Category: Writing

Craft beer and tombstones

 

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Festival Obscura, a craft beer benefit for California’s oldest cemetery, Sunnyside Cemetery in Long Beach. This amazing sold-out event featured beer, cider, wine, arts and crafts, historians, live music, a killer silent auction, and all the charm that a 108-year old struggling cemetery could muster in the middle of summer.

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Two decades after the former owner was convicted of embezzling over $500,000 from the cemetery’s million-dollar endowment fund, and with no more room to sell future plots, Sunnyside faces a bleak future. Sunnyside is now run by a non-profit board consisting of two employees, family members with loved ones who reside at the cemetery and a dedicated group of volunteer friends. The group has been forced to get creative to raise money for care and grounds upkeep. Aside from the modest funds left over from the endowment and the occasional film shoot, event fundraisers are held throughout the year to help keep Sunnyside afloat.

 

Festival Obscura founders Martin Svab, Co-Owner and Founder of Phantom Carriage Brewery, and Ryan Hughes, Director of Sales for Phantom Carriage helped bring in over 40 of the best of SoCal breweries and wineries. There were unlimited drink pours and event organizers smartly chose to hand out free 4oz commemorative glass to all wristband holders at the end of the event, to ensure no broken glass found their way onto the grounds. Essentia and Hops H20 provided free water to ensure everyone stayed hydrated. Live music provided by The Hollow Legs and Pompous. There were some fabulous art and horror wares available for sale. Friends of Sunnyside and historians set up booths where you could get more information on the cemetery, and I even heard they had a couple of morticians on hand.

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While waiting in long lines for food and the bathroom, people chatted away, shared sunscreen and made new friends. We all reached the same conclusion, craft beer representation was phenomenal, but more food trucks and porta-potties were needed. Ten Mile Brewing graciously allowed festival patrons to use their facilities, located right across the street. People had limited choices in food. I opted for pizza from Duemani Pizza, which was baked fresh and delicious.  I heard they ran out pizza moments after placing my order. Despite those few hiccups, the event was perfectly organized and seemed to be running smoothly.

 

I’ve been to plenty of horror conventions and beer festivals, and this was a delightful marriage between the two industries coming together for a great cause. It’s such a shame to hear of Sunnyside’s woes since the somber little cemetery is steeped in such great history. You can learn so much about Long Beach’s earliest residents just by strolling among the grave markers. Ironically, the lack of proper irrigation has given rise to some spooky looking trees, hovering over those aging marble headstones.  It made for some pretty spectacular shadowy views.

 

All in all, craft beer and tombstones are a winning combination and I hope Festival Obscura will be back next year.

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Halloween Cartoons in Public Domain

According to US law, all motion pictures made and exhibited before 1923 are in public domain, but copyright law is seriously complex and since other countries have different copyright laws than the USA, it can be downright confusing when trying to get correct information. Shepherded works from golden age of American animation typically fell into public domain due to registration failures, clerical errors, or a variety of other personal and business reasons. Recently, I was researching Halloween cartoons in public domain and I thought I’d share my research on three of the most commonly misidentified Halloween cartoons.

  1. Disney’s Silly Symphonies Skeleton Dance, 1929

Despite what you may have heard or seen online, the Skeleton Dance is not public domain, likewise, neither is Mickey Mouse’s Haunted House. Due to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), copyright protection was extended 95 years from the publication date for any works published before January 1, 1978. That meant, any films released in 1923, which would have entered public domain in 1998, were scheduled to enter on January 1, 2019. Due to extensive lobbying, the Walt Disney Company was granted more extension for their works, therefore, all early Mickey Mouse cartoons, such as Steamboat Willie, won’t enter public domain until 2023. Keep in mind, there’s a very good chance that Disney will be granted another extension. Thus, why some people refer to CTEA as the ‘Mickey Mouse Protection Act’.

It’s important to note, that all Disney characters are not only copyrighted but also trademarked and that lasts for forever, so long as the owners continually use the trademarks commercially. Bottom line, Disney characters may NOT be commercially used whether they’re part of the public domain or not.

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  1. Betty Boop’s Halloween Party, 1933

Betty Boop’s Halloween Party is not in public domain. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyrights are automatically applied to a work and last the entirety of someone’s life, plus 95 years after creator’s death. Before 1976, however, companies needed to register and re-register their works to ensure copyright protection. In the case of Betty Boop, after a few company mergers and failure of the original owners, Fleischer Studios, to re-register the copyright of many of Betty Boop’s earliest cartoons, many fell into public domain. Unfortunately for fans, Halloween Party is not one of them.  Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of Betty Boop’s cartoons and indicates which ones are public domain.

For the record, it appears that the character of Betty Boop is owned by Paramount, the Betty Boop name itself is owned by Fleischer Studios, and the right to distribute the cartoons (those not public domain) are split between three different companies, Trifeca Entertainment & Media, Olive Films and Melange Pictures.

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  1. Casper, The Friendly Ghost, 1945

Casper’s very first movie The Friendly Ghost is public domain. In the 1950s, when Harvey Publications purchased Casper the Friendly Ghost and bunch of other cartoons from Noveltoon, lawyers failed to inform Harvey that they needed to register copyrights for the first works of the character, thus, The Friendly Ghost and four other Casper titles (There’s Good Boos To-Night, A Haunting We Will Go Boo Moon, and Spooking About Africa) all wound up in public domain, however, these are the only works that are public domain. Because Harvey trademarked Casper and continued to make newer cartoons, they retained ownership of the character of Casper and all subsequent Casper works. These days, Universal Studios holds ownership over Casper and all films except for the five mentioned above.

Here are a few more spooky cartoons in public domain:

Felix the Cat, Switches Witches 1927
Swing You Sinners 1930
Bimbo’s Initiation 1931
The Mad Doctor 1933
The Headless Horseman 1934
Cobweb Hotel 1936
Popeye, Fright to the Finish 1954

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This is one of the very few Disney cartoons they let slip into public domain. It’s considered too dark and violent for their programming

I’m not a legal expert, so please don’t assume any of this is legal advice. Please seek out your own legal counsel and do your research before posting potentially copyrighted or trademarked material on websites.

If you’re interested in more animation films in public domain, check out TV Tropes and Wikipedia, which both have a pretty comprehensive list of films.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PublicDomainAnimation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States