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Can (old) cartoons be both TV and Movie?
posted by Frank FSTAFFMOD on February 26, 2021 at 1:33 PM
Is it valid for (old) cartoons which were originally shown in a theater, but later shown on TV cartoon series to have both TV and Movie entries?
Older cartoons were often shown in theaters as filler between movies. They have also been shown on TV. Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Merrie Melodies, etc. come to mind. Cartoons can also appear in more than one TV series. Over time, cartoons only shown in theaters can appear on TV.
To the user, cartoons can be complicated because the DVD that they come on may or may not be associated with a TV series, although some of the cartoons may have been part of one or more series. Further, often a DVD for a TV series only contains a subset of the episodes. This makes it difficult for the user to search for a title since if it is not a "movie" title, the user has to manually search every possible TV series for the episode. (Or they can use a competing site which does this automatically.) As an example, the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon "Bad Day at Cat Rock (1940)" can be found as a Movie and not as a TV entry unless you search for it as part of the series "Tom and Jerry" (it is S04E01).
I just noticed that (at least some) of the Cartoon shows that play multiple cartoons in an episode assign a separate "episode" to each cartoon so that you don't have to clump multiple cartoon titles in the same episode entry. Tom and Jerry Tales is an example.
I have several thousand older cartoons to manage. For the most part, I don't care what series or episode they are from. I just as soon treat them as groups of movies: Tom & Jerry, title, year.
So, is it accepted practice to create double entries for Cartoons as both TV and Movie?
Reply by superboy97
on February 26, 2021 at 1:51 PM
No, this is not an acceptable practice.
Cartoons that were originally shown in a theater should only be listed separately in the movie part of our database.
I quote from the contribution bible :
Theatrical cartoons?
During the Golden Age of American animation, many beloved cartoon series began as animated short films screened in American cinemas. These shorts films should each be added as one individual entry in the movie section. Popular examples are the Tom and Jerry, The Pink Panther, Goofy and Donald Duck theatrical shorts.
Reply by SandCat
on May 13, 2023 at 7:30 PM
Please respond to https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/646007eca672540143667060 for Tom and Jerry.
If it's not recognized as TVs, then 300 "movies" will clutter the library for Infuse or Plex. You also can't watch them in order.
I think TVDB has it right, orgnizing them by era/phase. https://thetvdb.com/series/tom-and-jerry#seasons
Reply by superboy97
on May 13, 2023 at 11:28 PM
I have answered your question. The answer is the same as the one from 2021 above.
Reply by SandCat
on May 16, 2023 at 8:36 AM
Well, you see, it’s not working. You didn’t address the issue it caused. Please @ whatever wrote the so-called “bible.”
Reply by superboy97
on May 16, 2023 at 12:10 PM
There is nothing to address here. They are movies.
Reply by deer6547
on May 30, 2023 at 2:45 PM
I recently wanted to add Tom and Jerry classic cartoons on KODI. No way I am adding 113 individual movies, so other stuff in the library gets buried under this mess. Everyone understands that old cartoons have episodic nature, even if they are not a TV series. Maybe some special category should be added for materials like this, like theatrical series. I understand that it might require redesign of the database and APIs and it involves a lot of work and its own problems and potential redesign of systems that use the database. And it will never be done because no one wants to do it for free for some convenience of some unmannered strangers on the internet, who want to watch a mouse beating a cat. Yet, point stands - current approach of threating every cartoon episode as its own movie is not sufficient.
Reply by bratface
on June 1, 2023 at 8:55 PM
Why are you always so snarky? Does it bother you that much when someone disagrees with you?
Reply by lineker
on June 3, 2023 at 7:03 AM
English may not be the first language for all mods. I don't think one should read too much into how a reply is written. This case is 100 percent clear. We can't allow fake TV shows to accommodate users.
Reply by SandCat
on June 3, 2023 at 9:58 AM
How’s that universe coming up?
Fake or not, if an engineering design doesn’t work for its users, then it has failed.
No one cares about why it failed successfully, or wrong in the right way.