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Turner Entertainment Company

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	August 4, 1986
Founder(s)	Ted Turner
Owner(s)	Time Warner (1996-present)
Parent	Turner Broadcasting System (sister company Warner Bros. handles all distribution functions)

Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution.

[edit] Background

Turner Entertainment Co. was established on August 4, 1986 as a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System to oversee its film library after Ted Turner's short-lived acquisition of MGM/UA.

After re-selling the studio, Turner kept its library, which included the following:

• Nearly all of MGM's films up to that time
  • Included in this portion are a few individual films that MGM acquired from other studios in connection with filming remakes, such as
    • The 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, originally from Paramount Pictures
    • The 1936 version of Show Boat and the 1931 version of Waterloo Bridge, both originally from Universal Studios
    • The 1937 version of The Prisoner of Zenda, originally from Selznick International Pictures and distributed by UA
• The former Associated Artists Productions catalog
  • Pre-1950 releases from Warner Bros.
    • Not included in this library were
      • Lady, Play Your Mandolin! - the first entry in the Merrie Melodies series
      • All the black-and-white entries in the Looney Tunes series
      • All the black-and-white Merrie Melodies produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions
      • All cartoons released on or after August 1, 1948
      • All live-action short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948
      • Two 1949 features merely distributed by WB
  • Fleischer/Famous Popeye cartoons
• The U.S. rights to a majority of the RKO Radio Pictures library
  • Some of these rights had not been held by MGM at the time of the Turner acquisition, these rights would be bought by Turner later on.
  • Turner later got rights to this library in Latin America and Australia as well.
• Some United Artists material (the TV series Gilligan's Island, though originally post-1952 UA, is also a part of the package).

Turner later re-sold United Artists and the MGM logo, keeping the aforementioned library. In 1991, Turner Entertainment's parent Turner Broadcasting purchased Hanna-Barbera and its extensive animated library including The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, and Space Ghost (along with most of the Ruby-Spears library up to 1991). Turner's vast animation library served as the basis for Cartoon Network, and later Boomerang.

Turner Entertainment also played a huge part in film preservation and restoration, thus such classic films as Casablanca, Citizen Kane, King Kong, Easter Parade, and the original The Jazz Singer, can continue to be seen today via its various cable channels, as well as in revival movie houses and home video. The films are also internationally distributed and shown by many channels around the world.

Turner Entertainment also distributes films from RKO Radio Pictures, certain films from Castle Rock Entertainment (1994-1996) and New Line Cinema (1994-1996), and shows from TBS, The CW4Kids, TNT, Cartoon Network, Kids' WB, and PBS (1994-2004) on home video via Turner Home Entertainment, and after 1996, Warner Home Video. (see below.)

[edit] The library itself

Today, as part of Time Warner, Turner Entertainment continues to oversee its inherited library, which also includes The Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Story, Gone with the Wind, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Top Cat, Huckleberry Hound, Jonny Quest and Space Ghost.

There are very few exceptions to this library, however.

• Most of the Hal Roach feature films are now with RHI Entertainment (with Genius Products/The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate handling video rights), while another Roach film, March of the Wooden Soldiers, is now back with original distributor MGM (by virtue of their acquisition of the pre-1996 library of former owners The Samuel Goldwyn Company);
• Another film distributed by MGM, Samuel Goldwyn's production of Guys and Dolls, was also acquired by The Samuel Goldwyn Company and is now back with MGM as well.
• the Roach Our Gang shorts released by MGM before the studio took control of the series are now with RHI Entertainment (for theatrical distribution), Genius Products/The Weinstein Company (for home video distribution under license from RHI), and CBS Television Distribution (for television release);
• State of the Union is now owned by EMKA, Ltd./ NBC Universal;
• The World Championship Wrestling video library (along with WCW itself) was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation in 2001.
• The Beastmaster is now mostly owned by the film's producers (while Warner Bros./Turner still holds television rights);
• While WB/Turner still owns theatrical and television rights to Pink Floyd The Wall, all other rights (including home video) are now with Sony Music Entertainment;
• It's a Wonderful Life, originally from RKO, is now with Paramount Pictures via current copyright holder Republic Pictures--this went public domain for a time until its copyright was recaptured in the 1990s.
• The David O. Selznick pictures released originally by RKO, as well as The Spiral Staircase, are owned by ABC/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, with Disney handling home video rights (these rights were previously held by MGM under ABC's license).
• Charlotte's Web, produced by Hanna-Barbera, is owned by Paramount Pictures, the original distributors and also a co-producer/financer.
• While Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment hold the film elements of Hanna-Barbera's Once Upon a Forest, all theatrical, television and home entertainment rights are completely and exclusively controlled by 20th Century Fox.
• Jetsons: The Movie and The Flintstones and its sequel The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas are owned and controlled by NBC Universal whereas the characters, original TV series and merchandising rights rest with Warner Bros. via Turner Entertainment's ownership of Hanna-Barbera.

Turner Entertainment self-distributed much of its library for the first decade of its existence. After the Time Warner merger, its distribution functions were largely absorbed into WB. As a result, Turner now largely serves merely as a copyright holder for a portion of the WB library (similar to how EMKA's sole purpose is to be the copyright holder for the pre-1950 Paramount sound features, with other NBC Universal divisions handling distribution).

[edit] Criticism

In some cases, Turner has been subjected to criticism for altering whatever prints they had available for the Looney Tunes and other cartoons they had rights to broadcast. In many cases, they edited, recut, changed end cards, and even redubbed character voices in these cartoons. Of particular note are older Tom and Jerry cartoons which incorporated a somewhat stereotypical "Mammy" maid character: this character appeared untouched until the late 1980s, but when re-aired by Turner, the character's skin had been changed to make her appear caucasian and the voice had been redubbed by a voice actor to eliminate the previous voice's use of ebonics. Voices in Casper the Friendly Ghost and in very early Popeye cartoons were totally redubbed as well in some cases. Many of the shorts have been oversaturated or otherwise damaged by excessive Digital Video Noise Reduction, and sometimes the colors have been entirely changed.

[edit] As a production company

Turner Entertainment, as a production company, also creates original in-house programming, such as documentaries about the films it owns, new animated material based on Tom & Jerry and other related cartoon properties, and once produced made-for-TV movies, miniseries, and theatrical films such as Gettysburg, Fallen, The Pagemaster and Cats Don't Dance under the Turner Pictures banner. Turner also had a international distribution sales unit, Turner Pictures Worldwide Distribution. Turner Pictures folded into Warner Bros. after the Turner-Time Warner merger, and currently holds the distribution rights to the films made by the production division.

Cats Don't Dance was produced under Turner Feature Animation, Turner's animation unit, which was folded into Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Turner also had a television unit called Turner Program Services which had run until 1996 when it was folded in Telepictures Distribution which distributed Mama's Family and all TPS shows after 1996. In 2003 Telepictures Distribution was folded into Warner Bros. Television which meant Telepictures took over all series that were first run and distributed by TD.

[edit] Home video

• As previously mentioned, Turner Home Entertainment (THE) released most of the Turner catalog on video;
• THE also released World Championship Wrestling pay-per-view events, wrestler profiles, and "Best Of" packages on video until the demise of WCW in 2001;
• THE distributed home video releases from New Line Home Entertainment, as well as PBS programs in the mid-1990s. NLHE solely distributed New Line films on video from 1996 until the Warner Bros./New Line merger in 2008. PBS shows are now distributed on video by Paramount;
• THE also internationally distributed films produced by Turner Pictures on video;
• THE distributed the initial video release of an animated film The Swan Princess, which is distributed theatrically by New Line Cinema;
• Contractually, the MGM and Warner film libraries which Turner owned had been distributed by MGM/UA Home Video until their rights expired in 1999 at which point they were reassigned to Warner Home Video. This transaction also completed WB's re-acquiring of distribution rights to their pre-1950 library;
• It was absorbed into Warner Home Video after Time Warner bought Turner;
• Turner Classic Movies releases special edition DVD boxsets of films from both the Turner and Warner catalogs under the TCM label. They are also an affiliate of Movies Unlimited, a Philadelphia based mail order DVD and video company.

[edit] External links

• Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
• Turner Entertainment at the Internet Movie Database