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The Harvey Entertainment Company

animation production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ5677175
Source-derived summary

The Harvey Entertainment Company (formerly known as Harvey Films and Harvey Entertainment, or simply Harvey, and later named Sunland Entertainment Co.) was the production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics. It was founded in 1957.

A majority of the company's assets were purchased by Classic Media (currently owned by Comcast's owned NBCUniversal via DreamWorks Animation) in 2001 under the in-name subsidiary Harvey Entertainment, Inc., while some remains of the business including the live-action film division were folded within Echo Bridge Entertainment. Today, Harvey Entertainment exists as branding recognition and a copyright holder for the Harvey properties.

History

Early history

The company was formed in 1957 as an entertainment spin-off of its comic book incarnation. At the time, it still had ties with Paramount's in-house cartoon studio, Famous Studios. In the early 1960s, the company created Harvey Funnies, the original entertainment company to produce The New Casper Cartoon Show.

Harvey Films v. Columbia Pictures

On October 28, 1986, Harvey Films filed a lawsuit against Columbia Pictures for infringement claiming that the ghost in the logo of the film Ghostbusters was similar to that of the Ghostly Trio from Casper, specifically Fatso. Columbia argued that Fatso was only a portion of Harvey's, at the time, renewed trademark, and there were three ghosts instead of just one.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Harvey Entertainment Company” as animation production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Harvey, Entertainment and Company.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 2001, 1986—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Harvey, Entertainment and Company providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Harvey Entertainment Company”, the useful work is to connect “animation production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5677175. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 2001 and 1986.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Harvey Entertainment Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Harvey Entertainment Company primary sources, The Harvey Entertainment Company archive and Harvey research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Harvey Entertainment Company”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Harvey Entertainment Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.