[MarkWarner]

Hi,

You might have noticed that in the last few months I havent been chewing up my usual quota of bandwidth from GA   The reason being I have been making a sister site for furycomics.com .

So just a brazen plug for CamelotBroadcasting.com which is a collection of public domain shorts. It is amazing how many old shows and films actually have tie backs to comic books.

A few of these shows I saw when I was a kid. The Robin Hood series was filmed very close to where I grew up (bit before my time though). Apart from the cliffhangers my two personal finds that I have never seen before are 'Diver Dan' and Follow That Man (aka 'Man Against Crime').  I really like Diver Dan and Miss Minerva is a babe of a mermaid

Regards

Mark

[Astaldo711]

Wow! Very nice. It's nice to look at these old films and not have to worry how distasteful they'll be. I especially appreciate the Betty Boop cartoons. She was a favorite of my Mom's.

[MarkWarner]

Apart from Betty Boop Max Fleischer also brought Popeye and Superman to the screen. When writing the site his name and also Mel Blanc's kept cropping up

[boox909]

Thanks for letting us know about the new site, Mark.

Continued success!

B.

[narfstar]

I have been to similar sites but really like your layout looks good with great stuff. You wonder how such big companies allowed some of these properties to fall into public domain, especially Beverly Hillbillies.

[MarkWarner]

Thanks for the nice comments

I know all that work done and someone just to forget to renew. The British stuff is more interesting from a general public domain point of view

"Sound Recordings and broadcasts
50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or,

if the work is released within that time: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released."

In other words anything broadcast on British radio or TV that is 51 years or older is definitely public domain That is why all the Robin Hoods are there

Regards

Mark

[narfstar]

In other words anything broadcast on British radio or TV that is 51 years or older is definitely public domain That is why all the Robin Hoods are there

There should be an abundance of stuff showing up in the UK. Not sure when their television golden age was. Was it in the 50's like US or maybe did not get big until later? There should be lots of music available also. Maybe Paw or some of the others from "across the pond" can dig up some UK sites that are doing what you are.

[josemas]

I have been to similar sites but really like your layout looks good with great stuff. You wonder how such big companies allowed some of these properties to fall into public domain, especially Beverly Hillbillies.

While a lot of the old movies and television shows that have gone PD were from small companies that went defunct even the big companies screwed up here and there with the copyright renewals (and in some cases in failing to register in the first place).
Of major 1950s and 60s U.S. shows there are various episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (about half of one season, IIRC) The Dick Van Dyke Show, Dragnet, Bonanza, The Lucy Show, and Beverly Hillbillies that are PD.  I have however seen the owners of some of these shows go after PD DVD companies and make them remove the original opening and closing theme music which is still protected by separate copyright.


Best

Joe

[josemas]

Thanks for the nice comments

"Sound Recordings and broadcasts
50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or,

if the work is released within that time: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released."

In other words anything broadcast on British radio or TV that is 51 years or older is definitely public domain That is why all the Robin Hoods are there

Copyright law is different here in the U.S.  The congress has been monkeying with it off and on over the last few decades and basically extending it each time. 
For a long time it was 28 years with a 28 year renewal available (for a total of 56 years).  Then in the 1970s it became 75 years and since the late 1990s it has been 95 years. 
So, for example, Disney's 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie will not go PD until 2023 and any 1938 DC comic (assuming they were properly registered and renewed in the first place) will not go PD until 2033.
Of course the congress could decide to tinker with the copyright law again and that could change everything.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

On 1950s US series that you might want to look for episodes of is Flash Gordon.  It was filmed in the early 1950s in Europe (Germany and France) and broadcast in the US in 1954-55.  There were a total of 39 episodes (I've managed to see about a third of them so far).  By today's standard it's special effects looks pretty primitive but it hold up quite well against other sc-fi TV shows of the era (and even some theatrical releases as well).

One really neat thing about the show is that it starred Steve Holland.  Holland didn't have much of an acting career (at least on film) but he was a very popular model for artists and photographers.  He was, in fact, the model that James Bama used when he did all those great Doc Savage paperback covers for the reprints of the pulp novels in the 1960s and 70s.  Holland was also used as the model for The Avenger on those paperback reprints in the 1970s.

One of my favorite episodes of the series has Flash and co. going back in time to the early 1950s.  Since this was one of the episodes filmed in Germany they are in 1950's Berlin, which is still in shambles from the WWII bombings and that makes for some keen location shooting.

Best

Joe

[MarkWarner]

Well when I was a kid there were only 3 TV channels here BBC1, BBC2, and an independent channel (which was regional) . BBC2 launched in 1964 so we are looking at 2 channels in the 50's and early 60's.
And sadly a lot of stuff was binned. The BBC "to save space" and economise reused their tapes, so its a minor tragedy that some classic shows and episodes are lost forever.
As an example the lost Dr Who's http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/missingepisodes.shtml and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lost_BBC_episodes

I believe that the best hope for recovery is if shows were show abroad, the tapes may still be around.

So saying some stuff will be coming up Tony Hancock is one prime example of real quality entering the public domain.

Yes I also  have read that some  "public domain" shows are not quite that as the theme music is copyrighted independently.

I'll have a look into the Flash Gordon films.

[josemas]

Well when I was a kid there were only 3 TV channels here BBC1, BBC2, and an independent channel (which was regional) . BBC2 launched in 1964 so we are looking at 2 channels in the 50's and early 60's.
And sadly a lot of stuff was binned. The BBC "to save space" and economise reused their tapes, so its a minor tragedy that some classic shows and episodes are lost forever.
As an example the lost Dr Who's http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/missingepisodes.shtml and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lost_BBC_episodes

I believe that the best hope for recovery is if shows were show abroad, the tapes may still be around.

So saying some stuff will be coming up Tony Hancock is one prime example of real quality entering the public domain.

Mark,

I'm pretty familiar with the situation regarding "lost" British shows (see some of my "Movie Night" postings on the "Watcha Watchin'" thread under "General Discussion").  It seems the BBC has had a good deal of success finding "lost" programs among private collectors and in other countries, like Australia, where kineoscopes (film prints shot off monitors from live shows) or prints similarly transferred from taped shows, were sometimes sent.
America is missing a good chunk of its early television history too.  Some of the many live shows of the 1940s and 50s were kineosoped but far from all.  Very little local programming from around the states made from the late 40s into the 70s was preserved.  As video tape became cheaper in the later 70s more shows were preserved but who knows how stable some of that video will turn out to be.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Same situation with OTR. Some programs have very little preserved while others are complete. Stuff keeps showing up. There is enough OTR out there that you could probably not listen to all you wanted in your lifetime let alone everything that is available.

[MarkWarner]

Maybe so but take this as an example it was happening until very recently this incident was 1993!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Hart If you like OTR then the absolute 100% gilt edged must are the Hancock's Half Hours

[josemas]

Maybe so but take this as an example it was happening until very recently this incident was 1993!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Hart If you like OTR then the absolute 100% gilt edged must are the Hancock's Half Hours

It is disheartening to read that as late as 1993 master tapes were still being junked like that.  There is always the chance though that since by that date many people had home recorders that somebody recorded them when they were originally broadcast.  Of course these home recorded tapes wouldn't be of the same quality as the original masters but are still better than nothing.

Best

Joe

[MarkWarner]

I know I thought the point of archives was preservation, plus on a personal note Tony Hart appeared at my local children's book shop I guess late 60's early 70's and he drew eveyone one of us a picture the queue went round the street .. really nice guy