Tony Bensley
Senior HTF Member
A Few Fast Facts About Columbia's BLONDIE Series:
- Enormously Popular Series of Comedy Features (28 in all!), that ran from 1938 to 1950. This was based on the Comic Strip of the same name that was created by Chic Young in 1930.
- Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake starred as Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, respectively.
- The entire Series was produced by Columbia Pictures.
- As with other popular Series of the day, BLONDIE's enormous Cinematic popularity spawned a long running Radio Series (1939-1950.), in which Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake reprised their respective Blondie & Dagwood characters. Interestingly, after Penny Singleton left the Radio Series in the mid 1940's, she was replaced by Arthur Lake's real life wife, Patricia Lake. Penny did continue as Blondie onscreen, however!
- As of November 2014, this much beloved, funny family friendly series has yet to see any legitimate home video release! Now, there's NOTHING funny about that!
From The Long Running BLONDIE Radio Program (1944):
For the past several years, I've been aware of this enormously popular series' lack of legitimate home video release. A bit of quick research elsewhere on the HTF revealed the possibility of this being due to rights issues. The following is a quoted passage, though due to the way that is was posted, I do not know who the originator of this is:
"Blondie would have difficulty with the rights. Though the films were produced by Columbia, King Features controls the rights to the characters. Not sure if King Features owns the rights to the films. They may, as I remember at one time the films were shown on TV Sunday mornings missing the original Columbia opening titles. Or it could be a situation like Popeye or Batman where one company owns the films but another company owns the characters."
This is one series that I would most wholeheartedly support in any sort of legitimate DVD/Blu-Ray issue. The time for it's legitimate release is most certainly long overdue! If Warner and Fox was able to sort out their differences, as they did in finally releasing the decades long awaited 1966-68 BATMAN Television series, then surely, Columbia (Or rather, Sony!) and King Features could work out terms in rescuing BLONDIE from the dreary clutches of illegitimate DVD knockoff land! Based on Sony's stellar work with their Three Stooges DVD sets, this long running delightful series that starred Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton (Who were to Blondie & Dagwood what Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce were to Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson!), in my opinion, has the potential of being yet another comedy jewel in their Crown!
Anthony Bensley
- Enormously Popular Series of Comedy Features (28 in all!), that ran from 1938 to 1950. This was based on the Comic Strip of the same name that was created by Chic Young in 1930.
- Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake starred as Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, respectively.
- The entire Series was produced by Columbia Pictures.
- As with other popular Series of the day, BLONDIE's enormous Cinematic popularity spawned a long running Radio Series (1939-1950.), in which Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake reprised their respective Blondie & Dagwood characters. Interestingly, after Penny Singleton left the Radio Series in the mid 1940's, she was replaced by Arthur Lake's real life wife, Patricia Lake. Penny did continue as Blondie onscreen, however!
- As of November 2014, this much beloved, funny family friendly series has yet to see any legitimate home video release! Now, there's NOTHING funny about that!
From The Long Running BLONDIE Radio Program (1944):
For the past several years, I've been aware of this enormously popular series' lack of legitimate home video release. A bit of quick research elsewhere on the HTF revealed the possibility of this being due to rights issues. The following is a quoted passage, though due to the way that is was posted, I do not know who the originator of this is:
"Blondie would have difficulty with the rights. Though the films were produced by Columbia, King Features controls the rights to the characters. Not sure if King Features owns the rights to the films. They may, as I remember at one time the films were shown on TV Sunday mornings missing the original Columbia opening titles. Or it could be a situation like Popeye or Batman where one company owns the films but another company owns the characters."
This is one series that I would most wholeheartedly support in any sort of legitimate DVD/Blu-Ray issue. The time for it's legitimate release is most certainly long overdue! If Warner and Fox was able to sort out their differences, as they did in finally releasing the decades long awaited 1966-68 BATMAN Television series, then surely, Columbia (Or rather, Sony!) and King Features could work out terms in rescuing BLONDIE from the dreary clutches of illegitimate DVD knockoff land! Based on Sony's stellar work with their Three Stooges DVD sets, this long running delightful series that starred Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton (Who were to Blondie & Dagwood what Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce were to Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson!), in my opinion, has the potential of being yet another comedy jewel in their Crown!
Anthony Bensley