An Open Letter to Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate | Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation

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An Open Letter to Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate

April 20, 2008 6:00 pm

It was announced today that Viacom and Paramount have teamed with MGM and Lionsgate to create a new cable channel to compete with HBO and Showtime (which is owned by CBS). The channel will be mainly showing new movies, and it is not yet clear whether this will be a basic cable or a premium pay channel, but the initial press release says “the new venture will have access to motion picture titles spanning the vast libraries of the five studios”. And they plan to push its video-on-demand capabilities.

I’ve posted open letters like this before (see here and here). It doesn’t do much good, but it makes me a whole lot feel better.

Dear Viacom/Paramount/M.G.M./Lionsgate,

The announcement of your new cable TV venture has me very excited. I especially like that you are going to use the “vast libraries” of the partner companies to create this new venue for programming. My only concern is that you might overlook the thousands of classic animation titles in your massive holdings.

Viacom/Paramount has rights to the Terrytoons library, hundreds of cartoons which include such rarely seen cartoon characters like Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, Deputy Dawg and many others. Paramount also owns classic cartoon shorts of the 1960s. Lionsgate has licensed from you (and does nothing with) the pre-1950 Paramount cartoons which include Little Lulu, George Pal’s Academy Award winning Puppetoons, and the library of Betty Boop cartoons, amongst much else. Together, you can make these classics available for the first time in decades.

Additionally, MGM brings the DePatie-Freleng cartoons to the table. This library includes Oscar winning Pink Panther shorts, and numerous other cartoons featuring The Ant And the Aardvark, The Inspector and the Tijuana Toads.

And guess what? Your home video divisions have only released a fraction of the material you own. Making them available now on cable would provide you with unique, exclusive, entertaining fillers that people of all ages will enjoy. I know you aren’t starting a children’s channel, nor competing with Cartoon Network, but these classic animated shorts are a lot of fun, and deserve to be seen.

So unearth your old cartoons. Make them available as interstitials between programming or for video-on-demand purchase. Believe it or not, people really want to see them.

Best of luck,
Jerry Beck
CartoonBrew.com

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20 comments posted in TV

« « Clone Wars trailer | Rare Terrytoon photos » »

04/20/08 6:10pm	BJ Wanlund says:
	Very good point, Jerry. Make it available, and the “piracy problem” that these companies have withers away completely.
04/20/08 6:44pm	chuckfiala says:
	Well, I think this is worth a try. People didn’t think that Woody Woodpecker DVD’s would be popular, but they were. Often, the stuff kept in the vault is more popular than the current product. But, you don’t know for sure until you release it. I have no doubt that the Terrytoons could do very well on the DVD market, if properly packaged.
04/20/08 7:13pm	uncle wayne says:
	when someone is in your living room for 15+ years (H&J, Mighty Mouse, etc.)…they (truly) become “very dear friends!” I’m sure that all would welcome a few “very dear friends” into their homes! I sure would!
04/20/08 7:28pm	Richard says:
	Boy, do I hope your letter works Jerry. Best of luck to you.
04/20/08 8:07pm	Art Binninger says:
	A mere five years ago, getting an official Popeye release on DVD seemed like an impossible “pipe” dream (pun intended) but look what happened. Since so much of their combined libraries are in color, putting out a series of video collections should be a no-brainer (although you’d hope the folks we’re dealing with have at least one brain among them). Any names or email addresses for us to write to? This sounds like a good summer project for the Brew community (or is that Brew-munity?).
04/20/08 8:43pm	Stephen DeStefano says:
	Bravo, Jerry.
04/20/08 9:11pm	PCUnfunny says:
	“And guess what? Your home video divisions have only released a fraction of the material you own.” That is so true. Sadly, the situation for television broadcasts are even worse. TCM shows a classic cartoon once in a blue moon and The Carto…. I mean Network only shows Tom and Jerry.
04/20/08 9:14pm	J. J. Hunsecker says:
	Preach it, brother Jerry. Miracles can happen.
04/20/08 9:20pm	gogopedro says:
	GO JERRY GO….sounds like the best channel ever….. Also sounds like I’d think twice before canceling my cable programming… Tired of reality T.V. Been sick of it since the start.
04/20/08 9:47pm	Mr. Semaj says:
	I think if enough of us write letters, they’ll HAVE to comply. Better than wasting money on frivolous lawsuits against YouTube. By the way, does anyone know any contact numbers or addresses for Viacom or Paramount? They both make it impossible to even reach them. :(
04/20/08 10:25pm	robcat2075 says:
	Have you tried putting one of these letters in an envelope with an address and stamp on it? It is the time-honored way of sending letters, and there is the remote possibility that Sumner Redstone doesn’t check cartoonbrew every day. The outcome can’t be any worse that an open letter that “doesn’t do much good”,
04/21/08 12:30am	Kyle Maloney says:
	while this is exciting news, I’m not going to get my hopes up. this channel could just as easily ignore the same content they are right now.
04/21/08 7:51am	"Kenny" Martinez says:
	“A mere five years ago, getting an official Popeye release on DVD seemed like an impossible “pipe” dream”. Not even. Try TWO years ago. And the idea of a comprehensive Woody DVD was even more far off. I’m hoping and praying along with everyone else on this.
04/21/08 9:55am	Larry Levine says:
	Well said, Jerry! If anyone can make this happen, it’s you!!!
04/21/08 2:49pm	Bob says:
	Maybe they would air those CinemaScope Terrytoons from the mid-1950s to early 1960s in the widescreen (letterbox) format.
04/21/08 5:34pm	Jesse says:
	This sounds like a good summer project for the Brew community (or is that Brew-munity?). I think it’s more of a ‘Brewhaha’…
04/22/08 4:06pm	classicparamountcartoons says:
	Have you tried putting one of these letters in an envelope with an address and stamp on it? It is the time-honored way of sending letters, and there is the remote possibility that Sumner Redstone doesn’t check cartoonbrew every day. I agree. Yeah, Jerry, use snail mail. Or e-mail this to Viacom. Or maybe e-mail to Sumner Redstone himself…
04/24/08 7:39pm	Fred Seibert says:
	Hey Jerry, interestingly, the Terrytoons rights are completely confused between Sumner’s two companies, CBS and Viacom, and they are at the center of an incredible corporate struggle (between Viacom/Paramount and CBS/Paramount Television/Showtime — now separate public companies), which is the seedling for this new channel to begin with.
04/24/08 8:44pm	Jerry Beck says:
	Fred - If only Nickelodeon had wrest control of the Terrytoons from Viacom, as I suggested back in 1995, these great cartoon characters (and this great corporate asset) would still be a vital income producing entity. Regardless, I still have hope someone there will come to their senses (and hire me to manage the property).
05/13/08 1:22pm	classicparamountcartoons says:
	I am thinking about writing a letter to a retro station called RTN (even though Viacom doesn’t own it) to find this station as an incentive to bring back the cartoons.

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