- GoodTimes Entertainment
GoodTimes Entertainment, Ltd. was a
home video company that originated in1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well-known due to its distribution of media from third parties. The founders for the company wereKenneth Cayre ,Joseph Cayre , andStanley Cayre , often referred to and credited simply as the "Cayre Brothers ".GoodTimes Entertainment begun with the distribution of
public domain titles, purchasing the masters and then selling copies made from them. Though the company also produced and distributed many low-pricedfitness videos, its most recognized line of products were the series of low-budget traditionally animated films from companies such asJetlag Productions (founded also by the Cayre Brothers),Golden Films (a separate company founded byDiane Eskenazi ) andBlye Migicovsky Productions among others, as well a selection of the now-public domain works ofBurbank Films Australia .Because of the similarities some of these films had to some from
Walt Disney Pictures , GoodTimes Entertainment was sued by that company. Eventually, GoodTimes Entertainment was forced to put their name atop theirVHS covers, but was still allowed to continue its production of animated films.It must be noted that the
Walt Disney Company has often sued overcopyrights they don't possess; in this case, the company took no notice that the filmsJetlag Productions andGolden Films produced were based onpublic domain stories andfairy tales , including some that had not been adapted into animation at that time by Walt Disney Pictures, including "Thumbelina" (1993), "Sinbad" (1993) and "The Three Musketeers" (1993).Instead, Disney sued GoodTimes mantaining that the latter infriged over its "trade dress", in other words, its VHS cover design. Expanding from
home video distribution, GoodTimes Entertainment founded its spin-off,GT Interactive as a way to distributevideo games .GoodTimes also had a contract with
Columbia Pictures to release inexpensive tapes of many of their films for retail sale. To keep the price down, these were recorded in the EP mode with mono sound, while Columbia's in-house label provided higher quality, SP mode cassettes for rental outlets. Among the titles licensed out wasSteven Spielberg 's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind ". By the mid-1990s, this arrangement came to an end, with Columbia producing SP (and stereo, where applicable) sell-throughs themselves. However, GoodTimes quickly struck a similar deal withUniversal Studios , counting the original "Airport" among its releases.They also released several ostensibly original productions, which actually assembled clips from public domain films, movie trailers, old television programs and newsreels. Many did not claim to be any more than that, such as the
Lucille Ball -based "Lucy's Lost Episodes" (clips from kinescopes of non-copyrighted live 1950s TV shows with the comedienne). Most of these were credited toFilm Shows, Inc. In
2005 , GoodTimes Entertainment filed forbankruptcy and itsasset s were then sold toGaiam .See also
*
Jetlag Productions
*Golden Films
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