Throw out your TCM and AMC recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!


We all have trust that Steve will fix a muddy-colored negative (as one of the commenters on Jerry Beck's blog said during Thunderbean Thursday)
and make it Technicolor bright!


It's gonna take a long time to release though and not sure about bonus cartoons.........


Your thoughts?

So Thunderbean has finally got a deal through Melange Pictures, the company who owns Mr. Bug. That company is a subsidiary of Viacom, and IIRC, Melange holds the Little Lulu library...

This is not small news, boys and girls. For years, Steve has been stuck with mostly public domain property, and IIRC megacorporations like Viacom kept turning him down and only recently he was able to license Flip and Willie. If the release goes entirely successful, with enough sales, I predict something big may happen between the two in the next 3 years or so...

The excitement is rushing through my veins.

One small hop for Hoppity; one giant leap for animation fans!!

I'm super excited about this too!

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

I suggest keeping the "TCM recordings" (were you referring to Turner Classic Movies?) in case this release does not happen or if the quality of the copy of the movie for the release is not as good as the quality of the copy in the "TCM recordings".

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

I suggest keeping the "TCM recordings" (were you referring to Turner Classic Movies?) in case this release does not happen or if the quality of the copy of the movie for the release is not as good as the quality of the copy in the "TCM recordings".

Maybe Steve will ask Jerry Beck for his Turner Classic Movies recording to use as a color reference, to fix the muddy colors and restore it so it looks like Museum of Modern Art's gorgeous IB Tech print but from the master 3-strip negative at UCLA/Paramount.


I'm going to have to discuss with Steve about what he could do to speed up the release (even if it means cancelling some sets or getting a Kickstarter for the transfer).

We all have trust that Steve will fix a muddy-colored negative (as one of the commenters on Jerry Beck's blog said during Thunderbean Thursday)
and make it Technicolor bright!

I strongly doubt the original successive exposure negative has "muddy colors", in fact strictly speaking it wouldn't have any colour at all. Any competent restoration involving Technicolor negatives would require recombining the three colour records, then using a suitable reference (like the dye-transfer MOMA original release print) as a guide for getting close to the intended colour timing.

So Thunderbean has finally got a deal through Melange Pictures, the company who owns Mr. Bug.

I thought Paramount had full control of the title?

Could that mean?

So Thunderbean has finally got a deal through Melange Pictures, the company who owns Mr. Bug.

I thought Paramount had full control of the title?

Did you see the part about Melange Pictures being a subsidiary of Viacom, the company that owns Paramount Pictures?

Could that mean?

Mean what?

So Thunderbean has finally got a deal through Melange Pictures, the company who owns Mr. Bug.

I thought Paramount had full control of the title?

Did you see the part about Melange Pictures being a subsidiary of Viacom, the company that owns Paramount Pictures?

Could that mean?

Mean what?

Within the earlier poster's message's context, that it would be in public domain (if not for the ownership by Viacom)..


I still remember how TV would re-title it, "HOPPITY" - NOT "MR.BUG" - "..Goes to Town" (maybe that new title went back to 1940s reissues)-Leonard Maltin in 1980* even made the vry educated guess as I then (at 19) that bugs (like Hoppity the GRASSHOPPER!) may have been off-putting!

*OF MICE AND MAGIC: (MAIN PART): MAX FLEISCHER.

Hoppity Goes to Town was the British title for Mr. Bug Goes to Town. NTA/Republic used it as well.
http://cartoonresearch.c...-and-hoppity-go-to-town/ 

However when this film was on DVD in 2008, Legend Films retitled it Bugville.
Legend Films has connections with Paramount and Viacom, They had done a colorized verison of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.
They used the Republic Pictures remaster of the NTA Hoppity print for the DVD and did a new title card and an end logo.

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

You forgot recordings from AMC (back when they showed classic movies without commercials), which is what I have.

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

You forgot recordings from AMC (back when they showed classic movies without commercials), which is what I have.

Allright, I'll include the AMC recordings.........

Licensing for the is Paramount these days-in terms of film licensing films that went from NTA to Republic back to Paramount. I'm not sure if that's true with all the NTA films, but for the cartoons it is. The MoMA print is amazing reference- an original 1941 print!

The negs on Hoppity and successive exposure black and white. Each frame is three black and white images, recorded with a color gel going in front of the lens to make the 3 separations for the color.... so there's no muddy 'original' neg since there's no color not he original negs. Paramount has made a new negative from the original successive exposures. I'm not sure yet if we would be getting that material only or if we'd be able to get a scan of the successive exposure negs if we'd like. You know me, of course I'd like to go to first generation if that's possible! Here's an example of a Willie Whopper two color successive exposure neg (scroll down a bit to see):

http://cartoonresearch.c...pdate-on-willie-whopper/ 

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

You forgot recordings from AMC (back when they showed classic movies without commercials), which is what I have.

ParamountCartoons was probably unaware of AMC having the movie in their programming years ago (could you confirm or deny that, ParamountCartoons?).

Throw out your TCM recordings, Studio Ghilbli/Disney Japanese imports, Bugville DVDs, and NTA/Republic VHS and lasers, Steve has got the greenlight for this upcoming Fleischer Blu-ray!

You forgot recordings from AMC (back when they showed classic movies without commercials), which is what I have.

ParamountCartoons was probably unaware of AMC having the movie in their programming years ago (could you confirm or deny that, ParamountCartoons?).

Yes, I was unaware. People have told me before there was pre-'50 Paramount cartoons on AMC before, but I just mentioned TCM before because allthough I remember AMC playing old movies, I somehow missed the cartoons.......and I was having a hard time naming all of the places you could "legally" access Mr. Bug/Hoppity......


As for the whole "muddy" colors thing, it was sourced from the comments section of one of Steve's "Cartoon Research" posts of a UCLA Film Archives person who saw an IB Tech nitrate print and felt the same years later when Paramount restored the movie from the original neg, and when he asked Steve if it can be fixed, Steve proudly said "Yes!"....

Wow! This is such great news! Hey Steve, did you just receive the rights of Mr. Bug goes to town or did you receive rights of other cartoons too? Whether you did or not, I love that you did this and I waited forever for something like this to happen![betty]

Steve Stanchfield,

When will there be more news about
Thunderbean's "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" Blu-ray?

Yes.. hopefully sooner than later! Still on as well as other licensed titles...

Steve, I'm looking forward to this (along with those mysterious licensed titles)!!!

I can't believe you were able to work something out with Melange Pictures (who ironically is owned by the same company who also owns the studio that released it).