Cartoons originally produced in Cinecolor

Cinecolor was a color motion picture process that was the main rival to Technicolor in the 1930s and 1940s. Cinecolor was a much faster and cheaper color process, mainly due to the fact that it was only two strips of color which made it only 25% more than black-and-white film.

From 1932-1935 Disney had exclusive rights to use the three-strip color Technicolor process, thus the first 15 color Merrie Melodies were produced in two-strip color. The first two, "Honeymoon Hotel" and "Beauty and the Beast" were produced in Cinecolor. However, when Disney’s exclusive contract ran out, Schlesinger and every other studio immediately started using the three-strip Technicolor process.

About a decade later, Technicolor shortages post-WWII and Hollywood’s growing demand for it, forced several animation studios to build a backlog of cartoon shorts. For the most part, the cartoons kept being produced as usual but would be held up for ages because prints could not be processed in a timely manner. Warner Bros. Cartoons backlogs were approximately 18-24 months.

In an attempt to meet release schedules, WB had decided to bring back Cinecolor for about 15 non-Bugs Bunny cartoons released between 1947-1949.

Unlike "Honeymoon Hotel" and "Beauty and the Beast", these cartoons were not made with Cinecolor in mind, as the shorts destined for the process were completely arbitrary. (This may not have been the case with "I Taw a Putty Tat", as Sylvester and Tweety were increasingly popular characters, which necessitated more shorts to come out quicker.) They were filmed with three-strip Technicolor negatives under the successive exposure process, and the 2nd and 3rd generation prints (Interpositive and Internegative) were developed with the dye-transfer Technicolor process, but the release prints were converted into Cinecolor, losing one strip of color. Which degraded the intended color choices that the directors/ink and painters had intended.

With Art Davis being the head of the D unit, most of his cartoons were released in Cinecolor, whereas only 2 of Chuck Jones’, Friz Freleng’s, and Robert McKimson’s cartoons were released in Cinecolor respectively. Davis' unit was folded in November 1949.

Due to the fact that the studio masters were processed in Technicolor, eight out of the fifteen 40’s Cinecolor releases were re-released under the Blue Ribbon reissue program in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor. (Those reissues would exclusively state, “PRINT BY TECHNICOLOR” instead of the usual, “COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR” or “IN TECHNICOLOR”.

The Blue Ribbon alterations were cut onto all the studio master prints, including the original successive-exposure negatives, meaning that the original title sequences for the eight Cinecolor releases now only exist in Cinecolor.