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Associated Artists Productions

History - "What Was AAP?": For that answer we turn to some rec.arts.animation posts.....

• From Thomas Reed: I believe it served the same purpose as Movietime and National Telefilm Associates (NTA) served for live action films.
  See, back in the early 1950s, it was considered "shameful" by the movie studios to have their real studio names on films run on television. Movie studios saw themselves in a death struggle with the boob tube, and to actually release anything to television with the studios' real logos was treason to the movie industry.
  So, the studios only released their pre-1948 movies to TV (this being the date when studios were forced to dump their ownership of movie theaters, which is somehow legally important to the issue). And they had small TV distribution companies like NTA and Movietime put their logos on the movie - sometimes even covering up the studio copyright notice inside the movie's credits.
• Brian adds: A.A.P. was the company that purchased the rights to the Paramount theatrical Popeye cartoons and the pre-1948 color Warner Bros. cartoons, to sell them to television in the 1950s. While most of these packages were sold to local TV stations, arrangements were also made with different companies and ad agencies to sponsor the programs on a regional or national basis.
  When A.A.P. purchased the cartoons, the familiar A.A.P. leader was added when new negative prints were struck for distribution.
• And Jerry Beck says: A.A.P. was absorbed by United Artists in the late 1950s (The library included ALL WB shorts [including live action] and the WB pre-1950 feature films. Turner Entertainment purchased this library along with the pre-1985 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library from MGM/UA. What's funny is that no one has ever removed those titles from the prints -- many at UA and now Turner believe the A.A.P. titles ARE the original titles! I love that Fred Ladd colorized the A.A.P. logo on the Popeye cartoons -- it's ridiculous!

Following the acquisition from UA, the company later became known as United Artists Associated, from 1959-1968.  For an overview of the organization, check out  site "What did you see this morning? A.A.P.!"

Theatrical Logo
(1955-1959)

Nickname: "The Atom"

Logo: Over a black background, the logo starts with a single electron orbiting around.  At the sound of a percussion riff, the electron becomes a lowercase "a."  Another electron starts to orbit.  It then becomes another "a."  A third electron begins to orbit.  That becomes a lowercase "p."  The letters "aap" zoom up behind the spinning atom, as the words "Associated Artists Productions presents" fade in below.  The atom recedes.

Variation: A Canadian unit, United Telefilms Limited, also adapted the generic logo animation for its logo as well.  The finished product was the capitalized "UTL" with "Distributed in Canada by United Telefims Limited" below that.

Music: A rhythmic drum section is heard throughout the logo, with three corresponding percussion riffs each accompanying the appearance of the three initials in A.A.P.

Availability: Extinct.  Seen on pre-1980s syndication prints of feature films from Warner Bros. and United Artists respectively.

Scare Factor: Minimal, the drum rhythm can get to some.

1st Logo
(1956-1958[?])

Nicknames: "Early A.A.P.," "a.a.p."

Logo: For the Fleischer Popeye shorts, they used a still logo.  The initials "a.a.p." appear in lowercase, with the "p" having a very long stem. Alongside the "p's" stem the words "ASSOCIATED ARTISTS PRODUCTIONS INC." appear, and below all that is the word "Presents" written in cursive. At the end of a short, the logo appears with the following message above it: "This picture has been presented by..."  Also, the full name of the company appears horizontally under the initials, with a space where the "p's" stem is.

SFX: None, it's a still logo

Cheesy Factor: Some of the colors they used for the logo when colorizing the Popeye shorts.

Music: The beginning or end of the music in whatever short has the logo, depending on where the logo appears.

Availability: Uncommon Can still be seen on the Fleischer Popeye shorts when they're seen on Boomerang.

(Note: See the Availability section on the 2nd logo for other details)

Scare Factor: Low, pretty innocuous being a still logo and all. If the short uses dramatic music when it comes up, though, that may make one a little antsy.

2nd Logo
(1956-1958[?])

Nicknames: "Blue A.A.P.," "That logo at the beginning of Popeye and Looney Tunes"

Logo: Kind of a more three-dimensional look compared to the first. This is the one people will probably remember more.  Against a blue, "bumpy" background, a yellow, more "raised" version of the a.a.p. appears. The initials back away a bit, and then stop as the words "Associated Artists Productions presents" appear, along with pictures of the appropriate characters:

• Warner Bros. shorts: The heads of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig appear above the logo, Elmer Fudd is on the left with his gun and waving/saluting, and Bugs Bunny is on the right leaning against the "p."
• Popeye shorts: Olive Oyl is at the left of the logo swooning, Popeye is to the right flexing, and a headshot of Popeye in a pirate's hat is above.

The ending is the same as the first, except the placement of the company's name is different (it appears on two lines at the left of the "p's" stem.

More Background: As noted before, the A.A.P. logo was dubbed onto shorts for presentation on television. However, where they usually mask the Paramount logos completely for Popeye, you still see the WB shield opening on the Looney Tunes shorts. Also, some Famous Studios Popeye shorts made it to TV with the Paramount ID intact. Why all this happens is explained here by Dave Mackey (from rec.arts.animation):

When Paramount sold off their shorts to television, there was a stipulation that all references to Paramount be removed. The other pre-1950 cartoons, including the Fleischers, were sold to an outfit called U. M. & M. TV Corp., and they too do not have Paramount logos.

However, there are a few Popeye cartoons from 1956-1957 that were never released with A.A.P. titles because they were released after A.A.P.'s acquisition of the earlier titles. More recently some older cartoons have had their print material upgraded to original-title versions, possibly done by current rights-holder Turner Entertainment Co., who acquired the cartoons when it bought the MGM library.

That's [WB keeping its logos on the shorts] more a function of Warner Bros.' reissuing the cartoons as Blue Ribbon Specials. A.A.P. did not touch the end titles of the Warner Bros. cartoons. Apparently, Warner Bros. had no such stipulation that their logos be removed when A.A.P. sent the cartoons into television in the late 1950s. When originally theatrically issued, EVERY Looney Tunes release from about 1937 through the mid-1940s ended with Porky Pig's sign-off. They experimented with a Bugs sign-off for a brief while until 1945, when beginning with "Acrobatty Bunny" they went to an instrumental end title with no character sign-off.

SFX/Cheesy Factor: The zooming back in the second logo, and the characters appearing.

Music: Usually the beginning of the signature tunes of whatever character or characters' short is coming up.  For WB it's all but the end of the "Merrily We Roll Along" open (shield twang included), and for Popeye it's "The Sailor's Hornpipe" + Popeye's tooting pipe (long music for the Paramount "Toon Mountain" open from 1944).  A.A.P. used to preserve the WB opens, so you end up hearing their music twice!

Availability: Its profile is no longer as high as it once was.  While the A.A.P. prints of these cartoons have survived into the '90s, efforts to restore the shorts have seen a return of their original opens.  Check your friendly neighborhood tape trader, or perhaps public domain tapes. You may still see this logo from time to time when Boomerang shows Popeye or Looney Tunes shorts.

Scare Factor: Well I used to find the moving letters weird, but your mileage may vary on that one. It also depends again on the music being used; for example, if the WB shield's "BOWWWWW!" sound effect scared you, chances are you wouldn't like it here either. The logo's font can be an eyesore to some.