If you watched Laurel and Hardy films years ago on TV, you were probably used to the sound shorts starting with a title card that looked something like the above. That's how I saw them when Engineer Bill ran them on Channel 9 back in the mid-sixties. It was several years before I learned that the familiar plaque wasn't on those great movies when they were first produced and released.
Originally, each short began with the MGM lion since MGM distributed those films produced by the Hal Roach Studio. The lion was then followed by a more decorative card and there were several designs over the years, many of them specific to the film at hand. One that I rather liked was this one…
In 1943, Roach contracted with a company called Film Classics to rerelease those shorts so someone had to go in and delionize them. While they were taking Leo off, they also put a new Laurel & Hardy title card on them. In some cases, they also remade the next title card which gave the name of the film. In others, they just cut from the new card to the old one for a jarring change of styles. There was also a lot of tampering with the films themselves, including some inexplicable edits and the dubbing-in of misplaced music on early talkies that didn't have, someone apparently thought, enough. Subsequent prints, including the ones run on TV, were usually made off these prints so that's what we all saw for a while.
One of the many nice things about home video is that it encourages companies to go seek out better prints and original materials. The new Laurel and Hardy DVD set, which you can order here, restores its contents back to pretty much the way the films were originally supposed to look…or darn close to it. I'm still stumbling through it but so far, I'm delighted with the picture quality and the completeness. (One short, Laughing Gravy, is much longer than I've ever seen it before owing to the restoration of extra footage.)
I'm also still making my way through the extra features and commentary tracks and so far, they're great too…though I would warn everyone that Jerry Lewis divulges some highly incorrect "facts" about the history of Stan and Ollie. Believe not a word he says except for when he talks about how great they were.
Turner Classic Movies is running a batch of silent Laurel and Hardy shorts tomorrow evening with more treats later in the month. I'll post a little guide to them before they air but in the meantime, you might want to set your TiVo or DVR.