quality of this cartoon I've ever seen

With all the bad edits, this DVD seems like a joke.  The entire company seemed like a joke.  However, the joke didn't last long.  Starling is long gone.  In the end, it was just a fly by night company that released cheap products.  There are much better official (and unofficial) sets out there on DVD and Blu-ray of Looney Tunes, Popeye, and others with proper restorations.  Another reason why to never buy anything unauthorized. 

Scooby-Doo Walkaround Costumes

For 50 years now, Scooby Doo has entertained both children and adults in many forms of media, though best remembered were the Saturday Morning Cartoons.  As his popularity increased, it was only natural for him and his mystery solving gang (and sometimes Scrappy Doo as shown above) to become meet-able characters to interact with.  So we are doing yet another Walkaround Costume list.
NOTES:  1.This list is for the Scooby-Doo costume only.  No Shaggy, Fred, or Daphne or any other characters are listed on here.
                2.These characters must have been official by their copyright holders at that time.  No bootlegs nor Maskimal heads being mentioned on here.
                3. The names given to these costumes are chosen by me.  No official names have been given to any of these costumes except for Live Spectacular Scooby Doo
                4.  All dates of these costumes are approximate, not official.  Many of these costumes have overlapped each other.

Coney Island Scooby-Doo 1970-mid 1970's

In 1969, Coney Island merged with Taft Broadcasting who owned Hanna-Barbera at that time.  Right away they used their characters at the park.  That same year, however, also brought the premiere of that famed Great Dane.  Scooby-Doo Where Are You aired the fall of 1969, so the following summer since it was a hit, Scooby began to appear in the park riding the rides and meeting guests.  Being Scooby's first costume, for 1970, it ain't that bad.  His eyes are crossed and netted and possibly where the performer sees through.  The only flaws were that his gloves were too short making it easy to see the performer's arms and sometimes he is not wearing his iconic collar.  This costume would transition over along with Coney Island to a new park called Kings Island and remained there until Hanna-Barbera made upgrades to all the costumes.

Kings Entertainment Scooby-Doo 1975-early to mid 1990's

Perhaps the longest lasting Scooby Doo costume was this one.  It was introduced at Carowinds and the newly opened Kings Dominion.  It also became standard for all Hanna Barbera attractions ranging from places like Marineland to even their own short lived Hanna-Barbera Land in Texas.  Scooby's eyes are much more round and had darker fur.  His eyes are straight, and now started to have better dog like legs.  The gloves may sometimes still have issues though, as seen in the Hanna Barbera Ice Revue TV special, but overall it was not a bad look for a standard Scooby-Doo for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon era.

Universal Studios Scooby-Doo (aprox. 1990-2002)

Perhaps one of the most unique of all the costumes was this one.  When Universal Orlando opened, they teamed up with Hanna Barbera with a new attraction and hopes that MCA/Universal would acquire the studio (the deal fell through and Hanna Barbera ended up with Turner).  To celebrate, new costumes of the Mount Rushmores of Hanna Barbera were created.  Scooby Doo looks more crazy than cute.  His eyes are crossed, but the eyes also moved a la how Cookie Monster's roll when he moves around.  His fur is much lighter, and his smile is more crooked to look more dog like.  This costume was only used at Universal, and was gone when The Fantastic World of Hanna Barbera was replaced with the Jimmy Neutron ride.  Scooby, however, continues to make appearances at Universal as you'll see.

Promotional Scooby Doo (approx. 1991-1995)

In addition to the costume used at Universal, Hanna-Barbera also had one for promotional purposes.  Scooby looked very on model and cuter compared to previous versions.  Some versions had heads with or without a tongue or his mouth would not be open.  This costume was first used to promote Hanna-Barbera Home Video as well as the 30th Anniversary of The Flintstones.  By the time the costume ended appearing, it was used to help promote Cartoon Network.  

Paramount Scooby Doo (mid-late 90's-2009)

The Paramount Parks began using this Scooby Doo costume to help promote Scooby in the parks despite things switching over to Nickelodeon.  Very similar to the Kings Entertainment Scooby, his eyes are off balance, but small.  His fur was dark and snout was not as long.  His head was pretty big though, and the wrong person inside could make things look weird (though rarely the case).  In 2006, Cedar Fair bought the Paramount Parks when Paramount opted out of the theme park business.  Scooby Doo and Hanna-Barbera (and Nickelodeon for that matter) ended their appearance at these parks in 2009, and were replaced with Snoopy in 2010.

Six Flags Scooby Doo (2000-present)

When Hanna-Barbera fully merged with Warner Bros., new costumes of Scooby Doo began to be made to help promote the product.  And with Six Flags having a deal with Warner Bros. what better parks to debut in than the Six Flags chain.  While these costumes were cheaper to produce, Scooby looks completely on model.  Big eyes, big snout, big nose, dark brown fur, and really big feet.  This costume was massed produced and used at Warner Bros. Theme Parks (except Abu Dahbi) and various Scooby Doo promotions.

Universal Studios Scooby Doo version 2 (early to mid 2000's-present)

Although Hanna-Barbera's reign at Universal was over, Scooby Doo's popularity was gaining.  A brand new movie plus his first Saturday Morning show since the 80's meant that Scooby was the most popular Hanna-Barbera character and a craze has begun.  As such, Universal continued to use Scooby-Doo, but not without an upgrade.  Instead of going with the standard Six Flags version, this new costume was of higher quality.  Scooby has smaller eyes and a longer snout.  His body tends to be built more buff and tends not to slack like a furry suit.  His paws are much bigger and fur much darker.  Most of the time he is seen along side face characters of Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma.  This version can still be seen at Universal

Warner Bros. World Scooby Doo (2018-present)

This version of Scooby for Abu Dahbi's new park is very detailed.  He's on model with small but expressive eyes.  His nose and paws are big with a nicely built body suit with dog like legs.  His fur is much lighter than previous versions perhaps making the performer much more comfortable.  It combines all the elements of the costumes used at Six Flags for being on model and Universal for being slim and tone.

Live Spectacular Scooby (Coming March 2020)

This elaborate version of Scooby-Doo is made exclusively for the upcoming Scooby Doo Lost City of Gold Live Show Tour.  He now has much smaller eyes, a much skinnier body, and so much dog fur giving him the effect of him looking like a real dog.  According to Billboard, "The titular Great Dane stands 6-foot-3-inches and took a team of 12 world-class puppeteers over 1,600 hours to create."  Live Spectacular Scooby is the official name given to him by the company that made him.