The a.a.p. logo, as seen in the end of many Popeye cartoons. |
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| Former type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Television syndication |
| Fate | Folded into United Artists |
| Successor | United Artists Associated |
| Founder(s) | Elliott Hyman |
| Defunct | 1958 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States |
| Products | Television packages of feature films and theatrical short subjects and cartoons |
| Divisions | United Telefilms Limited Dominant Pictures Corporation |
Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) [1][2] was a distributor of theatrical feature films and short subjects for television. It existed from 1953 to 1958. It was later folded into United Artists. The former a.a.p. library was later owned by MGM/UA Entertainment and then Turner Entertainment. Turner (in conjunction with Warner Bros. Television) continues to own the former a.a.p. library as part of the Time Warner conglomerate.
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a.a.p. was founded in 1953 and headed by Elliott Hyman. In 1956, Lon Chesler purchased interest in the company.[3] The same year, a.a.p. purchased the pre-1950[4] Warner Bros. film library, which included every feature film and most short subjects the studio released prior to that year.[4]
The material a.a.p. bought from Warner Bros. Pictures included all of its features produced and distributed by Warners prior to 1950 (Warner retained the rights to two 1949 films it only distributed) and all of its live action short subjects released prior to September 1, 1948.
The cartoon library included every color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short released prior to August 1, 1948, and all of the Merrie Melodies produced by Harman-Ising Pictures from 1931 to 1933, except Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). The remaining black-and-white Merrie Melodies were not part of this package, and the black-and-white Looney Tunes (along with the Schlesinger-produced B&W Merrie Melodies) were already sold to Sunset Productions.[5] Former Warner cartoon director Bob Clampett was hired to catalog the Warner cartoon library.[6]
a.a.p. also purchased the Popeye cartoons from Paramount Pictures, which had been produced by Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios. This purchase and the Warner Bros. cartoon package combined gave a.a.p. a library of over 568 theatrical cartoon shorts, which would be staples of children's television for decades.
For the Warner Bros. productions, a.a.p. simply inserted their logo at the beginning of the film (the logo used specifically for the cartoons featured various WB characters arranged around the company name).
For the Popeye cartoons, a.a.p. removed all logos and mentions of Paramount from the Popeye prints they distributed, since Paramount did not want to be associated with television at the time (the original copyright line remained, as Paramount held theatrical rights until 1967 - at which point they reverted to UA, who, unlike Paramount, never actually reissued Popeye cartoons theatrically).[7]
The company was acquired by United Artists in 1958. The resulting division was named United Artists Associated (a division of United Artists Television, or UATV for short), and, by 1968, United Artists Television Distribution. In 1981, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased United Artists, along with its film library.
The rights to Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope, originally distributed by Warner Bros. and later copyrighted by UATV, reverted to Alfred Hitchcock (and later his estate). Distribution rights were later sold to Universal Pictures in 1983.
Turner Entertainment took over the library in 1986 after Ted Turner's short-lived acquisition of MGM/UA. When Turner sold back the MGM/UA production unit, he kept the MGM library, including the former a.a.p. properties, for his own company.
The Warner Bros. film libraries were reunited when the studio's parent company Time Warner bought Turner in 1996. Turner retains the rights to the former a.a.p. properties, while Warner handles their distribution.
UA originally leased video rights to their library (including the a.a.p. library) to Magnetic Video, the first home video company. Magnetic Video was sold to 20th Century Fox in 1981, becoming 20th Century Fox Video. In 1982, Fox and CBS formed CBS/Fox Video, which continued to distribute the UA/a.a.p. library under license from MGM/UA Home Video until the rights reverted back to MGM/UA. After Turner's purchase of the MGM/UA library, MGM/UA Home Video continued to distribute the films on video under license until 1999, when the rights were transferred to Warner Home Video.
Neither a.a.p. nor its successor companies had any access to the original Warner negatives. All television prints of a.a.p.-owned films were made on 16mm film.
For color films, the colors faded over time as the material used was inferior to what was used for theatrical prints. These same prints would be the ones used on pre-1999 VHS and laserdisc releases of former a.a.p.-owned films. The a.a.p. versions of these films were also later used for cable television broadcasts (even as recently as March 2011, a.a.p. prints of WB cartoons have been seen on TV). Early video releases of WB films released between 1928-1931 bore an a.a.p. copyright renewal notice, since these renewals came before the UA purchase.[8]
In the 1990s, Turner began removing the a.a.p. logos from many of the films (although this process started before that by both UA and local television stations). One hundred twenty-three of the Warner Bros. cartoons purchased by a.a.p. were restored from their original negatives for inclusion in Warner Home Video's series of six Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD box sets (with the color cartoons looking very vibrant, as to attempt to create an experience similar to when the cartoons were first released in theaters).
The black and white Popeye cartoons (and the three Color Specials) were also restored from their original negatives for a series of three Popeye the Sailor DVD sets [9] (a production error on Volume 2, later corrected, resulted in the accidental usage of prints with a.a.p. titles on two cartoons, though the Paramount logos were still seen).[10] The Famous-produced color Popeye cartoons will be released in later years, though no dates have been set. Prior to 2007, no official video releases of the Popeye cartoons were available due to licensing issues with King Features (MGM/UA had attempted to release some cartoons in the 1980s, but KFS blocked their attempt)[11].
Some of the films and short subjects bought by a.a.p. fell into the public domain, and are available on various low-budget video releases, although the owners of the original film elements also gave some of this material official releases as well. These include:
11 a.a.p.-owned cartoons were pulled from circulation by UA in 1968, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. These cartoons, banned because they were based around African American stereotypes, included:
The ban would be upheld even by the later owners of the a.a.p. library, including MGM, Turner, and now Warner Bros. themselves. However, the cartoons are available online and on many unauthorized collections of mainly-public domain cartoons on VHS and DVD, despite eight of the cartoons remaining under copyright.
a.a.p. Records, Inc. was a music arm of a.a.p., which has distributed inter alia Official Popeye TV Album.
United Telefilms Limited was the Canadian division of a.a.p., which existed around the same time. Live action films used a variation of the main a.a.p. logo, but the initials "UTL" would be spelled out, and a notice at the bottom said "Distributed in Canada by United Telefilms Limited".
It was a music label of United Telefilms.
UT Records was a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
It was also a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
Dominant Pictures Corporation was a subsidiary of a.a.p. which distributed the features that the company purchased to theaters. It re-released a number of films from the pre-1950[4] WB library, as well as a number of British films which a.a.p. bought the rights to.
The subsidiary was later folded into UA's main theatrical distribution arm after the company was sold to UA.
The company is referenced by Julian Cope in The Teardrop Explodes song "Sleeping Gas".
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