For years, Paramount has been a leading name in movies and entertainment. Movies such as Grease, Godfather, Ten Commandments, Transformers, and the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road pictures. On the side, they even put out many cartoons with talented artists and writers. Cartoons like Popeye, Betty Boop, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and theatrical issues to Nickelodeon shows and some Peanuts movies. However, the way Paramount has treated these cartoons they have owned over the years were not very kind (save for a few exceptions like Nickelodeon, although there are current issues over there too). Here are the top reasons why Paramount spells trouble for cartoons and animation.
The Max Fleischer Studio in New York (later Miami, FL) was the Walt Disney Studio in the east coast having success with cartoon series such as Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop in the 1930's. The studio did technical innovations such as inventing the rotoscope and 3D turntable backgrounds (way before computers and CGI). They also produced 5 featurettes and two full length features (Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town). However, trouble was afoot at the studio, and Paramount, their distributor, was not happy about the fact that one of their features bombed (due to being released literally on the eve of Pearl Harbor). And what's worse, the Fleischer Bros. were becoming estranged. Paramount decided it was time to get rid of the middle man by buying the studio rather than closing it (Popeye was still making money). Renamed Famous Studios, Max Fleischer was shown the door, and while the cartoons continued to succeed and create new characters, the features, featurettes, and technical innovations were gone.
The first contract they had was after ten years of Popeye, all the negatives were to be destroyed (thank God someone saw television coming stopping that deal). Then in the 1950's, they pretty much sold all of their library to TV distributors ranging from NTA to AAP and even to Harvey Comics/ABC Worldvision. Thus, leaving the animation vault very small each time.
Paramount did not want anyone thinking that they were distributing their own films to television at the time of their selling off their libraries. You may have seen some Paramount cartoons and did not even know it because of the intentional removal of their logos. UVM&N TV Corp made new titles, NTA made new titles (and covered up the Paramount name). AAP also made new titles as did Harvey to become the Harveytoons. Interstingly enough, Harvey also got the copyrights to the characters created by the studio such as Casper, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, and others. Today, the library is scattered. Some returned to Paramount. Others went to WB and Universal. Many, however, are deemed public domain.
Okay, so maybe they did do a few nice compilations like the Peanuts movies (though half that library took years of convincing to the studio), but overall, nothing that collectors would want. They sub-licensed the Betty Boop cartoons to Olive Films with no care at all except for some restorations and one lite transfers. Only 3 Mighty Mouse cartoons came out through the studio as bonus features to the New Adventures of Mighty Mouse. They have not released any major collections of what they have in their cartoon library ala Disney or WB did. And with DVD sales dying, there is a slimer chance of it happening. We hear Paramount has a sub license deal with Kino. Hmmmm.... The other studios did try to release them. Companies such as WB, Republic, and Classic Media. Many have been in public domain tapes and DVD compilations over the years.
In the 2000's, Paramount had distribution of the Ross Bagdasarian library for home video. This basically included Alvin and the Chipmunks and their shows from The Alvin Show in the 1960's through the 1980's-90's series and specials. However, the DVD releases were very poor to say the least. They had no interest into releasing the original Alvin Show. They finally bit the bullet and released 1 episode...that's it. Bagdasarian Production became a self distributor in the 2010's. and gave better DVD and Blu-ray releases. They also were able to restore a few more Alvin Shows including the classic Witch Doctor and Chipmunk Song among others in their library. There should be more in my opinion, but overall the treatment has been much better now that Paramount is gone.
Ok, to be fair in the 90's, every single Peanuts special and movie came out and restored for VHS, but when DVD came out, a significant amount of Peanuts specials were never released anymore. Yes the A classics were released like A Charlie Brown Christmas, but everything else, nothing. In 2007, Peanuts Worldwide struck a deal with WB to distribute their specials and other TV shows to home video, and for the better. New HD transfers were made to many Peanuts specials including ALL specials from the 60's and 70's. Also, much more releases came out, and even in nice compilation sets too. An opportunity lost by Paramount again. Now WB didn't get everything.....the movies are still owned by Paramount. Thankfully and eventually, they all came out restored.
If you think home video is bad, so is television. The even worse news, it's not just their own library, it's ANY cartoon that airs on any of their networks. When old cartoons aired on Nickelodeon, thankfully at the time the network was run by people who cared, so the way they aired were very unique such as Looney Tunes, Bullwinkle, Alvin, and Charlie Brown. The ones that didn't air well includes CBS's annual airings of Rudolph and Frosty, Terrytoons, and more recently Miraculous Ladybug. Despite being a hit, Ladybug was very hard to find on Nick (they pulled out to by the way). Very few cartoons now air on Nick. When they do, they're time compressed and credits scrunched. CBS Paramount gave USA shoddy copies of the Terrytoons when they aired on their network. Rudolph's airing is not that good anymore. They chop up some scenes really really bad such as We're a Couple of Misfits. It sounds like a record that skips. Many of these shows that have aired are thankfully in better quality on DVD and streaming. The Terrytoons however, despite being a major staple of CBS, remains unaired and unreleased.
Somehow, one of Viacom's distributing companies still distributes the Dr. Seuss specials for TV and streaming. Over the years, companies such as Universal and now Warner Bros. did the jobs of restoring them and thanks to Warner Bros., the big names are now in glorious HD and the Blu-rays are worth owning. Paramount's copies, however, are still 9th generation prints. Faded red, VHS quality, and never asked WB for their higher quality versions.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Spongebob, especially the first few seasons. But recently in the last 15 years, most other Nicktoons with some rare exceptions don't go very far because all they want to do is milk the sponge. So much so, it cancels out all other shows. Loud House is trying, and thankfully they are doing well, but EVERYTHING must be Spongebob. Now they did do special things this year for Spongebob's 20th, but even HE has a history of Viacom's discrepancies. Remember the Super Bowl fiasco? Cancelling the every single Spongebob marathon right in the middle of it? A prequel in the works (against the late Steven Hillenburg's wishes)? No matter who it is you can't win. And now Paw Patrol is down our throats causing kids to go nuts (anyone in those Paw Patrol costumes, official and unofficial, I am so sorry for you; the kids are monsters towards them they love'em so much).
10. The Nick Hotel failure.
I can't even begin to describe all that went wrong with this concept. Bad pizza, aging rooms, very rude customers (but at least the staff was nice), Nickelodeon just leaving them to sink and not swim, are just to name a few. It may have looked great when it was open based on pictures and videos, but costs were involved and so much more stories can leave you to believe otherwise. Not The Best Day Ever.
Those are just some of the problems. We'd be here all day listing the problems. But hey, at least things couldn't get any worse like nabbing another classic property and have them be ruined ri-
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