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 starting with the Noveltoon Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

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
The Internet Movie Database lists these Fleischer animation films as being released by Weiss Brothers-Artclass Pictures in 1926 and 1927. This suggests the Fleischers turned to Weiss Brothers to release these films -- some sound, some silent -- from the Song Car-Tunes series after the Fleischers ended their Red Seal Pictures partnership with DeForest. In 1928, a few of the silent Song Car-Tunes may have been rereleased with sound by Weiss Brothers.


 * For Me and My Gal (1926)
 * I Love to Fall Asleep (1926)
 * In My Harem (1926)
 * Just Try to Picture Me (1926)
 * My Sweetie (1926)
 * Old Pal (1926)
 * Alexander's Ragtime Band (1926)
 * The Sheik of Araby (1926)
 * Annie Laurie (1926)
 * Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning (1926)
 * When I Lost You (1926)
 * Margie (1926)
 * When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam (1926)
 * Oh What a Pal Was Mary (1926)
 * Everybody's Doing It (1926)
 * Yak-A-Hula-Hick-A-Doola (1926)
 * My Wife's Gone to the Country (1926)
 * Beautiful Eyes (1926)
 * Finiculee Finicula (1926)
 * Micky (1926)
 * When the Angelus Was Ringing (1926)
 * When I Leave This World Behind (1926)
 * Tumbledown Shack in Athlone (1927)
 * The Rocky Road to Dublin (1927)
 * Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon (1927)
 * Oh I Wish I Was in Michigan (1927)

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 part of the Noveltoon series, "When G.I. Johnnie Come Home Again." was released on February 2, 1945.

Legal Status
All Fleischer and Famous Screen Songs released prior to October 1950 were sold to U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. 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 Republic), home video rights are owned by Republic licensee Lions Gate Home Entertainment. However, the majority of the "Screen Songs" are in the public domain, and are available on various discount public domain cartoon videos and DVDs. The Screen Songs released between October 1950 and the final release in 1951 were sold to Harvey Comics, and are now owned by Classic Media.

The only exception to the above was Let's Sing with Popeye. This particular film was purchased by Official Films in the 1950s and re-released to the home movie market. While this cartoon stars the character Popeye it is unknown if it was included in the sale of the Popeye cartoons to Associated Artists Productions. It is possible that a.a.p. was supposed to receive this film, but never did, or that they did not do anything with the film at all, since it re-used animation from the original Popeye the Sailor short released 14 July 1933. Whatever the case may be, it fell into the public domain as would be expected when its ownership is unknown. This film was released as a special feature on the first volume of Warner Bros. Popeye DVD series, but it was the same public domain print that has been in circulation. Additionally, it was never given a real general release—rather, it was shown as part of a Saturday morning matinee Popeye club—and searches in the Library of Congress Copyright Catalog turn up no results for the film, suggesting that a copyright was never registered.