Public Domain Highlights: Silver Screen Video

 Like that rash on your skin, this thread never goes away, where we highlight the best and worst, though mostly worst, public domain companies.  Today's company is a small but somewhat impact full company known as Silver Screen Video.

Very little is known about this company.  It, essentially, was another fly by day company.  Its earliest known tapes were around 1989, its latest.....around 1990.  Two years, and they couldn't keep a profit.  Clearly they couldn't be that bad......could they?

Well for the art covers for starters, yes.  The covers for a lot of their tapes are really bad.  Some of these looked like they were drawn by a five year old.  The many different volumes of tapes include Mickey Mouse, which we'll talk about later, Superman, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Heckle and Jeckle, and Casper.  

Our first infamous tape is Mickey Mouse which appears to be a collector's edition unlike all the other tapes.  Probably because of the value of Mickey Mouse and the growing popularity of Disney thanks to the Disney Renaissance from The Little Mermaid to Ducktales and Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers.  However, two problems.  One, Disney already put out valuable Mickey Mouse tapes as part of their own classic cartoon line and featured important classics like Steamboat Willie and such.  And two, this was a complete scam.  I have not seen the tape; I believe the Disney cartoons are the exact same quality as other VHS public domain tapes with speed up and edited out titles referencing Walt Disney.  But the actual contents are questionable.  The Mad Doctor is a legit Mickey Mouse cartoon that somehow got through the copyright cracks.  Minnie's Yoo Hoo never got copyrighted as it was used for Mickey Mouse Clubs in movie theaters across the country.  Two other cartoons are not Mickey cartoons, but Silver Screen passes them off of as such anyways.  First is Smile Darn Ya Smile.  The characters may look like Minnie and Mickey, but they were really Foxy and Roxy from an early Merrie Melodie.  Anyone looking at the characters could tell you that they are foxes, not mice.  Did Silver Screen think kids were that dumb, or were THEY that dumb?  Then finally is Circus Capers.  This is a Milton the Mouse cartoon by Van Beuren, the one cartoon that not only ripped off of Disney but one where Disney actually sued Van Beuren for.  One could easily confuse this as Mickey, but the main difference is the more rough animation, rougher than any early Mickeys, and pre-code jokes galore from sexual harassment to panties to an over sexuallized "Minnie Mouse" (I think her real name was Millie; could ber Mary).  You know.....for kids.

The more infamous tape is probably their most popular.  It's more popular as this was probably their only profitable if any profit was to be made.  They tried recouping funds by compiling 50 cartoons that they released and sell it on home shopping networks like QVC.  Hence why on the box art it said "As Seen on TV"......and we all know what those mean, if it sounds too good to be true and it's "As Seen on TV", it probably is.  Oh yeah....the box art.....well the first version of the box in 1989, well.............

Yeah......not very attractive.  This probably caused very few sales for this product, so in 1990, they

Much better art cover used
a year later

revised it, but not with original artwork.  Instead using artwork from UAV's VHS line called Kidd Video, which in all actuality is much better artwork, though some still slightly off.  So this would sell more copies of the product since it would easily target the demographic wanting some nostalgia, but by then it was already too late.  Silver Screen Video would fold not long after.  Gone and forgotten.  Besides, those 50 Cartoon tapes were also being put out around the same time by UAV, Burbank Video, and Starmaker, with better artwork (for the most part) and better quality.

So how was the quality of the cartoons on these tapes?  Well the good news is that Silver Screen did very little tinkering (if any) on some of their cartoons unlike Vidtape and Meta Video, but you still get what you paid for.  Since the 50 of Your Favorite Classic Cartoon tape was the most comprehensive, this will be the basis of the overall experience.

Though the tape itself I believe would be combined two smaller half versions called 25 of Your Favorite Classic Cartoons.  I won't review every cartoon on here, but there are some notible moments I want to point out, especially the Warner Bros. Cartoons.  We start with the first half with Popeye.  Sinbad the Sailor had a slight edit to remove the AAP titles, but removing such titles never happened on any of the other Popeye cartoons.  We then get a first glimps of the Warner Bros. Cartoons.  The quality seems fair for the most part, but there were issues.  Transitions for most of the cartoons are a little rough with some slight VHS damage.  Trust me, it's not due to age of the tape.  The WB shield zooming in on Fresh Hare has a weird audio glitch sounding more like a 70's disco sound effect.  The Superman cartoon seem to look fair.  As do some more cartoons, though Boo Moon had badly recreated time compressed titles for some reason.  The black and white Porky Pig cartoons are redrawn, obviously, and were prints from Kit Parker with edited on badly recreated titles.  These edits were done by Kit Parker, not Silver Screen.  Again, they put the cartoons out as is.  A Tale of Two Kitties seems to be the only low pitched Warner Bros. Cartoon on here.  It seems like the AAP titles on the Warner Bros. Cartoons were edited out except for The Wabbit Who Came to Supper.

The Unruly Hare as seen on Silver Screen
and probably other public domain VHS tapes

The second half......off to a bad start.  You see, none of these tapes have an FBI Warning, tracking, or company logo at the begining of the tape.  So the cartoons just start after ominous black.  For this tape, The Wacky Wabbit, a faded print by the way, starts us off suddenly.  As a result, a jumpscare occurs.  The next cartoon is Yankee Doodle Daffy.  Picture quality is fair, but oh my gosh the audio quality.......it's the worse I've ever heard.  It sounds like it's coming from a telephone it's that bad.  The tape continues with fair quality (Case of the Missing Hare looked faded though), but then comes a mystery I've been wanting to see, how The Unruly Hare looks on a PD tape.....it's actually not too bad.  Not as great as on MGM tapes at the time, but for PD tapes, not bad.  The one WB cartoon that has been messed with is the last one on the tape.  Have You Got Any Castles lost its opening titles.  I recall seeing that on other tapes though.  Not a Silver Screen issue as far as I know.

So what's the verdict....bleh.  Many of the fair prints ended up on better VHS tapes such as Starmaker.  The only impact may have been the 50 Cartoon Classics since it appeared on many home shopping networks, but that's about it.  Once it shut down, it was gone.  Just another cheap company with varying quality tapes and film prints.