Associated Artists Productions

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Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) was a distributor of theatrical feature films and short subjects for television founded in 1953 and headed by Elliott Hyman.

In 1956, a.a.p. purchased the pre-1948 Warner Bros. film library which included every feature film and most short subjects the studio released prior to 1948 including the Merrie Melodies and color Looney Tunes. Also in 1956, a.a.p. bought the black and white Popeye theatrical cartoons from Paramount Pictures through Popeye owner King Features which were produced by the Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios. The following year, a.a.p. also acquired the color Popeye cartoons.

The company was acquired by United Artists in 1958. In 1981, the library was incorporated into the merger of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists. Turner Entertainment took over the library in 1986 after Ted Turner's short-lived acquisition of MGM/UA. When Turner sold back the MGM/UA production unit, he kept the a.a.p. library for his own company.

The Warner Bros. film libraries were reunited when Warner Bros.' parent company Time Warner bought Turner in 1996. Warner Bros. holds the a.a.p. properties today, although technically they are under the ownership of Turner.

In recent years, some of the shorts in question have now excluded the a.a.p. logo in order to bring them closer to what they looked like when they were originally released. For the DVD release by Warner on July 31, 2007 of the first set of Popeye cartoons (1933-1938), they were restored to include the original Paramount logos.[1]