Sunset Productions

Sunset Productions was a television syndication company which existed in the 1950's.

Overview

Their best-known holdings were probably the black-and-white cartoons that they acquired from Warner Bros. for television distribution. This package consisted of the black-and-white "Looney Tunes", plus "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" - the first entry in the "Merrie Melodies" series. The remaining pre-1948 cartoons (which included all color releases from that period, plus the remaining "Merrie Melodies") were sold to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) in 1956.

At the time, WB did not want their name on television - so new opening and closing titles were made to remove any references to the studio. Any WB references in the cartoons themselves were also removed - such as in "Porky in Wackyland", where the dodo zooms up with the WB shield to hit Porky Pig with a slingshot, then zooms back out.

A peculiar error is consistently seen on the copyright notices on Sunset Productions title cards, in which the copyright date is incorrectly rendered in Roman numerals as "MXM..." rather than the correct "MCM..." (ie. MXMXLI for 1941).

The actual distribution was handled by Guild Films, which then bought out Sunset a few years later, as well as Motion Pictures for Television (which distributed "The Adventures of Superman", as well as the 1940s "Superman" cartoons which were originally distributed by Paramount Pictures - interestingly enough, Superman is also now a WB property). Guild Films itself was sold to Seven Arts Productions in the 1960s. Then, in 1967, Seven Arts bought WB and became Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.

Soon after the WB-SA merger was complete, the studio had the some of the Sunset Productions cartoon package redrawn in color, and a lot of quality was lost in the process (78 cartoons were redone this way). The same 78 cartoons were colorized again in the early 1990s (along with 26 other cartoons not redrawn in 1967), this time using a computer to add color to the cartoons, thus preserving the original quality, but still the cartoons were shown in a way they were not meant to be seen (the end result was very close to the color "Merrie Melodies" that had been released around the same time). WB would also regain the cartoons they had sold to a.a.p. when they merged with Turner Entertainment, which by then owned the a.a.p. package.

Today, when using the terms "pre-1948" and "post-1948" to describe the television packages of WB cartoons, the former is usually used exclusively to refer to those cartoons in the a.a.p. package, and not including the cartoons sold to Sunset Productions.

List of cartoons sold to Sunset Productions

:"Note: All cartoons are Looney Tunes except where noted. Titles in boldface are (or will be) available on DVD as part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection."

1930

*"The Booze Hangs High"
*"Box Car Blues"
*"Congo Jazz"
*"Hold Anything"
*"Sinkin' in the Bathtub"

1931

*"Ain't Nature Grand!"
*"Big Man from the North"
*"Bosko Shipwrecked"
*"Bosko the Doughboy"
*"Bosko's Fox Hunt"
*"Bosko's Holiday"
*"Bosko's Soda Fountain"
*"Dumb Patrol"
*"Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" (MM)
*"The Tree's Knees"
*"Ups 'n Downs"
*"Yodeling Yokels"

1932

*"Battling Bosko"
*"Big-Hearted Bosko"
*"Bosko and Bruno"
*"Bosko at the Beach"
*"Bosko at the Zoo"
*"Bosko the Drawback"
*"Bosko the Lumberjack"
*"Bosko's Dizzy Date"
*"Bosko's Dog Race"
*"Bosko's Party"
*"Bosko's Store"
*"Bosko's Woodland Daze"
*"Ride Him, Bosko!"

1933

*"Beau Bosko"
*"Bosko in Dutch"
*"Bosko in Person"
*"Bosko the Musketeer"
*"Bosko the Sheep-Herder"
*"Bosko the Speed King"
*"Bosko's Knight-Mare"
*"Bosko's Mechanical Man"
*"Bosko's Picture Show"
*"Buddy's Beer Garden"
*"Buddy's Day Out"
*"Buddy's Show Boat"

1934

*"Buddy and Towser"
*"Buddy of the Apes"
*"Buddy the Dentist"
*"Buddy the Detective"
*"Buddy the Gob"
*"Buddy the Woodsman"
*"Buddy's Adventures"
*"Buddy's Bearcats"
*"Buddy's Circus"
*"Buddy's Garage"
*"Buddy's Trolley Troubles"
*"Viva Buddy"

1935

*"Buddy in Africa"
*"Buddy of the Legion"
*"Buddy Steps Out"
*"Buddy the Gee Man"
*"Buddy's Bug Hunt"
*"Buddy's Lost World"
*"Buddy's Pony Express"
*"Buddy's Theatre"
*"A Cartoonist's Nightmare"
*"The Fire Alarm"
*"Gold Diggers of '49"
*"Hollywood Capers"

1936

*"Alpine Antics"
*"The Blow Out"
*"Boom Boom"
*"Fish Tales"
*"Little Beau Porky"
*"Milk and Money"
*"The Phantom Ship"
*"Plane Dippy"
*"Porky in the Northwoods"
*"Porky the Rainmaker"
*"Porky's Moving Day"
*"Porky's Pet"
*"Porky's Poultry Plant"
*"Shanghaied Shipmates"
*"The Village Smithy"
*"Westward Whoa"

1937

*"The Case of the Stuttering Pig"
*"Get Rich Quick Porky"
*"Picador Porky"
*"Porky and Gabby"
*"Porky the Wrestler"
*"Porky's Badtime Story"
*"Porky's Building"
*"Porky's Double Trouble"
*"Porky's Duck Hunt"
*"Porky's Garden"
*"Porky's Hero Agency"
*"Porky's Railroad"
*"Porky's Road Race"
*"Porky's Romance"
*"Porky's Super Service"
*"Rover's Rival"

1938

*"The Daffy Doc"
*"Injun Trouble"
*"Porky & Daffy"
*"Porky at the Crocadero"
*"Porky in Egypt"
*"Porky in Wackyland"
*"Porky the Fireman"
*"Porky the Gob"
*"Porky's Five and Ten"
*"Porky's Hare Hunt"
*"Porky's Naughty Nephew"
*"Porky's Party"
*"Porky's Phoney Express"
*"Porky's Poppa"
*"Porky's Spring Planting"
*"What Price Porky"
*"Wholly Smoke"

1939

*"Chicken Jitters"
*"The Film Fan"
*"It's an Ill Wind"
*"Jeepers Creepers"
*"Kristopher Kolombus, Jr."
*"The Lone Stranger and Porky"
*"Naughty Neighbors"
*"Pied Piper Porky"
*"Polar Pals"
*"Porky and Teabiscuit"
*"Porky the Giant Killer"
*"Porky's Hotel"
*"Porky's Movie Mystery"
*"Porky's Picnic"
*"Porky's Tire Trouble"
*"Scalp Trouble"
*"Wise Quacks"

1940

*"Africa Squeaks"
*"Ali-Baba Bound"
*"Calling Dr. Porky"
*"The Chewin' Bruin"
*"Patient Porky"
*"Pilgrim Porky"
*"Porky's Baseball Broadcast"
*"Porky's Hired Hand"
*"Porky's Last Stand"
*"Porky's Poor Fish"
*"Prehistoric Porky"
*"Slap-Happy Pappy"
*"The Sour Puss"
*"The Timid Toreador"
*"You Ought to Be in Pictures"

1941

*"A Coy Decoy"
*"The Haunted Mouse"
*"The Henpecked Duck"
*"Joe Glow, the Firefly"
*"Meet John Doughboy"
*"Notes to You"
*"Porky's Ant"
*"Porky's Bear Facts"
*"Porky's Midnight Matinee"
*"Porky's Pooch"
*"Porky's Preview"
*"Porky's Prize Pony"
*"Porky's Snooze Reel"
*"Robinson Crusoe Jr."
*"We, the Animals Squeak!"

1942

*"The Daffy Duckaroo"
*"Daffy's Southern Exposure"
*"Ducktators, The"
*"Eatin' on the Cuff, or The Moth Who Came to Dinner"
*"Gopher Goofy"
*"Hobby Horse Laffs"
*"The Impatient Patient"
*"Nutty News"
*"Porky's Cafe"
*"Porky's Pastry Pirates"
*"Saps in Chaps"
*"Wacky Blackout"
*"Who's Who in the Zoo"

1943

*"Confusions of a Nutzy Spy"
*"Hop and Go"
*"Porky Pig's Feat"
*"Puss n' Booty"
*"Scrap Happy Daffy"
*"Tokio Jokio"

ee also

*"Looney Tunes"
*"Merrie Melodies"
*Warner Bros. Cartoons
*Associated Artists Productions
*Film colorization

ources/External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/argussventon/cartoondistributors/guildfilms/sunset.html SUNSET PRODUCTIONS AND GUILD FILMS]