Ghost Gallery 1

While on the subject of things haunted here are some grabs from some of my favourite ghost cartoons. They did a lot of these in the 30's and most of 'em are pretty good. Not that 30's cartoons ever made much sense but I think once the cartoon had a supernatural setting the artists were able to go even a little wilder then they might have in, for instance, a typical barnyard type scenario.

'Snow White' has to be the king of all ghost cartoons. 'Swing You Sinners' has more but there's something really satisfying about seeing Koko the Clown turn into a ghost ... I have no idea why. 

You don't see much of the ghosts until the end of 'I Heard' but it's well worth waiting to see that ghost light his cigar with a bomb! 

It's really sad that 'Swing You Sinners' isn't widely available except for an expensive French PAL DVD set. There are a lot of ghosts in this one but my favourite has to be the razor ghost. 'Brother, you sho gonna get your face lifted ... and a permanent shave"!

'Midnight Frolics' ranks among the best cartoons to be produced from the Color Rhapsodies series. I like to think of this as Iwerks' swan song (although I'm not really sure how much, if at all, he animated on it) before returning to Disney.

*can anyone out there tell me who was animating at Iwerks at this time? I think I read Natwick was there at this time (free-lancing) but who else?*

More Ghosts later!