It’s not just The Simpsons, Family Guy or Bob’s Burgers. If the rumored Disney buyout of 20th Century Fox goes through, Disney will end up with a fortified cartoon library that will probably double their animation assets.
For starters, they will be acquiring the rights to Crusader Rabbit – the first cartoon series created for television (in 1949). They’ll also pick up much vintage Saturday morning stuff – like the Planet Of The Apes cartoons, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Fantastic Voyage, The Hardy Boys, Dr. Doolittle… Fox Kids originals like The Tick and Peter Pan and The Pirates, Bobby’s World and Life With Louie.
One thing they will not get is the Terrytoons (Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, Deputy Dawg, etc.). Twentieth Century Fox distributed those theatrical shorts (and later TV series), but Terrytoons was an independent studio. Owner Paul Terry sold the library to CBS in 1955 (CBS/Viacom/Paramount still own those rights today).
However Disney would acquire a slew of theatrical features, including Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards (1977) and Fire and Ice (1983). Disney could add Ferngully: The Last Rain Forrest, Once Upon A Forest, The Pagemaster, Don Bluth’s Anasatasia and Titan AE, and of course the Blue Sky studio and their assets: The Ice Age Movies, Robots, Rio, Epic, Horton Hears A Who, The Peanuts Movie – and the forthcoming Ferdinand (which will go good with the 1939 Oscar winning original short).
They would now own The Book Of Life (which would pair nicely with Coco), and of course their Animation Domination Sunday night line-up: Amercian Dad, King Of The Hill, Cleveland Show, Futurama… and a whole bunch of primetime one-season wonders: Sit Down Shut Up, Bordertown, Allen Gregory, and on and on.
Does anyone else sense a revival of the Toon Disney Network is in order? I do.
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The purchase would also bring the film rights to The Fantastic Four to Disney, reuniting the characters with the Marvel universe and probably causing Marvel to start publishing Fantastic Four comics again.
And X-Men as well, but that still has a comic (despite the former editor-in-chief of Marvel seemingly trying to de-rail it).
Constantin Film stills owns a piece of the Fantastic Four movie rights, but hopefully they can be dealt with.
And Fox has the distribution rights to the original Star Wars film (a.k.a. Episode IV: A New Hope), while Disney has all other rights to that franchise.
I think Disney has international rights to Die Hard 3, as it was made by Cinergi, which Disney bought out.
I should mentioned that Universal is also eyeing Fox. Disney and Universal have a bit of a rivalry kind of like Scrooge McDuck and Flintheart Glomgold
Who’s Scrooge and who’s old Flinty? Because the analogy can work both ways.
Scrooge is the former and Flint is the later.
What about the ADHD series (Axe Cop, Golan, Major Lazer, Lucas Bros., etc.)? I’m asking for a friend…..
Those are copyrighted to Fox Broadcasting, rather than Fox Film Corp.
Irwin Allen’s 60s sci fi shows Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants are Fox TV rerun properties. Would make good animated revivals from Disney if they chose to do so. Fox owns the MTM library such as Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and the short lived animation studio comedy The Duck Factory with Jim Carrey.
If Disney acquires The Simpsons, could they do an Oswald/Michaels trade for theme park rights?
Say, no Simpsons Land at WDW, but Universal gives up the Marvel IP at Islands of Adventure? (With a five-year moratorium on construction at WDW, while Universal replaces that “island” with Star Trek.)
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Wow… Fox television alone could support a streaming network! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_20th_Century_Fox_television_programs
Marvel’s staying at Universal’s IOA regardless, due to a contract from 94
Yes, but if Disney can offer Universal a deal which helps IoA to replace and upgrade an aging section, as well as be more competitive, then Universal might negotiate.
Hope there might be a Oswald/Michaels trade for Viacom. Where Disney can trade the rights to Doug with the 30% of Rainbow S.r.l. and hopefully get the rights of 4 Indiana Jones movies and U.S. and Canada distribution rights to Titanic in the future.
The return of Don Bluth to the House of Mouse, or that of one of his films at least, is not without irony. It seems appropriate however, that it’s ANASTASIA,. If I had a limited edition Disney Sericel for every time I’ve heard or read that it was a Disney film well…I’d have a BUNCH of overpriced sericels.
It’s worth noting Fox also owns home video rights to The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go to Heaven, due to its deal with MGM.
Pebble and the Penguin Thumbelina and Troll in Central Parl too
I’ll be very excited when the deal is finally announced
This doesn’t seem to be too surprising to me. Mainly because some franchises have transferred from Fox to Disney. Not just Star Wars but Power Rangers too for seven years. And some Fox movies have aired on either Toon Disney or Disney Channel. But one bright side is that Ferngully might soon be adapted for Broadway and maybe a second Peanuts Movie from Blue Sky.
Fox released the Troma dub of My Neighbor Totoro on home video too…though Disney doesn’t release that movie anymore either.
That too
This impending merger should not be permitted to happen. As a side effect, it may permit Rupert Murdoch’s SON to replace Bob Iger as head of the Walt Disney Company. Big Media is already big enough, all these mergers ultimately threaten our first amendment rights. A Murdoch as head of Disney would turn the Company into a right-wing conservative corporation. We don’t need this! Write your Senators and Representatives! OPPOSE the Disney-Fox merger!
I can’t agree more. I’m actually skeptical about it to the point that deep down, I hope it’s just a rumor.
Nobody appears to have a sense of consequences beyond strip-mining the economy and forming monopolies. The stock market makes eyes glaze over. We’re in a race to annihilate fair competition. In the ashes of all this, everyone will want pure Socialism and the same people will forget that we had antitrust laws on the books but chose not enforce.
If the deal goes through, then maybe Family Guy will finally stop peddling their “Walt was a Nazi” bullshit.
Psssst. It’s a comedy.
Warmed-over and tired, as it is.
Um, Disney already owns all the Fox Kids library… except Bobby’s World, which was sold to Moonscoop.
Yup. Though Howie Mandel and his company own the rights to the characters from Bobby’s World.
Yet the cartoon was owned by Film Roman through and through?
Fox owns the distribution rights to Bakshi’s Wizards, but Bakshi himself holds the creative rights to the characters and sequel rights.