I’m gonna post my list of
ZERO numbers (1934-1968), which is what I’ve been working on lately. These are mostly taken from the Dutch masterlist (
http://filmnummers.nl/), but enhanced by more than a few corrections and additions by yours truly.
Considering that the highest known ZERO number is
#06854, out of the nearly 7,000 titles that received one of these MPA “special” certificates, this list contains a meager
865, less than 12%. A staggering SIX THOUSAND, or 88% of the total ZERO numbers remain unknown, at least to me. The longest sequence of consecutive numbers in this lists is only 6, while the constant empty gaps are enormous.
Out of these known 865, the vast majority,
659, are short films, the vast majority among these shorts are cartoons, and the vast majority among these cartoons come from one single company (Paramount) and one single studio (Famous Studios), the factory founded by the Fleischer brothers that churned out hundreds of Popeyes, Betty Boops, Little Lulus, Caspers, etc., etc.
Conspicuous exceptions from this overwhelming short film dominance are Famous Studios’ own 2 feature films (Gulliver’s Travels & Mr. Bug Goes to Town) that received both ZERO-numbered certificates in 1939 and 1941, but these duo are far from being the only feature films in the ZERO list.
The ZERO certificates were regularly issued to scores of foreign movies, (more than
200 are in this list), from 1934 til at least 1948. For obvious reasons, the vast majority of these are British (3 are Hitchcock films), but there’s also some movies from countries like Italy, Switzerland, Mexico and probably others. Finally, there were a handful of U.S. documentaries and other similar rarities that received ZERO numbers.
However, I’ve come to the conclusion that at some point around the year 1948, this policy changed as foreign movies started to receive regularly non-ZERO “normal” certificates, and therefore practically disappeared from the ZERO “ghetto”. From there, (the latest of the late-40s movie in the list is #04733) until 1968, there’s only the odd isolated British movie in 1955 and a U.S. Roger Corman movie in 1967, and everything indicates that the remaining of the ZERO list (1948-1968) is composed almost exclusively of short films, overwhelmingly of the cartoony kind.
The way the list is organized is simple: NUMBER-TITLE-DIRECTOR. If you don’t like it, make your own. The “S” denotes “Short”, those without an “S” are movies. Five question marks denote unknown directors (on IMDb) or dubious numbers.
On a personal viewing perspective, I’ve seen only 12 of these, all movies. I have the whole Popeye series on my watchlist on HBOMAX, so when/if I get around to it, I’ll be able to check a few hundred more.