Y'all remember in FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, where lame/evil magician Professor Hinkle discards his old, silk hat? When the kids were able to use it to bring their snowman to life, he saw that it had magic he might be able to exploit after-all, and t…
Y'all remember in FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, where lame/evil magician Professor Hinkle discards his old, silk hat? When the kids were able to use it to bring their snowman to life, he saw that it had magic he might be able to exploit after-all, and tried to take it back from them.
A similar thing happened with IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. In its 1946 release, the film kinda' flopped, lost money, derailed a studio and careers. So it's not too surprising that the eventual owners of the thing didn't bother to renew its copyright in the '70s. Basically discarded it into the Public Domain.
This happened at an opportune time, as there were a bunch of independent TV stations popping-up on the UHF dial (some of which would later become cornerstones of Basic Cable), home video cassettes were becoming a thing, and even network affiliate TV stations were beginning to fill more hours with off-feed content. Everyone was looking for cheap/free programming to broadcast, especially during the holiday season. And this kinda-corny, but sweet old flick featuring well-liked stars in a Christmas story was just what the doctor ordered...
By the 1980s Johnny Carson was joking about the (near) fact that you could find IAWL running on one channel or another 24/7 from Thanksgiving through New Years in most TV markets. Many shows were using it as the template for their Christmas episodes. A gender-flip remake had been done (long before SJWs were pushing that sort of thing). The movie had become a staple of the American Christmas scene.
So naturally the corporate suits decided they wanted the long-lapsed copyright reinstated and sent lawyers and lobbyists enough to make the legal impossibility happen. Helping to trash the very concept of Public Domain, and unintentionally that of Intellectual Property with it.
.
