Associated Artists Productions

Associated Artists Productions (also known as a.a.p.) was a company that purchased the copyrights to the pre-1950 live-action Warner Bros. catalog and the copyrights to the pre-August 1948 color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies library and all the black-and-white Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies (except "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!") from Warner Bros. Associated Artists Productions also purchased copyrights to the Popeye cartoons from Paramount Pictures in 1956 (including the 1957 Popeye shorts which had not yet been released). Unlike the transfer of the 192 black-and-white cartoons to Sunset Productions, the sale of the pre-1950 library and the pre-1948 color cartoons, plus the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies, actually had their copyrights sold directly to a.a.p. Warner Bros. created 16mm duplicates of their entire pre-1950 library for licensing. Since a.a.p. and their successors never had access to the original negatives, the television prints of the entire pre-1950 library have degraded over the years from consistently airing on TV, as well as the age of the film stock itself.
== History ==
=== Associated Artists ===
Associated Artists was founded in 1948 by Eliot Hyman. It handled syndication of 500 films, including the Republic Pictures and Robert Lippert libraries, but soon both companies entered television distribution. It also served as syndicator for Monogram Pictures (their 1936-1946 film library was purchased by a.a.p. in 1954) and Producers Releasing Corporation.
In 1951, Hyman sold the company to David Baird's Lansing Foundation which in turn sold it to Motion Pictures for Television, where Hyman served as a consultant. Hyman also became a partner in Mouline Production, production company on the 1956 film Moby Dick, while financing and producing other films and TV projects.
=== Associated Artists Productions ===
In July 1954, Hyman launched another TV distribution company which used the Associated Artists name, Associated Artists Productions, with him purchasing of the syndication rights to the Universal Studios Sherlock Holmes series from MPTV. His son Ken served as vice-president. Associated also acquired distribution right to Johnny Jupiter, Candid Camera, thirteen Artcinema Associates feature films, 37 Western films and three serials.
In 1956, the company was refinanced and its name changed to Associated Artists Productions Corp. (a.a.p.). Lou Chelser's PRM, Inc. closed the purchase of the entire pre-1950 live-action library's copyrights owned by Warner Bros. PicturesUnited Artists: Part 2 in June 1956 for $21 million with a.a.p. and its theatrical subsidiary Dominant Pictures handling distribution sales.
Copyrights to the Popeye cartoons were also purchased from Paramount Pictures in June 1956. Like with the pre-1950 library from Warner Bros., a.a.p. never had access to the original negatives of the Popeye shorts, instead getting 16mm dupes that removed the Paramount references from Paramount themselves.
By December 1957, a dispute over control of a.a.p. had gone to New York Supreme Court between the parties of a.a.p., National Telefilm Associates, and Harris minority shareholder group.
=== United Artists Associated ===
The company filed for bankruptcy and was shut down again, this time, for good. Soon after, it was purchased by United Artists (UA) in 1958 with UA borrowing the full amount $27 million from Manufacturers's Trust when a.a.p. shareholders needed cash quickly. The a.a.p. purchase did come with uncollected accounts receivable amount around the purchase price. The resulting division was named United Artists Associated, Inc. (u.a.a.). u.a.a. made a deal to distribute Beany and Cecil internationally. With the twin kids syndicated packages of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies and Popeye, u.a.a. took a look at a number of shorts in the a.a.p./pre-1950 WB library that appealed to kids and packaged them in a third group as The Big Mac Show with a cartoon wrap around.
== Distribution rights ==
The cartoon library included every color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short released prior to 1 August 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 made from 1933 to 1934, the black-and-white Looney Tunes, and "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" were already sold to Sunset Productions. Former Warner cartoon director Bob Clampett was hired to catalog the Warner cartoon library. This purchase and the Popeye cartoons gave a.a.p. a library of over 568 theatrical cartoon shorts, which would be staples of children's television for many years.
Unlike WB's transfer of most of their black-and-white cartoons via Sunset Productions, a.a.p. was allowed to keep the WB references in the shorts intact; a.a.p. just inserted their logo, which played with a snippet of "Merrily We Roll Along", the Merrie Melodies theme, at the beginning of each cartoon. Despite this, a.a.p. cut off the original openings of three cartoons from the pre-1948 Looney Tunes library upon purchase: "Pop Goes Your Heart", "Bars and Stripes Forever" and "The Bear's Tale", although these three cartoons had their original openings restored but their original ending cards removed in the Turner "dubbed versions" in 1995.
a.a.p. created their own logos for the Popeye cartoons, as Paramount cut the opening and ending logos with the bylines "A PARAMOUNT PICTURE" from the dupes they created for a.a.p., as they did not want to be associated with television at the time. The a.a.p. title plays where the Paramount logo would be then cuts to the original credits of the short. The copyright notice by Paramount, however, would remain. Since Paramount's original negatives were kept in their vaults with the original Paramount titles, Warner Bros. has gone to great lengths to restore them for their home video releases.
== Current ownership of library ==
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased United Artists (along with the a.a.p. library) from Transamerica Corporation in 1981 and became MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
Turner Broadcasting System (via 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 portions of the a.a.p. library (limited to the Warner Bros. feature films and cartoons and the Popeye cartoons), for his own company.
The Warner Bros. film libraries were reunited when Time Warner, the studio's parent company, bought Turner in 1996. Between 1996 and 2019, Turner retained the copyrights to the former a.a.p. properties, while Warner handled their distribution. Since March 4, 2019, with the closure of Turner Broadcasting System as part of a reorganization of Warner business units, Warner Bros. again directly owns the copyrights and distribution rights to the former a.a.p. properties.
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 1982, 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 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.
== Subsidiaries ==
* a.a.p. Records, Inc. was a music arm of a.a.p., which distributed the 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".
** United Telefilm Records was a music label of United Telefilms.
*** UT Records was a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
*** Tel Records was another subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
*** Warwick Records was also a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
* Dominant Pictures Corporation was a subsidiary of a.a.p. which handled theatrical distribution of features that the company purchased. It re-released a number of films from the pre-1950 WB library, as well as a number of British films to which a.a.p. had bought the rights. Dominant also sold and/or leased 16mm prints of WB library titles to non-theatrical rental libraries. The subsidiary was later folded into UA's main theatrical distribution arm after the company was sold to UA.
== Logo card appearance ==
* The original a.a.p. logo had a blue background and yellow text. Due to the color instability of the inexpensive Eastmancolor film stock used, the logo featured on many 16mm television prints later turned completely pink or purple with age. Some a.a.p. prints, however, did retain the correct color.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FnOKDXhWxP_9D2_gbRFHqmSrNunJvj6w/view Some VHS tapes also have the a.a.p. logos in colored borders like the Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals VHS sets.
* Because of the limited color palette used in the a.a.p. logo, both Bugs and Daffy are miscolored.
** Bugs is miscolored white, while Daffy's feathers and beak are miscolored red and white respectively.
** In addition, both Elmer and Porky's respective Caucasian skin colors are also miscolored white in the a.a.p. logo for the same reason.
== Gallery ==
Aap1.png|a.a.p. logo before Porky, Elmer, Bugs and Daffy appear
Hqdefault-4-.jpg|Faded version
Aap2.png|Faded a.a.p. logo
335px-Associated Artists Productions (Looney Tunes Version) (1955).jpg|a.a.p. logo
A.a.p. blue.png|Blue-tinted logo
Aap drafteedaffy.png|Grey-tinted logo
Aap mexicanjoyride.png|Original colors before 16mm negative deterioration? Could be.
Aap Logo (Slighty Green).png|Slighty green
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== See also ==
* List of Warner Bros. cartoons in the Associated Artists Productions library
== References ==
 
Category:Companies