Quick Draw McGraw DVD delayed due to music problems

On http://www.mynameisearlkress.com
historian/writer Earl Kress notes Hanna-Barbera's early televbisoon cartoon is still in trouble due to music rights. The old Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear deluxe 4-disc box sets slipped by (with two-sided disks to serve ya) a year or two ago but different stock music themes were used.

Those from Huck were largely from John Seely/Capitol Hi-Q, which had John Seely,William G.Loose and Jack Cookerly as head writers, with Emil Cadkin, Harry Bluestone, Spencer Moore and George Hormel as others and they started in late 40s as Capitol Q with various library accuqistions.

This brings us to the other one used, Jack Shaindlin's Langlois (which WAS HIS compositions exclusively, at least the ones that weren't the freaky rock vocals I've heard about that shared space in the later "Cinemusic" libary with him) and since 1959, "Mr.Ed's" and "Lassie's" Raoul Kraushaar, who was a veteran musical packager whose music also showed up in Huck. Among the composers were William Lava (who followed Seely and co.in scoring the waning Warner Bros.cartoons!) and Mahlon Merrick (his real name...thanks to Dave Sheilds's The History of Produciton Music).

The music for Qucik Draw now was a different kettle of sardines and salmon because even with Shaindln's music ironically VERY LITTLE of Capitol/Seely proper shows up.One of the other majors was Phil Green, also a composer/packager in London's UK EMI Photoplay (the same dude noted in England on the Robert Farnon Society website and various other UK light music sites as being a nationally famous composer) and the American midwestern Sam Fox library (Hecky Krasnow, Roger Roger, and Louis E.DeFrancesco). Theirs was the major thrust of Quick Draw McGraw tunes. Green's were the ones used for that 1995 "Rhino Kid H-B Pick-a-nick bakset" set, tracks 15,17,19, CD 1. (Which I have.) . I think the Sam Fox librayr was in some 1960 Huck trilogy shorts (The "Meeces", Yogi). That is the oldest existing one! Started in 1913 (source: The History of Produciton music: Timeline, David Shields. They were located at least then in Cleveland, Ohio, .)

Another library common to both, but I don't know to what extent (thank you BMI.com and ASCAP.com), was the second oldest (these above for the US), Thomas J.Valentino, or Major Records (Roger Roger again,plus a guy name of George S.Chase).

Many other shows including fellow cartoons for TV like Art Clokey's ("Davey and Goliath" and "Gumby") used these plus in Clokey still some others like Britain's Synchro.

As I've said, Capitol Librayr started as a media broadcast-only service of Capitol records and coindicing with the rise of the label, of TV,of competive libaries (all of the above plus Mutel, and yet another producer/composer service Alex Laszlo's "Structual Music,Inc" and others) and evidentally most of these produciton libaries needing a bigger start, Capitol with their being the only record label making hit records to have its own library that I know of used to any great extent, started furthering the perennial status of these older ones, thus many televiison shows continued to use these, causing GREAT confusion among couch potatoes who'd see some Looney Tunes of fall/winter 1958 in theaters then on television with the aforementiuoned John Seely with a number of these stock-needlerop cues,then see "Mr.Ed" (1961-1966) with a lot of this under "Raoul Kraushaar", and so forth. When I saw some movies in school (including "One Got Fat" which I've posted on and saw this and a handufl of others on the internet this year, I've recognized a lot of "Quick Draw","Gumby","Courageous Cat", and "My Three Sons" music.

Descriptions rather than names proper, like "Light" or "Heavy Comedy" movemnt were used a lot (even if a given track was leased out!) were given by Bill Loose et al, and publishing codes like "ZR" for George Hormel, "CB" for Cadkin/Bkuestone, EM-CT for Phil Green who in the first place wasn't even a Capitol staff compsoer but a British one for EMI Photoplay which was just leased as I said. This was largely on QUickdraw. It may be the music being held up due to legal rights.,
Legal rights probaly existed thru the sixties when Art Clokey outlasted HB in using this music in cartoons (and "Mr.Ed" continued till it ended new episodes round this time) and "Ole Georg" from somewhere in Europe took over. For the next 25 years 1968-1995-96, he'd keep these alive but many of the composers for the other stock-music libraries continued to lienbcese them wholesale (Jack Shaindlin, Raoul Kraushhar, Sam Fox,etc.so it's quesitonable the extent to the participation..and a handful of variations on these exist in different stock-music libaries!This includes one of the string-filled Huck/Yogi/Jinsk chase cues which was done differently for a UK library.This was "Fast Movement 4-ZR-48" suppoedly written by "George Hormel" but acutally at least dating earlier to "Syncro" as "Water Skis" and credited to "Loose and Seely" themselves!
Another cue, one of several
used in Jay Ward's equally classic and nutty take on fairy tales.."Fractured Fairy Tales", the "plastic surgery Hollywood" spoof of The ugly Duckling, is the maudlin music cue that exists in SEVERAL takes..
I was told that it was Jack Shaindlin's "Who Me" (which, going on Associated produciton Music's site (Ren and Stimpy-they too used this stuff) to Cinemusic (for which Jack sold his library) showed otherwise, it aint' on another site.

Legal troubles finally canned (pardon the pun) a lot of the rights right (pun again) after the aforemnetioned Kid Rhino HB album, "Pickanick Basket", and successor Ole Georg (OGM Music) gave us licensing the music (but not all..)

That music HAS turned up thansk to Spumco's Yogi Bear shorts done AFTER 1995 when the music, previously used on its Ren and Stimpy, had been finally sold out and in the webtoion Boo Boo and the Man (Adultswim), but the latter is Qucik Draw Music by Phil Green. BTW miniclips.com and Hanna Barbera.com DO have these on..YouTube sometimes does, but there's those "YouTube Violation rules.."

Warner Bros.Hime Video owns rights to HB..(Ironically WB Music publishes a handful of these cues..)and they even more ironically own Capitol!

EMI owns Capitol,too.

Anyway, go to YouTube while you can, or snap up DVDs of old shows like the ones mentioned or Ozzie and Harriet, Topper or others, and the music of William Loose, John Seely, Jack Cookerly, Emil Cadkin, Harry Bluestone, LE DeFrancesco, Henry Russell, Jack Meakin, Mahlon LeGrande Merrick (aka Gene LaGrande, or Lou Kosloff, or Claude Sweetin), Clarence Wheeler, Spencer Moore, Melvyn Leonard, Dave Kahn, George Hormel, Phillip Green, Jack Belasco, Jack Mayborn, Jack Shaindlin, Ed Lund, Raoul Kraushaar, Alexander Laszlo, irving Friedman, Dave Chudnow, Herschel B.Gilbert, G.S.Chase, Sam Fox, King Palmer, and others lives on.

 

Wow - what an exhaustive post! (I'm exhausted just trying to read it!) I never realized production music rights issues were so thorny.

These themes which filled so much of our childhood viewing hours are a largly undiscussed portion of our history. Mostly because people don't understand it.

 

Yeah, I had NO idea how complicated this all is. I just assumed each company had it's own little music production staff and made their own cues. Or at the very least bought music right out and owned it. Crazy.

dan c

 

Huh? Since when?

 

I'm fuzzy on the details (again), but...

In the mid-late-50s, when Huck and Quick Draw (and Ruff & Reddy before them) originated, there coincidentally was a musicians strike in the entertainment industry... forcing Hanna-Barbera to buy (lease?) music cues for the cartoons that they knew could launch their pontentially lucrative TV career... I would guess that they figured the strike would be short-lived and bought into the cheapest short-term contract possible... afterwards ('60?), they would create their own canned music cues themselves – which they would have done to begin with if there was no strike.

No one could have foreseen 21st century usage contract complexity and the associated greed... all set up and put into place by a bunch of pencil-neck accountants and attorneys.

 

Thanks for posting that Steve. I was wondering why the second season box for the Huckleberry Hound Show and some of the other Hanna Barbera DVD sets haven't been released.

 

One of the old radio station where I worked had a few of those old Capitol music library LP's.....I shoulda grabbed them when I had the chance. They ended up in a dumpster a few years after we all departed.

 

The parties should be able to come to some reasonable agreement. Work for hire contracts deny the composers and creators the revenue from later editions and usages. With each successive generation of consumers and technology there is an opportunity to make additional profits. This represents a relatively cost effective means to increase earnings compared to generating content from scratch. Greed all around is the problem. Currently, they are making nothing, and the cartoons have been in the black for decades. Just share a little of the wealth, its' good for the economy! Besides we LOVE cartoons.