There seems to be a lot of talk of public domain these days with Mickey Mouse. Therefore it's time to mention a company that has released Mickey Mouse at one point and had a slight impact on me, and that is Star Classics.
The actual origins to the company is unclear, but it's believed to have started in the mid 80's. The original purpose of the company was to release old public domain content to VHS. These include movies, TV shows, and cartoons. It is believed that this was done for the collector's market since none of the tapes were targeted towards kids and many of these at the time had not yet been on home video. They were, however, done cheap.
When the series of tapes began, they were all in generic boxes with an image and title of whatever was on the tape. As time progressed they began adding putting in some effort with art covers. Though each tape was generic, there was a series of tapes that read Color Cartoon Festival, but by the time they ended the generic boxes, it was mostly just the name of the character or the name of the cartoon with no set volumes. A series of Cartoon Time tapes were released promoting 1 hr of cartoons and a 3 pack set called Wacky Toons was released.
This is basically a repeat from my Vidtape post, but I remember seeing these tapes available for rental at may local Broadway Video/Movie Gallery. They were usually side by side with Vidtape's Cartoons R Fun tapes. For example, Vidtape's Heckle and Jeckle and Star Classic's Heckle and Jeckle were next to each other as if it were a competition. Like with Cartoons R Fun I chickened out in fear of these looking too dupey which could be off putting to a child. I did see a lot of PD tapes at school, so I kinda would know. That said, I ended up renting the Road Runner volume from Cartoon Jubilee, Tom and Jerry Cartoon Festival, Mickey Mouse Disney Classic Cartoon Favorites, Mickey and Minnie's Sweetheart Stories, and Bugs Bunny Superstar. With the exception of Tom and Jerry as it was the very first official release of the cartoons, because I ended up playing smart without knowing it, I went for all the official releases in excellent quality at the time. Looking back, I may have dodged a bullet somewhat on these tapes because to get this out of the way, the tapes appear to have been cleaned of any wrongdoing; no reused tapes and no issues with accidental porn as far as I know. Also, the tapes are what you got advertised; no issues of buy at your own risk........sort of..........
Art cover quality was indeed somewhat bad. Though they tried to make these look as authentic as how they appeared on the cartoon, they still looked a little bit off. It's as if you know you're gonna get something that could be old and dupey. The star cartoon would be featured on the cover with text placed somewhere saying "also starring Bugs Bunny and Little Lulu" depending on the contents of the cartoon. Each cover looked as though they were all hand drawn by someone, so you could unfortunately easily tell that these weren't authentic. Hey, at least the art covers introduced me to who was Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle.
Now, if there is one cover that drove me bonkers for years, it was this........................
Oh......My.......Sweet.......Zombie.......Gosh..........what the hell is that? I had been following the history of Mickey Mouse at that time and this threw me through a loop. He looks like he has pupils, they're not pupils. His eyes are big and wide (though years later I learned about his Plane Crazy design). His head was not round and at the time he looked fat. Like early Porky Pig fat. And while I never rented this tape, the image NEVER left my mind. Sometimes as a kid when I thought about it, a musty smell starts to appear. Even now I still feel weird about it. I guess they really didn't want Disney to know about this release. For the record, The Mad Doctor was in the public domain as was Minnie's Yoo Hoo. There was a Donald Duck tape too, but at least he looked like Donald. I'm sure any child would tell you, that is not Mickey Mouse.
Which now brings us to picture quality. It's bad.....really bad. Star Classics themselves didn't tamper with the cartoons, but the sources they come from are indeed of question. A lot of these appear to be dupes, and we know for sure they're dupes because of some alterations done on the prints themselves including Kit Parker which even those are dupes of dupes. My guess is that a lot of these prints came from a film pirate as opposed to a film collector where many of these dupe prints were badly damaged from bad projectors and mishandling. Dirt, scratches, and in some cases splices are throughout nearly each and every cartoon.
Generally speaking when it came to Warner Bros. cartoons, the AAP logo was blacked out with the music still going. This change had to have been done prior to being transferred to tape because you could still see some dirt on the film, but also sometimes the slate will go by the screen. All Star Classics did was cheaply slap together what they could and go from there. How bad were they? Let's check some of the cartoons out.
We start with Cartoon Color Festival #5 . Chick and Double Chick is splicy. Hamatuer Night has the AAP logo which appears to splice over the WB Shield, but this might have been a rare moment that AAP did this themselves. The Dover Boys has its AAP logo as well, but when we get to Wackiki Wabbit, oh man this one is in really bad shape. The cartoon just starts with no titles as it all got damaged beyond repair, and the splices, they are the worst. Almost the whole cartoon had splices. The last two cartoons are what to expect from Star Classics with AAP/Kit Parker with AAP logo prints from this point on as they have the AAP logo blacked out (and bad audio). Cartoon Classics #6 has a non PD cartoon: Lulu's Birthday Party. Only the animators title card survives the print as it is filled with splices throughout. An end title from a random WB movie around that time is spliced into the print. The Wabbit Who Came to Supper still has its slate shown and is splicy. This tape would be reissued as a Bugs Bunny tape a couple of times with the same issues.
I do want to take a look at one more tape, and that is a Daffy Duck one. Anywhere the AAP shows up is blacked out. A handful of opening titles have been chopped off. More specifically The Impatient Patient and Fresh Hare. By far this is the worst print of Fresh Hare as it too had splices. I am pleased to say, however, that Wackiki Wabbit is a much better print. Though still dupy with the AAP logo blacked out, the cartoon appears to be complete with titles.
Some other cartoon highlights/low lights are All This and Wabbit Stew not only being dupy and splicy, but also a black and white print. And interestingly enough, a Popeye tape had She Sick Sailor which is NOT in the public domain making it the only home video release for nearly 30 years, but it was the AAP print of it and does not have the Paramount titles that had begun appearing on Turner networks at the time. Things get weirder as Star Classics also released The New Zoo Revue and Gigantor. Whether or not these are official releases remains in question, but based on what I see, I highly doubt it.
Star Classics went out of business by the early 1990's. They hardly made an impact other than a handful of rare cartoons being found on these tapes, but the big impact was just how bad these tapes were in picture quality. Dupe prints, choppy prints, almost unwatchable in some cases, and cheaply assembled. Probably a good thing I didn't rent these tapes, but who knows, maybe I still would have enjoyed them; at least they're not at all like the Cartoons R Fun tapes.
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