Last time we looked at redrawn colorized cartoons we looked at the 1968 Looney Tunes redraws mostly featuring Porky Pig. This time we're gonna look at some more classic Warner Bros. cartoons redrawn along side Popeye as we look at Turner's redrawn cartoons.
When it comes to film colorization no company or man is as infamous as Ted Turner and his company Tuner Entertainment Co. Colorizing many classic movies even Casablanca. He even considered colorizing Citizen Kane which is considered one of if not the greatest movies of all time. However this plan ultimately didn't go through due to some legal issues. Well in 1987 Tuner had it's library of black and white cartoons it owned consisting of the black and white Popeye, Harman and Ising Merrie Melodies, and MGM's Captain and The Kids cartoons redrawn colorized by Entercolor Technologies. Computer colorization was well available at the time and all of Tuner's film colorizations were computer colorized but the cartoons were redrawn. It's rumored that it was cheaper to have them redrawn though some speculate it wasn't much cheaper. Whatever the cost was these black and white classics were tarnished by the same outdated process which ruined Porky Pig. By the way Entercolor Technologies was headed by Fred Ladd the same man who was the head of Color Systems Inc. the company that headed production on the Looney Tunes redrawn we already looked at. Apparently Color Systems closed in 1974 and Fred opened Entercolor sometime in the early 80s.
I could go on for hours about how much I love the classic theatrical Popeye cartoons. Both the Fleischer, and Famous studios cartoons. Well unfortunately most of the black and white cartoons were made by Fleischer's meaning most of the great classic Fleischer Popeye cartoons were ruined. All I have to say about that is, good thing the two reelers were in beautiful color. Only a few Famous cartoons were redrawn as Famous Studios brought the Popeye series into full color production in 1943. All of them were redrawn including the banned WW2 era shorts like "You're a Sap Mr. Jap" although I can't find any evidence of those anywhere online other than hearsay. I'll just assume they were although I don't see why they would've been considering none of the Tuner networks ever aired them. It is entirely possible they aired on a local TV station somewhere as Tuner did syndicate these redraws on the barter system for a few years. The quality of these is a step up from the Looney Tunes redraws from 68 but that's not saying much. They're still pretty poor especially compared to the black and white originals. Also because Turner sent over the TV masters for these things, the a.a.p. logo got redrawn.
Next up the Harman and Ising Merrie Melodies. When Warner Brothers sold it's black and white cartoon library to Sunset Productions/ Guild Films in 1955 for whatever reason the black and white Harman and Ising era Merrie Melodies were not included. The following year when WB sold it's pre 1950 film library including the pre 1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to Associated Artists Productions or a.a.p. the cartoons were included in that package. The cartoons were sent over to Entercolor Technologies to be redrawn like the Popeye cartoons in 1987. The quality of these are better than the Porky redraws from 68 but seem slightly worse than the Popeye redraws as if that means much. The tracing of the characters can be off at times. From the few I watched, as I couldn't find all of them there didn't seem to be any real glaring animation errors just cruddy tracing of the characters mostly and poor color choices.
The king is far too pleased.
Of course we can't forget spelling errors!
Pictureo?
Hey at least it's not Wimby's.
You won't really be seeing these on TV anymore at least not American anyways these haven't seen airtime on Cartoon Network or Boomerang in quite some time. I don't know about other countries. The screenshots I have are from airings of the Merrie Melodies cartoons on a Ukrainian TV station.
Well that's all for now. Next time these redraws enter our prescense we'll look at the Radio and Televison Packagers redraws. A strange package of public domain and non public domain unoffical redraws.
I could go on for hours about how much I love the classic theatrical Popeye cartoons. Both the Fleischer, and Famous studios cartoons. Well unfortunately most of the black and white cartoons were made by Fleischer's meaning most of the great classic Fleischer Popeye cartoons were ruined. All I have to say about that is, good thing the two reelers were in beautiful color. Only a few Famous cartoons were redrawn as Famous Studios brought the Popeye series into full color production in 1943. All of them were redrawn including the banned WW2 era shorts like "You're a Sap Mr. Jap" although I can't find any evidence of those anywhere online other than hearsay. I'll just assume they were although I don't see why they would've been considering none of the Tuner networks ever aired them. It is entirely possible they aired on a local TV station somewhere as Tuner did syndicate these redraws on the barter system for a few years. The quality of these is a step up from the Looney Tunes redraws from 68 but that's not saying much. They're still pretty poor especially compared to the black and white originals. Also because Turner sent over the TV masters for these things, the a.a.p. logo got redrawn.
Apparently some of these had the Paramount logo redrawn on them like the first cartoon "Popeye The Sailor," which was a Betty Boop cartoon. Not entirely sure though.
One problem I noticed popping up a bit when I watched some of them was cel alignment. Characters and objects sometimes would slide around a little on the backgrounds. One pretty bad example was in "Bridge Ahoy" where. As much as these are inferior and stink I have to say I did grow up on them. Heck one of my earliest cartoon memories is of watching the redrawn version of "The Football Toucher Downer." Take all that for what you will. Thankfully these aren't on TV anymore in America. Then again the Popeye cartoons only air on TCM now in their restored form.Next up the Harman and Ising Merrie Melodies. When Warner Brothers sold it's black and white cartoon library to Sunset Productions/ Guild Films in 1955 for whatever reason the black and white Harman and Ising era Merrie Melodies were not included. The following year when WB sold it's pre 1950 film library including the pre 1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to Associated Artists Productions or a.a.p. the cartoons were included in that package. The cartoons were sent over to Entercolor Technologies to be redrawn like the Popeye cartoons in 1987. The quality of these are better than the Porky redraws from 68 but seem slightly worse than the Popeye redraws as if that means much. The tracing of the characters can be off at times. From the few I watched, as I couldn't find all of them there didn't seem to be any real glaring animation errors just cruddy tracing of the characters mostly and poor color choices.
Of course we can't forget spelling errors!
Hey at least it's not Wimby's.
Well that's all for now. Next time these redraws enter our prescense we'll look at the Radio and Televison Packagers redraws. A strange package of public domain and non public domain unoffical redraws.
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