A Hollywood Detour

A Hollywood Detour is a 1942 animated short directed by Frank Tashlin, produced by Screen Gems and released by Columbia Pictures as part of the Color Rhapsodies series. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, US works from 1942 required a copyright renewal between their 27th and 28th years to maintain protection beyond the initial 28-year term. I conducted a search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database (which contains all records from the US Copyright Office CCE) and the University of Pennsylvania's online Catalog of Copyright Entries database. No renewal record exists for this title. While many films in the Color Rhapsodies series were renewed by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., specifically in the 1970s, this particular entry was overlooked. Because the renewal was not filed during the 1969-1970 window, the work entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 1971. This film's public domain status is widely recognized by animation historians and researchers, as it is one of the relatively few Columbia shorts of the era that failed to have its paperwork filed correctly. It currently circulates freely on archive sites and is included in various public domain cartoon collections without legal challenge from Sony/Columbia.