Aristocats Panorama — 1972 & 1976 (GK232/1)

The four GK232 Character Panoramas were printed in 1976, but all of them are reprints of earlier Waddington/Letraset Character Panoramas.

The release dates for the relevant films were:

Jungle Book:
 — US: 18th October 1967
 — UK: 21st March (or 18th November) 1968
 — France: 11th December 1968

Aristocats:
 — US: 11th December 1970
 — UK: 27th December 1970 (or 22nd November 1971)
 — France: 8th December 1971

Bedknobs & Broomsticks:
 — UK: 7th October 1971
 — US: 13th December 1971

The Aristocats Panoramas first appears in the Waddington's trade catalogue for 1971.

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These Panoramas were originally produced for John Waddington Ltd., but after their divorce Letraset claimed ownership of the Panorama title & format by means of these reprints.

Letraset re-used the artwork & simply eliminated any references to John Waddington Ltd.

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Here's the GK232/1 sheet. You can see that the cut sheet is divided into two panes.

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However, these two panes form just the right-hand half of the four Mako Calco / Mako Calcorama sheets produced by Comano, as you can see from the following illustration, which shows the Mako sheets on the left (N.B.: there's also a "Mickey et ses Amis" sheet in there, too… whoops!):

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The 1976 version of this Panorama would have come with the GK232/1 transfers shown, of course, but the 1971 version could have come with either the same pair of panes, or the two panes to the left of them — at random.

The Comano 1972 catalogue lists nine Calcoramas, four of which (shown here) have Panorama connections. "Aristocats" is at the top left of this scan. The three-foot wide background is only slightly similar to the much smaller Aristocats Panorama background.

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The Aristocats Mako Calco sheets are numbered 4408, & the catalogue says they are "New for 1972". It looks like Waddington's published first, ahead of Comano's corresponding Mako Calcorama.

Picture Credit: The SPLAT Scan Archives