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Top Cat - Warner Needs Your Help - Original Endings Sought


Remember when we posted a notice from Rhino asking for your help in locating the original, uncut pilot for My Favorite Martian? Well, now Warner Bros needs your help in locating the original end credits for the Top Cat DVD set they're working on. The information below doesn't come directly from Warner Bros, it comes from Mark Evanier's website. Mark was a writer, and ended up running, the Hanna-Barbera comic book division.

His first post came on June 22nd:
Okay, let's forget about the Iraq War. Let's get to a more vital, pressing matter: The folks at Warner Home Video are putting the finishing touches on a DVD collection of all the original episodes of the 1961 Hanna-Barbera series, Top Cat. This will be a dandy set complete with a "Making of..." documentary with recent interviews of voice actors Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan and Leo De Lyon, among other goodies, and a squad of video experts is almost finished with a restoration of all 30 Top Cat cartoons...but there is one problem. The original end credits are missing. Many years ago, back when the shows first went into syndication, someone had to go in and chop the sponsor plugs out of the opening and closing credits. In so doing, they threw away the original end titles (which varied each week to reflect the folks who'd worked on that particular show) and spliced in the end credits from one episode. That is, they took the end credit sequence from one episode and put that on every episode. This means that the actual writers, animators and voice actors have not been properly identified all these years. The great voice actor, Paul Frees, appeared as a guest performer in one or two episodes but you'll see his name on every rerun of every Top Cat and you won't see the names of the actual guest stars.

So far, rummaging through the film vaults, the folks at WB have been unable to locate copies of the original end credits. They may turn up someday but time is running out before the Top Cat DVD Collection has to "go to press." This brings us to our Important Public Appeal. There are collectors out there with original 16mm and even 35mm prints of the show. Are you one and if so, are you willing to loan these materials so that the original end credits can be restored for the DVD release? If so, please get in touch with me and I'll pass you on to the appropriate (and appropriately grateful) archivists.

You will want this DVD collection anyway. But it'll be even better if we can somehow locate those missing credits.
And the second came on July 1st:
The search is still on for films or tapes of original episodes of the 1961 TV series, Top Cat. As explained here, the program is soon to be released on DVD but we're trying to find copies of the original end credits so that they can be restored or re-created. If you have copies that weren't taped off TV, please get in touch with me. Even if the video quality is poor, it could still help. How do you know if your copy has the original end credits? Well, if it's 16mm film, it probably does. If it's on tape and the ending has the sponsor plugs, it probably does. If Paul Frees is not listed among the voice actors, it definitely does. And even if Frees is listed, it might still be the original end credits, so write and tell me what you have. A lot of folks are helping but there are still many episodes to be located.
Hopefully someone out there will have original endings to the episodes and can lend a hand. If you have episodes with original endings, please get in touch with Mark, ASAP!

Thanks to Casey Trowbridg for posting this information to the Home Theater Forum.

Link to this page:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=1818