Unreleased episode Karty and the dissolution of aiF Studio

Introduction

Pat & Mat's history is full of great stories and tidbits. Marek Beneš, the current director of the series, often tells the story of how he went to a market in Iran while promoting the series there and stumbled upon a seller with unofficial Pat & Mat merchandise. The vendor repeatedly tried to assure him that Mat was in fact the one with the yellow shirt, completely unaware of who he was talking to. However, there is one story that captures the imagination of anyone who even superficially looks at the history of the series and it's the story of the would-be 50th episode of the series, Karty (or Playing Cards in English), a fully completed episode from 1998 which never officially saw the light of day. It is like one of the duo’s ridiculous inventions ― prepared, animated, completed and then never seen, making it completely dysfunctional. 

our heroes playing cards in the eponymous episode

Naturally, as soon as word got out to that this blog exists, a request to cover the history of the episode was requested. This text will cover the episode’s history and the dissolution of aiF Studio that produced it. But first, let’s take a closer look at the mythology built around this episode in the preceding years.

How did we get here? Info about the episode online

Karty’s existence would have probably been mostly unheard of before 2014 had it not been mentioned on the aiF Studio’s official website back in the day. According to the website, Karty was supposed to have been the first in a series of 52 new episodes which would also have been dubbed. This was an insanely ambitious project and would have taken several years to complete. However, the website, available to this day, but on a different address, also contained an important remark: the episode was not authorized for release or distribution. 

aiF Studio's mention of Karty

The Pat & Mat fansite, which served as the most informed website about the series during the early 2000s, also found the episode to be a complete mystery, except for the fact that two snippets of it could be seen on a Korean website. We’ll get to that later. 

Info about the episode on the fansite

The official website of the Patmat studio, opened in 2001 by Marek Beneš, ignored the episode’s existence completely, as it does to this day, which is given the episode’s status completely logical. This was how things remained until sometime around 2006 the website of the studio animation people uploaded these four screenshots of the episode. 

They were in a gif format and not much about the plot could be discerned, but they were the first to prove that this episode indeed existed and that somebody has seen it. What, how did this guys have a copy of an episode nobody has ever seen? At the time I thought this was a studio that had cooperated on the episode with aiF or something similar, but it’s a bit more complicated. We’ll get to who they really are sometime later. In 2011, the same studio uploaded a minute-and-a-half clip of the episode. The master was from a VHS tape and there was no sound, but it was an encouraging sign that maybe someday we will see it in a complete form. That day came on March 13, 2014, when the episode was uploaded to YouTube from a most unlikely source: a VHS from South Korea! It turned out that episode was actually released somewhere ― on the first cassette of a collection of Pat & Mat episodes dubbed in English serving as instructional videos for children. The VHS was released by Elite Productions in October 2002, while the episodes’ copyright holders were listed as aiF Asia, aiF’s sister company which handled the rights to the characters in the Far East. This is the episode from that tape:

As you see, the quality isn’t great and the subtitles are a further hindrance, but at least us fans were given the opportunity to finally see the episode in its almost-complete form (the titles have been cut off from this release). However, not much is actually known about the episode online as the people behind it have seemingly stayed quiet about its fate.

The mythology around it

This has led to a number of theories and half-truths being constructed about why it was never released. A good example can be find on the video itself, I assume posted by a Korean user.

"John Smith" writing what he thinks about this whole mess

 Of course, Marek Beneš didn’t have anything to do with this episode, but it is in places like these where imagination steps up to try to fill the gaps about the history of the studio after the production. Those who try to be objective attribute the episode’s non-release simply to the studio’s bankruptcy, while others go in more bold directions. Definitely the most absurd of the theories I have encountered so far can be found on the Croatian channel RTL’s official website, which translated goes something like this: (For comedic effect, it’s best to read it after you have finished the rest of this text.)

Lubomir Beneš died in 1995, while three years later his AIF Studio in Prague went bankrupt, which sparked a big war for the copyright rights of the filmed episodes. Beneš and Jiranek stopped working together beforehand not agreeing over the future of the series. The series was later continued by Lubomir’s son Marek, who filmed the episodes in a new studio. However, the 50^th episode named Playing Cards was never aired exactly due to the copyright problems. The episode was special as it lasted longer (11 minutes) and it had dialogues! Beneš thought that Pat & Mat should continue on this path, while Jiranek thought the opposite, so the two friend cut all ties! Meanwhile, the episode was irretrievably lost and only fragments of it remain today.

Just wonderful. This little text, obviously put together in a hurry by somebody who has no idea about the history of the series always makes me chuckle. Bear in mind that this was written only last year! But, as I’ve said, this is what happens when seemingly little of the episode’s history has been discussed by the parties involved. Hopefully, this text will steer clear of the imagination’s influence and try to present what we certainly know about the episode and the studio's fate with quote. So, what do we actually know?

The facts

aiF Studio: 1995-1998

As reported on ČTK, aiF opened up its third, new studio in Smichov, Prague 5 on February 23, 1995. After completing seven Pat & Mat episodes, in 1994 the studio turned to another TV favorite, Jája & Pája, a lovely series about the two titular boys, their greedy neighbour Krkovička and their smart grandfather Lebeda. Eight episodes were produced for the Czech Television with a 1995 copyright date. Karty’s history in a way begins on September 12 of the same year. On that day Lubomír Beneš, Pat & Mat co-creator, the creative head of aiF Studio and the director of nearly all of its releases, suddenly passed away. Update June 17: The crossed out part of my text was not correct. (It should be mentioned that it came from VJ Rott, who is important to the proceedings later on.) I was informed by another person who worked with him that Lubomír Beneš died of lung cancer.

L. Beneš, c. 1978 (photo: I. Vít)

Presumably, Beneš died during the production as the original order was for 13 episodes. Certainly, the studio seems to have been, as expected, extremely hit by his death and no releases by the studio from 1996 are known to me except Ostrovy (The Islands), a five-minute shorty by Andrea Tachezyova which was entered into Annecy’s competition the following year. The studio regrouped in 1997 and promoted František Váša to the director’s position. He was helped by Břetislav Pojar, a legend of Czech puppet animation, who served as his supervisor. 1997 was again fruitful: five new episodes to complete the Jája & Pája series followed together with Narkoblues, a short directed by Pojar and co-produced by Canada’s ONF.

Jája & Pája, end of 1997 credits

The crew for those shorts was essentially the same people who did the 1992-94 Pat & Mat episodes. Even Marek Beneš, who in his bio lists that in 1996 he left the studio to work on cable network’s news programs, is listed as contributing to four Jája & Pája scripts. Seemingly, all was well with the studio.

The episode's production

Before the studio completely dissipated, they had a chance to enter another competitor for Annecy in 1999 and that was Playing Cards. From the credits listed, we can see that the episode was written, storyboarded, completely animated and directed by František Váša, which means it must have taken at least four months to produce, given its length. This credits listing also uncovered a very interesting fact ― that the voices of the characters were provided by a famous Czech actor, David Nykl. In a 2005 interview, here is what he had to say about his roles:

Michal Podhradský’s animation studio in Prague, they have the rights to Pat and Mat. And so it was that they wanted to do, which I think was completely ridiculous, an English version in which they spoke. They wanted to sell Pat and Mat to England and because of that they were going to dub them and they would speak English. Them talking is totally against everything. That’s absolutely... However, they gave me about three episodes to write something with them. That was a long time ago, eight years ago. To write something about this in English and eventually dub it. It was then dubbed, but only in a version that went into production, it was never broadcast, thank God! So I have written that I dubbed Pat and Mat in a bit of a humorous way.

As you can see, Nykl wasn’t overly satisfied with his involvement in this short. The episode was in fact completed and this is what its director briefly said about it in an interview for Anifilm festival in 2014:

When Luboš Beneš died, I finished five episodes of Jája and Pája, and one episode of Pat and Mat, which was selected for competition in Annecy in the late 1990s. But due to lawsuits with the heirs of Mr. Beneš it could not be released.

Interestingly, the last sentence of this reply is absent from the Czech version of the same interview, so whether Váša really uttered those words or if they were recklessly added on by the editors remains ambiguous. 

Váša working on episode #48 (source unknown)

However, this reply does open up the Pandora’s box of questions about the fate of the studio after completing the episode. The current Wikipedia page about the series has the story going like this: Lubomír Beneš and Jiránek's original plan was to make further episodes of the new series, and possibly also half-hour episodes and a feature film. However, these projects were never realised due to a breakdown of relations between the creators of the episode and the management team from the Prague aiF Studio after Lubomir Beneš's death. Wikipedia is not a site to trust, but it does have a role to play in this text. This summary is almost correct, but it has one obvious mistake: the creators of the episode and the Prague management team are one and the same. And, the question remains: where did it go wrong? The argument that Jiránek and Marek Beneš deliberately withdrew their rights to the characters from the studio was always baffling to me. The studio spent months working on the episode and would have certainly not started its production had they not possessed the rights to the characters, right? And in any case, the episode was produced by the people with whom Jiránek and Beneš had worked up to that point. It all seems very strange until you find out the conflict didn’t really happen over the episode.

What happened? The bankruptcy and dissolution of aiF Studio

As I’ve previously hinted, the people of the studio have seemingly stayed quiet about its fate. Why seemingly? If we take a trip (thanks to the powerful Wayback Machine) to the aiF Studio website as it looked like until 2005, we will find strong accusations levied against the Prague management.

The section of the site dedicate to the history of the studio goes into some more detail:

THIS ADDRESS IS NO MORE VALID! WARNING - YOU MAY PROBABLY STILL FIND BOTH CROOKS AT OUR OLD ADDRESS. HOWEVER THEY HAVE NOTHING (OR NO MORE ANYTHING) TO DO WITH THE PAT & MAT/...AND THAT'S IT! SERIES, NOR ARE THEY TRUSTWORTHY PEOPLE TO WORK WITH. ONE NASTY EXPERIENCE IS ENOUGH, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GET INTO THE SAME TRAP AS WE DID - STAY AWAY FROM THEM. (WHAT HAPPENED?! SEE HERE) WHAT HAPPENED ?! - And the "best" ***), that's the end of the old AIF Ltd: The commercial success in the international market of the Pat & Mat/...and that's it! series - achieved by AIF Zurich - tempted the Prague "management" to divert considerable amounts into their pockets. The author's - and AIF founder's - heirs at first offered these two pals the chance to return the money. So did we, the others of AIF Prague. The two declained, and so in the end of 1998 AIF Ltd has been filed for bankruptcy (well, yes, however...)But here's the real best, and - what's even better - no end: All the professionals are around, and enjoy their work. Although not at the same place as they were while Lubomir Benes was around...And what about the crooks?! (Try to find one of them in the picture.) They try to keep the money, but perhaps will have to give it back one day...

The website, therefore, explicitly accused the Prague management of embezzlement of funds provided by the international distribution of the series. That distribution was handled by Vladimir J Rott, the manager of aiF Zürich and also the operator of the website, who still keeps it online in memory of Lubomir Beneš, but without the listed paragraphs. 

the story from the website

Ultimately, it seems it was his relationship with the producer and manager of aiF Prague, Michal Podhradský, that was broken, which started the chain of the studio crumbling. Rott (or someone writing on his behalf from a German IP address) expanded upon this story in an edit on Wikipedia’s page from 21 November 2012, which has since also been deleted. The text read, with his additions to the previous text underlined:

The original plan, of Lubomir Beneš and his development partner, was to make further episodes of the new series, possibly also half-hours, and a feature film. Its implementation, however, did not come into effect – due to embezzlement of funds and trust by two members of the former Czech management. And – as made without any knowledge of Lubomír Beneš' heirs – it was the only episode filmed that was not distributed or released as the Zurich management member, also worldwide distributor, refused to do so, while terminating any contacts to the Prague former colleagues.

Lubomír Beneš died in 1995, and the two of the Czech management of the then quickly dissipating Prague AIF Studio didn't have access to the rights to the characters anymore, as Marek Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek left their studio in grave disagreement with them. The Prague management planned to get the rights from Lubomir Beneš's heirs, but they had to sort the embezzlement part first. One of them even promised to do so in a meeting with the angry team, yet soon after they completed the episode they decided to declare bankruptcy. Due to these circumstances, this episode has never been released or distributed.

As such, the episode seems to have been caught in the crossfire of the studio getting bankrupt and the studio got bankrupt because two of its members, according to Rott, stole money from it. Bear in mind these allegations are the ones put forward by Vladimir J Rott. This is not a trial or a definitive verdict on what happened, but a text that tries to pick up everything written about the situation that it possibly can. I am here to provide what I’ve uncovered and if you are reading this, you are entitled to your own opinion and view. In any case, if anyone involved in the story wants to shed more light into some of its aspects or anything related, you are welcomed. Any feedback from the people actually involved would be more than welcome, especially those on the “accused side” in this text so far.  

The studio in official documents

To continue along this path, we must look at the history of the company AIF společnost s.r.o. (translated as AIF Ltd.) on the official business registers of the Czech websites like kurzy or penize. They tell the history of the company through the ages. It was registered on June 12, 1990 and liquidated on January 10, 2012, which shows just how long the bitter and painful process of disbanding the studio lasted. The sites also link to the Public register by entity, which contains several documents that shed more light on the situation: founding documents, financial statements, liquidation proceedings and the like. 

logo as seen on Pat & Mat

The documents reveal that the studio was founded in 1990 as AI.F.V., short for Aim For Vision. The name was officially changed to AIF in 1993, although I've seen it given as aiF on VHS tapes even in 1990. Its headquarters were located in Na Doubkové 8, Prague 5 (until 1997 it was registered at Čechova 829, Roztoky near Prague). Its scope of business included 1) the creation, implementation and sale of audio, audiovisual and other recordings on media of various technical designs, art designs and works, including business, financial, service and marketing operations, activation, transportation for own use and services related to the company's activities, including promotion 2) contractual acquisition of all necessary authorizations for literary and artistic works, as well as performances of performers in performing these works, or the rights of producers of phonograms and sound recordings, the rights and possession and use of security documents, technology, know-how and other technical information and the execution or intermediation of the transfer of such rights and authorizations. Pardon the translations; I do not speak Czech much, my vocabulary of the language is small, while the knowledge of its grammar only stems from its likeness to Croatian, so if there are any mistakes, feel free to correct them. 

The company was founded on May 14, 1990 by Lubomír Beneš, Marek Beneš, Vladimír Jiránek and Michal Podhradský, while from 1993 onward its shareholders with a deposit also included Jan Bouzek, František Váša, Ivan Vít, Vladimír Rott, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly and Jan Tippman. All of these names formed the core crew that made Pat & Mat episodes in the studio and are known to anybody who has visited my credits page.  

3/4 of the studio in 1994 (photo: vjrott.com)

The studio's statutory authority was composed of three of those people acting as secretaries: Michal Podhradský, Ivan Vít and Vladimír Rott. The detective in you has deciphered that the people branded as “two crooks” by Rott are therefore Podhradský, the producer, and Vít, the cameraman. The company was started with a capital of 100 000 Kč. In 1993, it reached 250 000 Kč, which was lowered to 225 000 Kč in 1997. The studio’s bankruptcy was declared on August 24, 1999. Liquidation was started on August 11, 2008.

I skimmed through the documents available and found an interesting section which reveals the episode’s current status: 

The only registered assets of the Company as of the commencement of liquidation were assets handed over to the liquidators by the bankruptcy trustee, namely funds in the bank account of the company totaling CZK 2,123,891.36, ČSOB in the total amount of CZK 74,901.92 and the rights of production of the audiovisual recording to the audiovisual work ― an unfinished episode of the animated series "Pat and Mat" entitled “Karty”. (...) Since it was not possible to sell the manufacturer's rights to Pat and Mat's “Karty”, this work was transferred to the NFA. With the termination of the company, the rights to this work also expire.

the section of the document

The NFA is, of course, the Czech National Film Archive. Czechs reading this, you know what do ― a better copy is waiting to be made.

animation people

 

You have seen the unceremonious end of AIF Ltd. But, it was not the end for the studio itself. In 1994, a sister company named aiF Productions Ltd. was founded. Its scope included 1) agency activity in the field of culture 2) purchase of goods for resale and sale and 3) production and sale of blank audio or audiovisual records and sales and rental of recorded media. So, the company was presumably founded to distribute aiF’s works. Its only members were a familiar trio: Michal Podhradský, Ivan Vít and Vladimír Rott. In July 1999, so one month before AIF’s bankruptcy, Rott was removed from the company and the company’s name was changed to animation people Ltd. 

So, animation people are in fact the old aiF Studio and, to go back to the beginning, they could upload the screenshots and clips of Karty because they, in fact, produced the episode. They are located in Na Doubkové 8, the same address as the old aiF Studio. Michal Podhradský is listed as its owner, while Ivan Vít is the co-owner. In a 2014 interview, František Vaša confirmed this:  

The aiF Studio is now named animation people, but I’m no longer part of it, I only work with them frequently. The name changed because aiF Studio ceased to exist as its original co-founder Lubomír Beneš died. Disputes arose regarding heirs and it all ended slowly. That way the old studio aiF died and the new studio animation people was formed. From the original studio there remained the cameraman and the producer and with them I often collaborate.

To animation people’s credit, they have continued to work in the studio up to this day and produce high-quality films with greats such as Pojar and Jiří Barta. Also, several people have worked for both “sides” in this process; for instance, master animator Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly regulary works for Patmat film and animation people, whose leaders would probably not say hello to each other if they bumped into each other on the street. Michal Podhradský is also on the Board of Directors of CEE Animation, previously known as the Visegrad Animation Forum.

Reasons for the conflict 

Around 2000, copyrights to most of the episodes were transferred to Ateliéry Bonton Zlín, a process which I haven’t been able to find anything about. However, the episodes produced by aiF were not included in the deal at the time. A 2003 article in the Hospodářské noviny by Aleš Borovan reported on the struggles for the copyrights of 14 episodes, which were in fact the story of the studio going bankrupt. It reads:

The well-known bedtime story in a dispute over money

Millions of crowns are demanded from AIF by makers of DIY stories "A je to!".

The popular bedtime story with a pair of handymen Pat and Mat is doing well. A few days ago the television channel Fox Kids bought 26 of its episodes from Ateliéry Bonton Zlín. Over the same bedtime story, but a different series, a dispute arose in which the authors of the series demand millions of crowns. The trial will take place in Prague in May. At the heart of the dispute is the sale of a series of 14 shorts, which originated in AIF in the early 1990s. AIF was founded in 1990 by the "father" of the series Lubomír Beneš together with Vladimír Jiránek, Michal Podhradský and Marek Beneš. Lubomír Beneš, who directed Pat and Mat, is, together with Jiránek, the author of the bedtime story’s design, while Jiří Kubíček is the co-author of the literary story. According to Radek Tomas from Rabitt & Rabitt, who represents Jiránek, the litigious parts were sold to South Korea without paying the authors the relevant fees. According to him, the sale was made by one of AIF’s managing directors, Michal Podhradský. "The amount owed is in the millions of crowns range. For this reason, a couple of years ago bankruptcy for AIF was filed," Tomas said. At present, the rights to Pat and Mat, which were created at the end of the 1970s, as well as to the new series, are owned by Ateliéry Bonton Zlín. However, former AIF managing director Podhradský, currently working at Animation People, dismisses the charge. "The series was sold to South Korea by another managing director, Vladimír Rott. The essence of the dispute, though, lies in the control of the copyrights for the Pat and Mat series. When all the previously produced parts were being prepared and new parts were being filmed, part of AIF's shareholders sought to dominate the process. They stepped up their demands in an effort to take over the management of the company and drive the started machine. One of the motivations were also efforts to prevent the prosecution of one of the partners for the illegal sale of the rights abroad. Paradoxically, they demanded a fee from the company, even though it was already paid to them by this partner," Podhradský said. The total amount required by the authors of the bedtime stories for the above-mentioned foreign sale is 3.5 million crowns.

It is then left for us to conclude that one of the disputes that ended the studio was the sale of the episodes to South Korea. Judging by the article, Podhradský has, as would be expected, accused Rott of the alleged deceitful dealings. Whether they indeed happened or was the studio, as Podhradský claimed, victim to a power struggle for the characters is open to your interpretation. Interestingly, Karty was released exactly on the South Korean market, where Pat & Mat were a smash hit and initiated a whole range of merchandise products. Whether the episode's release on VHS was an honest mistake or a deliberate disregard by the studio is not known. 

Also, the first DVD with Pat and Mat episodes ever published was released around that time, to be more precise on October 4, 1999, by Digital Media Production (DMP) from Prague. 

Its producer was listed as aiF Studio, even though they declared bankruptcy a couple of months before. The DVD featured 10 of the 14 episodes produced by aiF in 1992 and 1994. The menus featured the wallpaper used in the episode, with some of the menus also featuring snapshots from the episode. 

The 14 episodes were from then on removed from distribution until 2007, when ABZ acquired the rights to them as well. The same year they released their own collection of those episodes, which featured the same masters used on the 1999 releases. 

a promotional pic from ABZ which would definitely NOT help the Iranian man from the beginning of the text

In different interviews, Marek Beneš has mentioned going through long-lasting lawsuits for the rights to the characters, but has recently said that he now possesses a licence for the characters (or, to be more precise, the licence for the production of new episodes, as the rights to the characters belong to himself and Jiránek's heirs) and is the only person allowed to direct any new episodes, which he has done from 2009 onward. The distribution rights to the 77 episodes produced until 2004 remain with ABZ, that is, Bonton, its parent company. This concludes the meandering history of the copyright battles that ended aiF Studio in its original incarnation.

Conclusion

To end this text, we should return to the episode itself. All things considered, it is a pretty good episode. It was pretty ambitious ― an official Pat & Mat episode would not be filmed in the 16:9 format until 2009. The episode is definitely the most cinematic produced until that time and one of the few taking place completely at night. Near its end, even a fade-out effect is used, something which, I think, wasn’t done before. The episode was filmed on multiple sets, one of which was also the previously unused basement, where several old props were utilised, even the gulaš can from Tapety. I hope these props still exist at animation people.

So, technically, the episode was produced on a higher level than those made before. Different mouth expressions for emotions were also used in this episode (a first since 1981), while the shirts were interestingly used to cover up the mouths in some scenes, which didn’t work too well. The voices don’t add much, even though Nykl puts in a few funny lines (“What are these little red things?”). I’m typically against these characters having voices, so maybe I’m a bit biased.

The episode is not really about cards. It’s about Pat and Mat catching a fly which prevents them from playing cards. There are some really funny scenes in their interaction, especially when the two try to catch the fly in glue paper. Even though the episode is longer than all the rest, it isn’t really felt. So, it’s a shame that it never got properly released and the cards were stacked against it from the outset. Hopefully, one day we will see it in a more appropriate copy.

 

That does it!