Editing United Productions of America (section)

=== Abandoning animation and Toho ===
Saperstein kept UPA afloat in the 1960s and beyond by abandoning animation production completely after the animation studio closed permanently in 1970 and sold off UPA's library of cartoons, although the studio retained the licenses and copyrights on Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing and the other UPA characters. This led to UPA contracting with [[DePatie-Freleng Enterprises]] studio to produce a new animated series called ''[[What's New Mr. Magoo?]]'' in September 1977.

[[Columbia Pictures]] retained ownership of UPA's theatrical cartoons. The studio's TV cartoon library was licensed by Classic Media in New York, and then in 2007 merged into Entertainment Rights in London.

In 1970, Saperstein led UPA into a contract with [[Toho Co., Ltd.]] of Japan to distribute its "giant monster" (see ''[[kaiju]]'' and ''[[tokusatsu]]'') movies in America. Theatrical releases, and especially TV syndication, of the Toho monster movies created a new [[cult movie]] market for Japanese monster movies, and long-running television movie syndication packages such as ''[[Creature Double Feature]]'' exposed the Toho movie monsters to young American audiences, who embraced them and helped them maintain their popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

When Toho began producing a new generation of monster movies in the late 1980s, beginning with ''[[Godzilla 1985]]'', UPA capitalized on its Toho contract and helped introduce the new ''kaiju'' features to the Western world.

Because of its long association with Toho, UPA is better known to cult-movie fans today as Toho's American distributor rather than a pioneer of animated cartoons, but the legacy of UPA is an important chapter in the history of American animation. UPA continued to license the American library of ''[[Godzilla]]'' movies through to 2017 when the rights were transferred to [[Janus Films]]. UPA's contract with Toho also resulted in Saperstein producing [[Woody Allen]]'s first feature film, ''[[What's Up, Tiger Lily]]?''.

Henry Saperstein died in 1998. On January 1, 2000, UPA shuttered its operations, with the assets sold by the Saperstein family, which would later result in the founding of [[DreamWorks Classics|Classic Media]] by May 2000.<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web |url=http://www.awn.com/news/classic-media-acquires-harvey-entertainment |title=Classic Media Acquires Harvey Entertainment |publisher=Animation World Network |date=August 25, 2000 |access-date=August 4, 2014}}</ref> On July 23, 2012, [[DreamWorks Animation]] purchased Classic Media for $155 million and, as a result, UPA is now owned by DreamWorks Animation, which would be acquired by [[NBCUniversal]] in 2016. Although DreamWorks Animation (and later, [[Universal Pictures|Universal Studios]]) now owns the ancillary rights to most of the UPA library, UPA itself (with DreamWorks Animation/Universal) continues to hold the licensing rights to ''Mr. Magoo'', and Saperstein was executive producer to [[Walt Disney Pictures|Disney]]'s unsuccessful live-action feature ''[[Mr. Magoo (film)|Mr. Magoo]]'' in 1997.

Some theatrical feature films are owned by other third-party companies. For example, [[Warner Bros. Discovery]] currently owns ''Gay Purr-ee'' and [[The Walt Disney Company]] owns the 1997 ''Mr. Magoo'' film adaptation.