Color Classics

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Not to be confused with Macintosh Color Classic.

 Produced by
 Animation by
Seymour Kneitel
 Color process
2-strip Technicolor (late-1934-late-1935)
 Production
company
 Distributed by
 Release date
 Running time
 Country
 Language

***Color Classics*** are a series of animated short films produced by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures from 1934 to 1941 as a competitor to Walt Disney's *Silly Symphonies*.[1] As the name implies, all of the shorts were made in color format, with the first entry of the series, *Poor Cinderella* (1934), being the first color cartoon produced by the Fleischer studio. There were 36 shorts produced in this series.

## Contents

* 1History
* 2Later statuses
* 3Filmography
* 4See also
* 5Notes
* 6References
* 7External links

## History[edit]

The first *Color Classic* was photographed with the two-color Cinecolor process. The rest of the 1934 and 1935 cartoons were filmed in two-color Technicolor, because the Disney studio had an exclusive agreement with Technicolor that prevented other studios from using the lucrative three-strip process. That exclusive contract expired during September 1935, and the 1936 *Color Classic* cartoon *Somewhere in Dreamland* (1936) became the first Fleischer cartoon produced with three-strip Technicolor.[2]

The first cartoon in the series, *Poor Cinderella*, featured Betty Boop (with red hair and turquoise eyes); future shorts usually did not have familiar or recurring characters.

Many of the *Color Classics* entries make prominent use of Max Fleischer's Stereoptical process, a device which allowed animation cels to be photographed against actual 3 dimensional background sets instead of the traditional paintings. *Poor Cinderella*, *Somewhere in Dreamland*, and *Christmas Comes But Once a Year* all make prominent use of the technique. Disney's competing apparatus, the multiplane camera, would not be completed until 1937, three years after the Stereoptical Process's first use.[2] The *Color Classics* series ended in 1941 with *Vitamin Hay*, featuring characters Hunky and Spunky. A similar series would be started by Fleischer's successor Famous Studios during 1943, with the name *Noveltoons*.

## Later statuses[edit]

During 1955, Paramount sold all rights to the *Color Classics* cartoons to television distributor U.M. & M. TV Corporation U.M. & M. altered the original beginning credits sequences for some of the shorts, to remove all references to the names "Paramount Pictures" and "Technicolor", and to add their own copyright notices. Before the retitling could be finished, U.M. & M. was bought by National Telefilm Associates (NTA). Instead of refilming the openings, NTA obscured the references to the Paramount and Technicolor names by placing black bars over the original title cards and copyright notices. Only a few *Color Classics* had their title cards redone by U.M. & M., among them *Greedy Humpty Dumpty*, *Play Safe*, *Christmas Comes But Once a Year*, *Bunny Mooning*, *Little Lambkins*, and *Vitamin Hay*.

NTA distributed the *Color Classics* to television, yet allowed the copyrights on all of the shorts to lapse except *The Tears of an Onion*. Many public domain video distributors have released television prints of *Color Classics* shorts for home video. The UCLA Film and Television Archive has, through the assistance of Republic Pictures (successor company to U.M. & M. and NTA), retained original theatrical copies of all of the shorts, which have periodically been shown in revival movie houses and by cable television.

Ironically, original distributor Paramount has, through their 1999 acquisition of Republic, regained ownership of the *Color Classics*, including the original elements. Olive Films (current licensee for Republic, and which currently has home video rights) has, to date. not announced any plans to release the *Color Classics* officially to DVD or Blu-Ray.

During 2003, animation archivist Jerry Beck conceived a definitive DVD box set of all the *Color Classics*, excluding *The Tears of an Onion*, and tried to enlist Republic Pictures' help in releasing this set. After being refused, Kit Parker Films (in association with VCI Entertainment) offered to provide the best available 35mm and 16mm prints of the *Color Classics* from Parker's archives to create the box set *Somewhere in Dreamland: The Max Fleischer Color Classics*. These "interim restored versions" contain digitally recreated Paramount titles; the U.M. & M.-modified prints had to have their title cards as well as their animator credits redone. *The Tears of an Onion* was not included in the set, as it remains copyrighted by Republic successor Melange Pictures.[3]

## Filmography[edit]

Many of the cartoons do not have recurring characters, but *Poor Cinderella* featured Betty Boop, and some featured Newlyweds, Hunky and Spunky, and Tommy Cod.

All cartoons released during 1934 and 1935, except for *Poor Cinderella*, which was produced in Cinecolor, were produced in two-strip Technicolor. All shorts from 1936 and onward were produced in three-strip Technicolor.

## See also[edit]

* *Phantasies*
* *Noveltoons*
* *Modern Madcaps*
* *Animated Antics*
* Cartune Classics
* ComiColor Cartoons
* Happy Harmonies
* Merrie Melodies
* Rainbow Parade
* Silly Symphonies
* Swing Symphony
* Puppetoons
* Color Rhapsody

## References

General
* Barrier, Michael (1999). *Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
* Maltin, Leonard (1980, rev. 1987). *Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons*. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-25993-2.

## External links[edit]

* *Complete Color Classics shorts Listing* at the TCM Movie Database
* *Color Classics* at the Big Cartoon DataBase

* v
* t
* e

 Theatrical
shorts series
* *Inkwell Imps* (1927–1929)
* *Song Car-Tunes* (1924–1926)
* *Screen Songs* (1929–1938)
* *Talkartoons* (1929–1932)
* *Betty Boop* (1932–1939)
* *Popeye the Sailor* (1933 – 1942, list of shorts)
* *Color Classics* (1934–1941)
* *Hunky and Spunky* (1938–1941)
* *Animated Antics* (1939–1941)
* *Stone Age* (1940)
* *Gabby* (1940–1941)
 One-shot shorts
* *The Einstein Theory of Relativity* (1923)
* *Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy* (1941)
* *The Raven* (1942)
 Feature films
 See also
* Famous Studios
* Paramount Pictures

Categories:

* English-language films
* Fleischer Studios short films
* American films
* Television series by U.M. & M. TV Corporation
* Film series introduced in 1934
* Color Classics cartoons
* American animation anthology series
* Paramount Pictures short films
* Animated film series
* Anthology film series