Monday, June 2, 2008

Paul Terry, Suicidal Thoughts, and Black-Market Television...

...a winning combination! What's cuter in a 1930s cartoon than hearing an adorable but lamenting rabbit sing "I think I'll end it all"? Pudgy, later Oswald Rabbit and others wouldn't have anything on the "scared rabbit".
What more could make this cartoon great? Well ladies and gentleman, this happens to be a glorious BOOTLEG print straight from my 16mm library. Transferred on my new machine is the spectacular "Scared Rabbit" (originally a 1937 Terrytoon titled THE TIMID RABBIT) from my favorite distributor, Astra TV. Crank up the sound folks, this isn't Hollywood lab work...oh, and enjoy the original leader and tail from the film print (you'll noticed "Scared Rabbit" scratched into the negative as it strolls by on both ends) left intact for all you film purists.

4 comments:

Marc Deckter said...

Nice! That fight at the end is terrific - three cheers for Astra TV!

Linda Glover said...

I do remember the same opening/closing themes (the opening one sounds almost "military") on the redrawn version of Kiko's Cleaning Day" ("Spring Cleaning") I used to have.

Tommy José Stathes said...

I'm curious who composed the themes or where they were lifted from...of course there are questions that may never be answered about these bootlegs. Another thing I'm curious of is the stock music used on some of the silents- not the Sharples tracks, you guys will see when I post some more cartoons.

jeffm12012 said...

I assume the sound being almost two minutes out of sync was Astra's problem and not your transfer.

Hey, for years local TV stations here ran a print of Bugs Bunny in "Heckling Hare" that was almost a full minute off sync...and one of Little Audrey in "Song of the Birds" that had the sound track from the 30's Max Fleischer version. And those of course were from the "legit" distributors!