Mondays can be a bummer so here's some nice Scrappy drawings (click to engorge).
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Hold Everything
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A dirty pan
from the 16mm "I Feel Like a Feather in the Breeze" (Fleischer Screen Song, 1936) - one of my favourite Wiffle Piffles. Unfortunately a film break eliminated a bit at the top. I love this BG - I have no idea why (click to enlarge).
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Ghost Gallery 2
It's been a long time since I posted anything (I have a long pretentious post in the works) so, for the moment how about some more great cartoon ghosts!
"The Nut Factory", a Cubby cartoon from 1933, has one of those plot-lines that could have only happened in the early 30's. Cubby is a detective called in to solve the mystery of some missing dentures. He is detoured through a haunted house for some reason (I guess because the footprints led there) before finding out that squirrels have the dentures. Makes sense to me. Love the inverted bowling-pin ghosts!
'gotta match?'
"Ghost Town Frolics", a Meany, Miny, Moe cartoon (mislabeled as an Oswald) from 1938, comes from the most maligned period of the Walter Lantz studio. Although the monkey protagonists are nothing to write home about (the studio had no engaging characters in the late 30's), there are some great ghosts such as the dancing condoms above and some terrific mood.
I love the opening - times are tough in the world of ghosting. Bummer.
Ghosts are bitter.
Dick Huemer had already been gone two years by the time of "Scrappy's Ghost Story" (Mintz Studios 1935) but there continued to be some very good Scrappy cartoons. Among those was this one - a true ghost extravaganza! The following year the series took a plunge in quality unrivaled anywhere else in animation.
The ghosts in this cartoon have a strange doily-like fringe at the bottom and fingers like open sausage casings or some sort of deep sea plant life.
An Iwerks-ian moment. I would love to see a 35 print of this some day ...
Oddly enough, I became familiar with the cartoon's soundtrack before even knowing what it was from. The song "I'm a Ghost" appeared as an unlisted 'hidden' track on the CD "Halloween Stomp" (1990, Jass Records)
a wonderfully atmospheric scene of Oopy dancing in front of the fire.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Influences? (wild speculation)
Just for fun I'm going to take a biiig stretch but hey, that's what blogs are for right?
Something I've always wondered about was the cross pollination of entertainment in the 'golden age'. We all know the stories of how artists from other animation studios would visit theaters showing Disney films to try and figure out new aspects of animation. But was the flow of inspiration one way only?
The first thing I ever noticed in this regard was the opening to "A Car-Tune Portait" (A Fleischer Color Classic cartoon from 1936) and its similarity to a much better known film: "Fantasia" from 1940. Did the Disney artists see "A Car-Tune Portrait"? Were both influenced by something earlier?
"A Car-Tune Portrait" (1936)
"Fantasia" (1940)
To stretch even further is this scene from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) wherein Dorthy and Co. get spruced up for their meeting with the wizard and a similar 'sprucing up' sequence from 'All's Fair at the Fair' (1938).
"The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
"All's Fair at the Fair" (1938)
Obviously the simlarities are less evident here than the example above. However the color styling (greens), the influence of art deco (which is I suppose not unusual for the late 30's ) and the general concept (a futuristic salon) do bear perhaps a tangential relationship.
The likely suspect connecting the two is the poster and advertising design of the two major World's Fairs of the 30's: Chicago and New York. Even so, I am always for some reason reminded of "All's Fair at the Fair" whenever I see the Emerald City sequence of 'Oz'.