SilentComedyMafia.com

Is this legit?

http://www.amazon.com/Kings-of-Comedy/dp/B000XLQH8U

Coming from a company like Madacy, this strikes me as extremely suspicious...

Jeffrey Nelson wrote:Is this legit?

http://www.amazon.com/Kings-of-Comedy/dp/B000XLQH8U

Coming from a company like Madacy, this strikes me as extremely suspicious...

Ahha Waveyboy, sneaking over from that other minor comedy newsgroup to ask a question no one left over there can answer? No suprise, who's left over there who can answer anything?

Well, to answer your question, yes, that Madacy set is indeed an official license. That set has been around for several years, and everyones names are credited on the box. Now go over and tell the poor folk left over there the news, not that it's actually any of their business.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Now now, no need for snarkasm Richard...and I'd think you'd be glad si-com fans were trying to make sure it was legit before purchasing it, to make sure the money was going where it's supposed to be going. You can't blame anyone for thinking that Madacy might be booting Slaphappy, considering their normal line of bottom-of-the-barrel PD product.

As for the other board, it's doing just fine, but I thought I'd ask this question here as you worked on Slaphappy, and this is where you happen to be. Quite logical, I thought.

Don't worry, I know there beats a heart of gold beneath that gruff exterior of yours. I was just listening to your commentary for Movie Mania last night; extremely interesting, as always. I had no idea there was another comedian named Billy Gilbert. I've come to the conclusion that you've forgotten more about silent comedies and the people who made them than most people know.

Well, who knew? I've got mine on order.

Chris Seguin wrote:Well, who knew? I've got mine on order.

Well, it is actually pretty obvious when they credit all the original producers and folk who worked on it on the outside of the box. That would be quite a "smoking gun " legally. And the shows are all in their SLAPHAPPY form. Now, if they had taken all the clips, blacked out the slaphappy slug at the righthand bottom of the screen, and replaced the music and narration with public domain music, then I think it would suggest some bootlegging.

But if what's left at that other minor silent comedy newsgroup were really all so darn concerned about money going to the right place, they's shell out for the complete SLPAHAPPY set that comes direct from Fishigan Films. Then the money goes directly to the Producers. Not that I actually care, I'm not holding my breath for my back royalties.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

I ain't never seen the box, and never heard of the set til now, so I don't know from no names on boxes. And at 17 clams for 15 episodes, that's affordable komedy kollege for the masses.

Chris Seguin wrote:I ain't never seen the box, and never heard of the set til now, so I don't know from no names on boxes. And at 17 clams for 15 episodes, that's affordable komedy kollege for the masses.

Exactly, and thats the good of it and a lot of what companies like Madacy do. For all everyone whined about that Chaplin set they put out, it got into places like Walmart and Big Lots and probably did more to introduce new folk to Chaplin and silent comedy than anything Kevin Brownlow or David Shepard ever did. Thats the ironic double-edged sword to this kind of stuff.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

I got my copy of this set last night and, as Madacy product goes, it's pretty spectacular. I won't get too much into the content of the discs themselves (the SLAPHAPPY pedigree is impeccable), but for $17.99 CDN I got five discs with 15 episodes, packaged in a rather attractive tin case, with a very nicely designed booklet of "star biographies". The bios themselves are not bad at all, a little bit better than the usual thing written by freelancers with just a passing knowledge of their subject matter, and they nicely skirt around some of the tragedies/scandals attached to these performers.

Richard's right, there is an ironic double-edged sword here....Madacy is their own worst enemy. Sure, they've made available pretty much all of the available early Chaplin titles, but in terrible prints with careless musical scores. I'm grateful that, thanks to Madacy, I've got copies of CRUEL CRUEL LOVE and MABEL'S STRANGE PREDICAMENT, but I suspect I'm not the usual Big/Odd Lots shopper. Which means I have a pretty high tolerance for crappy prints of old movies because of my gotta-have-it mentality. But I wonder how many Chaplin converts these discs win over, versus "geez, these old-timey movies give me a migraine"?

Then there's this SLAPHAPPY set...because it's from Madacy, it already arouses suspicion. And this is really a quality set; it's almost a shame they didn't figure out a way to play that up more on the packaging's cover (although it does make mention of the "exceptional print quality" or words to that effect on the back).

And since there's only 15 of the 30 episodes in this set, it begs for a Volume 2!
Chris

This is listed as "The Kings of Comedy".
How would one know to associate this with "Slaphappy"?

And, if this is 15 of the 30 episodes, are they in order? Will the other 30 come out?


I did order the "Slaphappy" set from the gentleman who produced it after getting a flyer for it at Slapsticon a few years back. It is a great set!


Agnes McFadden

Are the arrangements of episodes and the transfer the same as on the original release? In other words, would this set allow to replace half of the originally issued DVD-Rs with "real" DVDs?

And yes, the series is a must-have!

Uli