Color Classics

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

History
The first Color Classic was photographed in the two-color Cinecolor process. The rest of the 1934 and 1935 cartoons where shot in two-strip 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 at the end of 1935, and the 1936 Color Classic cartoon Somewhere in Dreamland became the first Fleischer cartoon produced in three-strip Technicolor.

While they are sometimes considered by film historians to be pale Silly Symphonies knock-offs, many of the Color Classics are still highly regarded today, including Somewhere in Dreamland (1936), the Academy Award nominated shorts, Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky (1938, first in a subseries), and Small Fry (1939). The first film in the series, Poor Cinderella, featured Betty Boop (with red hair and turquoise eyes); future films were usually one-shot cartoons with no starring characters. Two color classics - Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky - were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons); both lost to Disney shorts.

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 3D background sets instead of the traditional paintings. Poor Cinderella, Somewhere in Dreamland, and Christmas Comes But Once a Year (starring Betty Boop character Grampy) all make prominent use of the technique. Disney's competing apparatus, the multiplane camera, would not be completed until 1937, three years after the Setback's first use.

The Color Classics series ended in 1941 with Ants in the Plants. In its place, Fleischer began producing Technicolor cartoons starring Gabby, the town crier from the 1939 Fleischer/Paramount feature film Gulliver's Travels.

A similar series would be started by Fleischer's successor Famous Studios in 1943, under the name Noveltoons. Some of the one-shots in this series would be reminiscent of the Color Classics in terms of production value and story.

Later statuses of films
In 1955, Paramount sold all rights to the Color Classics cartoons to television distributor U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. U.M.&M. altered the original opening credits sequences for some of the films, 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 out 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, among them, had their title cards redone by U.M.&M., among them 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 to lapse on all of the films except Tears of an Onion. Many public domain video distributors have released TV prints of Color Classics shorts on 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 films, which have periodically been shown in revival film houses and on cable television.

Ironically, original distributor Paramount has, through their 1999 acquisition of Republic, regained rights to the Color Classics, including owning what survives of the original elements. Lions Gate Home Entertainment (licensee for Republic, and who currently holds home video rights) has announced no plans to release the Color Classics officially to DVD.

In 2003, animation archivist Jerry Beck conceived a definitive DVD box set of all the Color Classics, and tried to enlist Republic Pictures' help in releasing this set. After being turned down, Kit Parker Films (in association with VCI Entertainment) stepped in 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 Cartoons. 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. Tears of an Onion was not included in the set, as it remains under copyright.

Filmography
All cartoons released in 1934 and 1935 were produced in two-strip Technicolor. All shorts from 1936 and onward were produced in three-strip Technicolor.