 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. This episode will be of universal interest. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. We continue our series on movie studio histories with universal pictures. We begin in the era of the Nickelodeon, not the kids' TV network, but the single-user movies involving a periscope-like device. And Carl Lemley. He was a bookkeeper for a clothing company who reportedly spent a day watching and counting people go into a Nickelodeon parlor. He added up the potential revenue, then quit his job to buy up Nickelodeon players. Carl moved on to film distribution and eventually film production. The latter was made necessary as Edison basically made all early films due to his patents on the equipment and processes. So you had to pay whatever he decided was fair. Lemley, along with two partners, started the Yankee Film Company in 1909 and began making his own films. This was based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The future Hollywood was just a bunch of orange groves at the time. The business was quickly renamed Independent Moving Pictures Company, IMP, which made headway against Edison by actually giving actors credit in films which Edison refused to do, which created the first movie stars. Universal Film Manufacturing Company came along in 1912 involving multiple partners and Lemley who quickly bought them out. By the end of that year, the company had moved to California, which was originally done to try and avoid Edison royalties and to take advantage of all the sun to light their films. Artificial lighting wasn't sufficient at the time. Three years later, Universal City Studios was opened on a 230-acre site. This was the first studio open to tourists and became the largest studio for a decade, mostly based on melodramas, westerns, and serials. Unlike other players at the time, Universal didn't invest in their own movie theater chain or borrow money for film production. The latter almost took them out after two Eric Von Stroheim films went way over budget around 1920. Lemley saved the studio with a huge ad campaign for those films. By the mid-20s, Universal became known for one man, Lon Cheney starring in the original Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1923 and the Phantom of the Opera, 1925. Lemley promoted his personal secretary, Irving Thalberg, to make production decisions. When MGM lured Thalberg away, Universal dropped in prominence. Universal let a major player slip through their fingers in the late 20s. Their animation division was producing a series called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Despite its success, Universal wanted to pay the animators a lower fee going forward. When the offer was refused, and the team of Ub iWorks and Walt Disney went off to make Steamboat Willie creating the Walt Disney Company. Oops! Lemley handed the reins of the company to his son, Carl Jr., not the Burger Place, as a 21st birthday president in 1928. He pushed for new tech like talkies and technicolor sequences all quiet on the western front won the 1930 Oscar. He also created something Universal may be best known for classic monster movies. Dracula, 1931. Frankenstein, 1931. The Mummy, 1932. The Invisible Man, 1933. Unfortunately, all this new investment came along at the same time as the Great Depression. And after a version of Showboat in 1936 went way over budget and the Lemleys went into debt for it, they lost control of the company. That same year, teenage sensation Deanna Durbin came along with three smart girls. By the 40s, Universal had basically fallen back to what worked in the past. Westerns, serials, and sequels to their horror classics. There were a movie series, mostly B-pictures from The Dead End Kids, The Ritz Brothers, The Andrew Sisters, Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes, Inner Sanctum Mysteries based on the radio show. The studio could no longer afford lavish contracts so they would get loans of major stars on a temporary basis for their big pictures. They also cast radio stars such as Edgar Bergen, W. C. Fields and Abbott and Costello. By 1945, British entrepreneur J. Arthur Rank arranged a merger of Universal and independent pictures to create Universal International. The resulting studio continued low budget films while setting up U.S. distribution of U.K. prestige films such as Great Expectations and Hamlet. After a few attempts at locally made prestige films, The Killers, The Naked City, it was back to be pictures including series with Francis the Talking Mule, Ma and Pa Kettle, and more Abbott and Costello often teaming them with their classic monsters. Another change in ownership came in 1952 when DECA Records bought them out. By then, Universal was known for sci-fi films produced by William Alland. The Creature From The Black Lagoon, This Island Earth, Tarantula, The Mole People, The Deadly Mantis you'll recognize many of these if you're a Misty. Along with more melodramas. Universal, like all the studios, were beginning to drop their long-term contracts with stars. A decision to give James Stewart a share of film profits instead of a large salary set the tone that is still strong today. By 1962, DECA was swallowed by music talent agency MCA who proceeded to sign up almost every artist to a Universal contract. MCA had already been using Universal lots to produce many early TV shows. Universal basically bet the farm on TV production, mostly to NBC, who would eventually be working together officially. They even invented the made-for-television movies we fondly remember. Universal used the revenue to wind up big-time films again. Anne of the Thousand Days, Mary Queen of Scots, both of which got Oscar Noms, Airport, The Sting, American Graffiti, Earthquake, Jaws. Universal also teamed up with Paramount to distribute films outside the U.S. and Canada in what was called Cinema International Corporation. While Universal was mostly doing TV shows, they still had movie hits in the 80s. E.T., Back to the Future, An American Tale, Field of Dreams, and Jurassic Park in 1993. Meanwhile, it was time for another takeover. MCA got Matsushita aka Panasonic to buy them out in 1990 for $6.6 billion. It didn't work well, and Matsushita sold most of MCA Slash Universal to Seagram in 1995. It also didn't work well, and most of Universal's TV holdings were sold off to raise funds. They would get them back later at a hugely inflated cost. Seagram would be sold to Vivendi in 2000, who only four years later would sell its majority to GE, parent of NBC at the time. The new company was called NBC Universal. The final, for now, buyout was in 2011 when Cable Provider Comcast, realizing they needed to own their own content, bought out half of NBC Universal, with the other half going in 2013 for $16.7 billion. Universal now includes units such as Focus Features, Illumination, Dreamworks purchased in 2016 for $3.8 billion, and a minor steak in Spielberg's Amblin Pictures. So we'll see a lot from Universal in the future. And while you're waiting for those, you can check out our audio podcast How I Got My Wife to Read comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com From The Pop Culture Bunker, I'm