Screen Songs

Screen Songs is the name of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. They were revived by Famous Studios in 1945.

History

The Screen Songs are a continuation of the earlier Fleischer series Song Car-Tunes. They are sing-along shorts featuring the famous "bouncing ball", a sort of precursor to modern karaoke videos. They often featured popular melodies of the day. The early Song Car-Tunes were among the earliest sound films, produced two years before The Jazz Singer. They were largely unknown at the time because their release was limited to the chain of 36 theaters operated by The Red Seal Pictures Company, which was equipped with the early Lee DeForest Phonofilm sound reproduction equipment. The Red Seal theater chain—formed by the Fleischers, DeForest, Edwin Miles Fadiman, and Hugo Riesenfeld—went from the East Coast to Columbus, Ohio.

Between May 1924 and September 1926, the Fleischers released 36 Song Car-Tunes series, with 19 using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The films included Oh Mabel, Come Take a Trip in My Airship, Darling Nelly Gray, Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?, and By the Light of the Silvery Moon. Beginning with My Old Kentucky Home (1926), the cartoons featured the "follow the bouncing ball" gimmick, that lead the audience singing along with the film. The other 17 films in the Song Car-Tunes series were silent, designed to be shown with live music in movie theaters.

The Fleischers were ahead of the sound revolution, and just missed the actual change when Red Seal Pictures filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 1926.

Releases after Red Seal Pictures

In 1928, the Weiss Brothers re-issued through their Artclass Pictures company and other independent distributors a number of the silent "Ko-Ko Song Car-tunes" with new animation created for the beginnings, removing the original titles and opening original footageSong Car-Tunes.^[1]

New contract with Paramount Pictures

The Fleischers signed a new contract with Paramount Pictures in late 1928. Beginning in February 1929, the song cartoons returned under a new name, Screen Songs, using the Western Electric sound-on-film process. The first was The Sidewalks of New York (East Side, West Side) released on 5 February 1929. In the 1930s, the shorts began to feature such musical guest stars as Lillian Roth, Ethel Merman, Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee, the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, and others. The series, which eventually focused on many of the "Big Bands" of "The Swing Era" continued until 1938. In 1945, Famous Studios, successors to the Fleischers, revived the Screen Songs as an all animated series in color. The earliest color Screen Song released as part of the Noveltoons series, When G.I. Johnny Comes Home, was released on February 2, 1945.^[2]

Legal status

The underlying rights are somewhat complicated. While the majority of the "Screen Songs" are in the public domain, and are available on various discount public domain cartoon videos and DVDs, the issue of the underlying music is a detail requiring consideration. All Fleischer and Famous Screen Songs released prior to October 1950 were sold to U.M. & M. TV Corporation in 1956 for television syndication. These shorts have changed hands in the decades since due to a series of corporate acquisitions involving what would eventually become the revived Republic Pictures, and the 2006 corporate split of Viacom (which became the parent of Paramount Pictures in 1994, and later acquired Republic in 1999) into two separate companies. Today the theatrical rights to the "Screen Songs" are once again owned by Paramount (via what is now Melange Pictures, a division of Viacom, Paramount's parent company). Home Video Rights are owned by Viacom/Paramount licensee Olive Films, which has yet to announce any sort of Home Video reissue, while the Television Broadcast Rights are the held by Trifecta Entertainment & Media.

The "Screen Songs" released between October 1950 and the final release in 1951 were sold to Harvey Comics, and are now owned by DreamWorks Classics (formerly Classic Media), due to purchase from DreamWorks Animation.The only exception to the above was Let's Sing with Popeye, which was originally produced for matinee audiences and gatherings of the "Popeye Fan Club." It was later purchased by Official Films in the 1950s and re-released to the Home Movie market. While this cartoon uses footage from the opening of the first Popeye cartoon, it is unknown as to whether it was included in the sale of the entire cartoon package to Associated Artists Productions. While the film itself fell into the Public Domain, the issue of the Music Rights still held by Famous Music, a division of Viacom continues to be a detail for consideration over copyright status. This film was released as a special feature on the first volume of Warner Bros. Popeye DVD series, but it was from the same 16mm Public Domain source that has been in circulation for decades.

Filmography

Fleischer Studios

Famous Studios

Note: In all the shorts, the musical arrangements were made by Winston Sharples.

See also

• Fleischer Studios
• The Golden Age of American animation
• Kartunes

References

• Leslie Cabarga, The Fleischer Story (Da Capo Press, 1988)
• Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Penguin Books, 1980, revised edition 1987)

External links

• Betty Boop Screen Songs appearances on Youtube