Theo Baransky is 21 years old and lives in New Jersey, where he is an artist at Studio Route 29. For the studio’s Holiday Market in December of 2023, he sold circular Christmas tree ornaments, each one hand-painted with one of Thomas the Tank Engine’s facial expressions. In the television show, Thomas and his friends are not stop-motion; instead, a few dozen frozen faces are swapped out like masks while the show is filmed in live-motion to capture the movements of the train’s eyes. Strung together on the tree, the ornaments looked like a diagram for learning how to recognize emotions.

Theo’s encyclopedic knowledge of Anglophone B-movie production companies dates back at least 50 years, and includes their subsidiaries, corresponding licensing firms, and “dollar store distributors.” His VHS collection at home is “probably countless” and he knows the theme music of each production company by heart. He does the bulk of his research on AVID, an audiovisual database which he calls an “online logo museum.”

Theo’s paintings often depict these logos. They are inspired by his extensive research into the historical minutiae of these companies through their mergers, rebrands, consolidations, and bankruptcies. To explain this endless shuffling, he said,“When it comes to Hollywood, sometimes it’s about the money.”

Theo curated and introduced the first film for Studio Route 29’s monthly film series, “Films for Friends,” inspired by one of his favorite production companies, “Feature Films for Families.” He also made an animation for Films for Friends, inspired by Feature Films for Families’ animated introduction.

Theo considers entering the film production world himself one day. “Especially in the film festival market. Sundance, Cannes. I actually thought about making a Lionsgate documentary, ’cause they started off in Canada. How Lionsgate went from a small Canadian film studio to a big budget Hollywood studio, while still having Canadian operations, is kinda interesting, and I think that’s worth a documentary.”

When asked how he would describe the overall look of his paintings, he said, “Video Treasures.”

Now, because of owning a VHS in my childhood in Massachusetts, I’ve used VHS ever since. Technology in general is what I’m really good with. Not just the old technology like VHS and stuff like that, but also using phones. I’m used to using all different types of technology.

Dollar store distributors, they often have poor quality. The covers are made in Photoshop. And I get curious to know how they made them.

I like to see the openings, the trailers, but the logos are the really cool thing. 

I used to draw before I traced. I got into tracing to make the drawings look accurate and I decided to paint it to make it look really cool. I trace it and then I paint it. Quite simple, really.

What’s really important is I like how these turn out most of the time. I love how they look almost accurate. Being able to trace the text that you can’t draw is really cool. Yeah, I just love being a painter.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

If you’ve owned VHS or DVD in your life, have you ever bought some of those VHSs or DVDs that are, like, not bootleg, but really bad quality? These often come from dollar stores. I first found Sterling on a DVD of Misty of Chincoteague from 1961, which was once a Fox movie, released in theaters in ’61. The film fell into the public domain and Sterling re-released it.

Sterling was also called United American Video. They founded Sterling in 1992 when they bought a company called VidAmerica. And by this point UAV had moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Fort Mill, South Carolina. So they were basically based in the South. And I can actually do a Southern accent. Amidst the public domain DVD crash in 2006, Sterling closed its doors.

Strand VCI Entertainment was actually American-based. But they were owned by a—you guessed it—British company. Thomas came to the U.S. through a show called Shining Time Station, in which it had a guy named Mr. Conductor who would tell the kids Thomas stories with a puppet band. It was a variety show.

Pickwick Video is also British. I know this company for putting out Thomas in England. You cannot even play a UK VHS or DVD on a US player. When you play a British tape in a US player, it will play in black and white and the audio will sound like a chipmunk. I have a UK VHS of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Once you put it in, it does that.

I was being experimental here with a sun and stars.

Leucadia Film Corporation’s first film, Ben Wagner from 1989, was released by Feature Films for Families. Since BYU did the post production on it, I have a feeling the film maybe premiered at BYU or had a theatrical release out west, like they used to do back then.

Then in 1995, Warner Brothers released the film, this time as The Witching of Ben Wagner. And then Sandstar released another cut. And then Feature Films for Families through Cinar would re-license the film as Ben Wagner also with the cuts I just mentioned. So this film’s gone through a lot of distribution.

Feature Films for Families was based out of Murray, Utah. While they would produce their own films, they also would re-release films, removing stuff they considered inappropriate for kids.

In their later years of releasing VHS, the front would have a seal that says “this version approved by Feature Films for Families.” And it would have a picture of a mom and dad with a toddler. I know it’s a toddler because it’s walking, but it’s still not fully grown yet.

For example, No More Baths has the Feature Films for Families logo at the bottom: “Straining to survive through entertainment.” This movie’s about these kids protesting because their neighbor gets arrested. This greedy land developer is trying to take his home away and he refuses to give it up. Upon hearing about Martin Luther King Jr. in school, the kids decide to fight against him being arrested. So they go on a bath strike.

You know what else is interesting about No More Baths? The man who directed Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess, was a camera loader on this movie.

Feature Films for Families released four volumes of Peter Rabbit and Friends licensed by a company called GoodTimes Home Video, another dollar store company. The Wind in the Willows, also done by the same animation studio, was also released by Good Times.

The company that licensed the stuff to GoodTimes was HiT Entertainment. They’re British as well. ‘Ello!

Feature Films for Families was involved in a really big scandal in 2009. They released a film version of The Velveteen Rabbit they had been working on for years. They advertised the movie via voicemail, and that’s fraud. They didn’t have to go to jail, but Verizon sued them.

Now these values that these movies supposedly have, no matter if it’s LDS or not, these are lessons that some people could learn. Like solving differences. And also getting along, stuff like that.