I saw that film when I was a kid. Even then, I thought the title sounded a bit funny. Decent movie, IIRC.

Agreed. I have never seen this referred to as Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein anywhere. Small type on a poster does not mean it's part of the official title. The Library of Congress' National Film Registry doesn't even list it that way:

https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/

I'm changing it back, but hopefully this won't turn into an edit war.

Ah, apparently someone locked the title, so I can't edit it. Still, my point stands. The title should be reverted.

Also, "Meet" should be capitalized.

@SirHatchporch, every original official poster, ditto the on-screen title, shows not only Bud Abbott's and Lou Costello's first and last names spelled out, but also the word "meet" appears with its "m" in lower-case every single time.

If you check IMDb (see their "Release Info" page for this movie) you'll see that they agree (not that that especially matters, as IMDb is widely realized to present a lot of erroneous details across their site, not getting things right 100% of the time) that including Bud's and Lou's first names is part of the official original movie title.

I totally agree with you that absolutely no one, otherwise, refers to this movie with Bud and Lou's first names mentioned. That's why the title without their first names appearing is presented in the alternative titles field, as that is the accepted casual title (which is also the title that all online t.v. listings have referred to this movie for decades, and still do).

On TMDb, the policy is that whatever is the opening title appearing on screen in prints from the original release of a film (the title, if differing, as appearing in any later re-release print is considered an alternative title) in every case trumps all, and is to be indicated as the movie's original title in the Original Title field.

Incidentally, in this particular movie's case, also all original poster art - more poster images are presented here - just so happens to perfectly match the title as it appears in the on-screen opening credits, namely "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein". That's precisely how TMDb, therefore, presents this movie's title in the Original Title field, as it's not only the title that appears on screen but also the title on all original posters. [NOTE: Any fully capitalized words appearing within a title, as appearing on-screen and/or on posters, are, on TMDb, to be presented using standard title-capitalization rules. You'll notice that in this movie's case, the word "meet" appears in all lower case, as it likewise does on-screen and on original posters.]

It could be argued that the first names, Bud and Lou, simply appear on screen and on posters as a formality. But as they do appear (and as they appear other than in minuscule print - such as this movie's smaller than "Bud" or "Lou" always-counted word "and" more so does - and easily are plentiful size for everyone to be able to readily see), that still 100% counts, none-the-less.

Meanwhile, here, from TMDb's Contribution Bible, is what is stated about what to present, on TMDb, in a movie's Original Title field.

FYI: I'm moving this thread over to the Content Issues area, hoping that additional moderators will see this topic and weigh in one way or the other.

Actually, the title card as it appears in the opening credits—at least on the version I have recorded from Svengoolie, and please let me know if there is an earlier version—is BUD ABBOTT LOU COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, all caps, no "and" included. So how pedantic do we want to get with this?

As for the idea that all-caps words in titles should adhere to normal capitalization rules, I'm not seeing that in the Contribution Bible. Could you show me where you're seeing that? In fact it specifically says stylized titles, such as Japanese films using all caps, should remain capitalized. I'm not understanding the argument that the only word in the title that should fall under this stylization rule is, apparently, "meet."

Hopefully we'll get some other opinions in here as well and be able to come to some sort of consensus. (And perhaps the Contribution Bible could use a little amending as well, to prevent further confusion?)