Edward Joseph
Enemy to those who have no enemy
Many people know about how A.A.P (Associated Artists Productions) owned the pre-1948 color Warner Bros cartoons (also all of the B/W Merrie Melodies under Harman and Ising except the first one and the Popeye shorts) for a while, but not as much know that the deal with A.A.P. and Warner Bros also included all of the pre-1948 live action Warner Bros short subjects as well (and the pre-1950 Warner Bros films too but that’s not important).
In 1960, 2 years after United Artists acquired A.A.P, they had an idea. Seeing their success that the Looney Tunes and Popeye shorts were having on TV, they decided to make a third package to sell to stations, consisting of 210 of the live action Warner Bros shorts they had been sitting on for the most part with animated wraparounds.
These wraparounds featured Big Mac and his Magic Train alongside his dog named Sgt. Valentine, his mouse named Abercrombie and his dinosaur named Beatrice. The live action shorts aired on the show mostly starred people and characters such as Charlie McCarthy, Joe Palooka and The Keystone Kops (all this info comes from Jerry Beck’s fine Cartoon Reaserch article about the subject here: When A.A.P. became U.A.A. |).
The package premiered in the fall of 1960 and also aired in other countries such as Australia, but never got to the same success as the Popeye or the Looney Tunes package.
Recently, someone has uploaded an except from the series (wonder if this is the sales reel that Jerry Beck was referring to in his article):
Jerry Beck says that Big Mac looks terrible, but eh, I kinda like the animation and designs here (I wonder if Format Films did the animation, it certainly looks like their style). The theme song is also catchy too. Plus you have to admit that United Artists did come up with a clever way to repackage these live action shorts.
(And why not? Abercrombie’s my new profile pic)
In 1960, 2 years after United Artists acquired A.A.P, they had an idea. Seeing their success that the Looney Tunes and Popeye shorts were having on TV, they decided to make a third package to sell to stations, consisting of 210 of the live action Warner Bros shorts they had been sitting on for the most part with animated wraparounds.
These wraparounds featured Big Mac and his Magic Train alongside his dog named Sgt. Valentine, his mouse named Abercrombie and his dinosaur named Beatrice. The live action shorts aired on the show mostly starred people and characters such as Charlie McCarthy, Joe Palooka and The Keystone Kops (all this info comes from Jerry Beck’s fine Cartoon Reaserch article about the subject here: When A.A.P. became U.A.A. |).
The package premiered in the fall of 1960 and also aired in other countries such as Australia, but never got to the same success as the Popeye or the Looney Tunes package.
Recently, someone has uploaded an except from the series (wonder if this is the sales reel that Jerry Beck was referring to in his article):
Jerry Beck says that Big Mac looks terrible, but eh, I kinda like the animation and designs here (I wonder if Format Films did the animation, it certainly looks like their style). The theme song is also catchy too. Plus you have to admit that United Artists did come up with a clever way to repackage these live action shorts.
(And why not? Abercrombie’s my new profile pic)
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I'd posted this back in 2016, over ten years ago!