Industry Home video company Ceased operations July 2005 Fate Bankruptcy | Defunct July 2005 Founded 1984 | |
Key people Kenneth Cayre
Joseph Cayre
Stanley Cayre Products Now-public domain works and anime Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Successor Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment | ||
GoodTimes Entertainment, Ltd. was an American home video company that originated in 1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well-known due to its distribution of media from third parties and classics. The founders for the company were the brothers Kenneth, Joseph and Stanley Cayre (often referred to and credited simply as the "Cayre Brothers") of Salsoul Records. Its headquarters were in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company had a distribution facility in Jersey City, New Jersey and a duplication facility in Bayonne, New Jersey.
History
GoodTimes began with the distribution of copies of public domain titles. Though the company also produced and distributed many low-priced fitness videos, its most recognized line of products were the series of low-budget traditionally animated films from companies such as Jetlag Productions, Golden Films, and Blye Migicovsky Productions, as well a selection of the now-public domain works of Burbank Films Australia.
Many of its home-video titles — such as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Sinbad, The Little Mermaid, The Three Musketeers and Thumbelina — were named similarly or identically to big-budget animated films from other studios (though their plots were sometimes very different), and GoodTimes would often release these films close to the theatrical/home-video releases of other studios. This was largely legal, as the stories on which the big-budget movies were based were folk tales that had long been in the public domain and the major studios had little room to claim exclusive rights to the stories or the main characters. The Walt Disney Company sued GoodTimes because the videotape packaging closely resembled Disney's, allegedly creating the potential of confusing consumers into unintentionally purchasing a GoodTimes title, when they instead meant to purchase a film from Disney that was otherwise nearly identical in appearance.
However, as a result of the aforementioned lawsuit, GoodTimes suddenly found itself required by law to print its name atop all of their future VHS covers, in order to clearly demonstrate to the public at large that this was very much *not* the 'blockbuster' title that they'd be purchasing just then. Despite these changes, however, GoodTimes would still remain freely capable of producing precisely the same kinds of animated films which had created all the controversy here to begin with, often using "knockoff" cloned titles, characters and stories existing in the public domain such to exploit any renewed, fleeting popularity/marketing pushes by other studios, carried out for entirely different films.
Expanding from home video distribution, GoodTimes founded its spin-off, GT Interactive Software as a way to distribute video games.
At different times, GoodTimes contracted with Columbia Pictures, NBC, Worldvision Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera, Orion Pictures, Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures to release inexpensive tapes of many of their films and programs. In addition, GoodTimes released several compilations assembled from public domain films, movie trailers, earlier television programs and newsreels. Most of these were credited to Film Shows, Inc.
In July 2005, GoodTimes filed for bankruptcy and its assets were then sold to Gaiam. Gaiam then spun off its home video assets to Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment in 2012, which in turn was sold and merged into New Video in 2013.
In 2007, the company folded into GT Media, releasing only two products: The GT Express (a countertop grill) and the 2007 DVD release of The Retrievers.