Musings of the So-Called Animation Experts

There comes a time when great minds collide and tackle some of the world's biggest mysteries. Or attempt to, at least. You will now have a rare opportunity to have an insider view of one of these conversations, between myself and noted animation scholar Mike Matei. The topic at hand? (immediate pun to the right not intended) Gloves on cartoon characters.
Intellectual pondering it may be...or perhaps eccentric balderdash, that is for the discerning reader to decide.
Warning: Whilst dealing with the discussed topics at hand, we have decided to honor the beloved Will Hayes in censoring this communication for language and content.
MM (11:24:05 PM): well?
TS (2:24:29 PM): d'oh?
MM (11:25:02 PM): why does mickey mouse wear gloves? !
TS (2:25:58 PM): hmm
MM (11:26:04 PM): answer me mother superior
TS (2:26:25 PM): well, I have a complex theory if you want to hear
MM (11:26:32 PM): YES
TS (2:26:36 PM): okay
TS (2:27:54 PM): Well, mice are not humans, so they do impulsive things without thinking about it. So therefore, he must relieve himself and/or minnie a lot, so being born in his generation that's not cool. Wearing gloves, well, probably made him a little less dirty of a mouse.
TS (2:28:37 PM): impulsivity is also the reason he ATE minnie's head in my video cover.
TS (2:28:41 PM): see, it all makes sense
MM (11:28:59 PM): dude
MM (11:29:10 PM): this is why i love talking to you
MM (11:29:29 PM): because you come up with better answers then the real answer
TS (2:29:41 PM): you can bet on that
MM (11:30:57 PM): do you know the real answer?
TS (2:31:48 PM): I think that's a fact best kept secret from the public
MM (11:31:57 PM): ha
MM (11:32:04 PM): I do know the answer
MM (11:32:13 PM): and you will like it
TS (2:32:16 PM): do tell
MM (11:32:21 PM): and its not a joke
MM (11:32:25 PM): this is fact
TS (2:32:31 PM): spit it out
MM (11:32:42 PM): you know felix the cat?
TS (2:32:48 PM): heard of him
MM (11:32:59 PM): what color is he
TS (2:33:11 PM): er, african american
MM (11:33:18 PM): right
TS (2:33:20 PM): ok
MM (11:33:23 PM): he's black
TS (2:33:34 PM): go on
MM (11:33:56 PM): what happens when felix puts his hands in front of his body
MM (11:33:59 PM): answer
MM (11:34:04 PM): they become lost
MM (11:34:15 PM): because his hands are black
MM (11:34:22 PM): and his body is black
TS (2:34:31 PM): Makes sense...and looks better than drawing white outlines
MM (11:34:42 PM): and there tom
MM (11:34:47 PM): is your answer
MM (11:35:00 PM): that is your lesson for tonight!
TS (2:35:13 PM): the societally correct answer, that is. Old theories die hard (-:<
MM (11:35:30 PM): what does that mean
MM (11:35:41 PM): i want you to explain that statement
TS (2:35:46 PM): it's sophisticated balderdash
MM (11:35:53 PM): NO
MM (11:35:58 PM): you said it
MM (11:36:05 PM): now you explain it
MM (11:36:21 PM): before i end up annoying you about it
TS (2:36:25 PM): Well, think of it this way
TS (2:36:55 PM): All the big animation brass sit in a conference room together, cigarette smoke like a nuclear mushroom cloud...1924.
MM (11:37:06 PM): right
MM (11:37:09 PM): ....
MM (11:37:15 PM): and
TS (2:37:33 PM): Now, perhaps they foresee something like the Hayes code coming into effect, who knows when
TS (2:38:00 PM): the moral faction censoring films, that is
MM (11:38:19 PM): okay..
MM (11:38:25 PM): semi following you
TS (2:40:05 PM): What's to say these experts don't agree on something that might appease these heaven-goers...knowing the Catholic church for instance prohibits self-gratification, something animals do quite frequently, it may make sense to voluntarily censor the hands of animals. Just a theory they might not teach you in film school.
TS (2:41:08 PM): or it could pure balderdash. That is for the discerning enthusiast to decide.
MM (11:41:31 PM): did you come up with this idea?
TS (2:41:53 PM): Walt Disney: "Hey! We'll tell the animators we're putting gloves on the characters because it makes sense in animation terms...blah blah blah"
TS (2:42:00 PM): (I may have )
MM (11:42:38 PM): here is my question
MM (11:44:26 PM): how does putting gloves on the hands of animals censor anything? The character is justs walking down the street for example. Why does he need gloves?
TS (2:44:58 PM): It's like how people used to think a woman with uncovered legs was "dirty".
MM (11:45:10 PM): ahahaa
MM (11:45:24 PM): jesus savior christ
MM (11:45:41 PM): could you do me a HUGE favor
TS (2:46:08 PM): what might that be
MM (11:47:03 PM): PLEASE make a blog on everything we said here. it's just too funny.
***
And the rest, fellow bloggers, is animation history. Or is it?

TAD's Cat playing INDOOR SPORTS (1920)

Thomas A. Dorgan, a.k.a. TAD, was a San Francisco native who would be described by Jack Dempsey as "the greatest authority on boxing" in the early 20th century. What does a boxing authority have to do with cartoons? Well, TAD took up drawing for therapy after losing some fingers in a factory machine accident. This led to an eclectic cartooning career as the top sports artist for The New York Journal. In-between all this athletic hoopla, Dorgan was well-known for his Indoor Sports series and more importantly a feline character of his appropriately named TAD's Cat.

Like many cartoonists of the time, Dorgan had a run-in with the big screen. According to Denis Gifford's American Animated Films: The Silent Era, 1897-1924, Dorgan's work was featured in 4 animated films for the International Film Service from 1918-1920. The earlier 1918 films were directed by Bill Nolan and Walter Lantz(presumably 18 years old at the time).
This post features INDOOR SPORTS by TAD, animated by Paul D. Robinson and released February 21st, 1920 in International News, a weekly newsreel.
This cartoon is a satire on the typical married man, his wife's nagging and his loathsomeness for the mother-in-law.

Our man of interest has lost his collar button, seemingly something he does quite often.

Wait, I thought women were seen as foolish with money!

Uh-oh...MUST he go to the mother-in-law's?



A final gag...the eruptive nature of marriage.



BOOOOOOOM!!!

Now, you may be scratching your head in enjoyment (or was it disbelief) and asking yourself, "Where can I find this forgotten masterpiece?" At my sales site, of course!
Nota bena: It shall move to a visually appealing .com soon...promise!
Just look for Rare Silent Cartoons Vol. 1 on the DVD page.

GAC's Mega-Fun UGLY PD Cover Contest...The Results Are In!

This year marked the 5th anniversary of GAC's UGLY PD COVER CONTEST, a fun event in which participants create their own ugly covers for mock Public Domain video and DVD collections.
Don't just sit there, go look at all the lovable entries!
Clicketh HERE

What a hoot. And what's best is I really enjoyed being one of this year's judges for the contest. Who better than me to judge PD shlock? :-D

Now for some fabulous omissions from the contest...namely, some covers created this year by yours truly.

Contest images courtesy GAC's Jon Cooke

All Fabled-Out

Loved by some, loathed by others...that is, the seemingly endless menagerie of cartoons from the studios of Paul Terry. The "Woolworths" of the business as he himself claimed, these cartoons spanning from 1920s onward are typically dubbed cheap, unappealing, and tasteless by 'historians'. What is my opinion? All along, it may be obvious...though I ask my fellow bloggers to form their own neutral, unbiased opinion - based not only on artistry but also by other key elements: entertainment value, content, longevity, profitability, among other things. After all, here was a man who was told his product was worthless in 1915. Despite this, the man successfully animated, directed, and produced cartoons well over 50 years after the fact. This in itself becomes an important factor when judging the Terry cartoons.

A brief history, if you may. Paul Terry completes his very first cartoon, "LITTLE HERMAN", in 1915. A distributor tells him that he would have paid more for the raw film stock before Paul drew his cartoon images on it. In 1916, Terry is discovered by the Bray Studios and completes 12 Farmer Al Falfa cartoons; the beginning of a legacy. 1917 sees further Farmer Al Falfa releases with Conquest Pictures, an Edison Company. After the first World War, Terry partners with Amadee Van Beuren to form Aesop's Film Fables in 1921. Over the course of 9 years, Terry would produce some 420 Aesop's Fables cartoons, some starring the Farmer and all starring millions of countless animals. Though brain fog persists, I want to say that Terry churned out these cartoons every week...an amazing feat for a single series. This accomplishment and its follow-up in decades to come is what we will focus on in this post.

Coinciding with what this blog usually focuses on, up for discussion is the reissuing of these Fable cartoons. Concurrently, it seemed, various Fables were available in America and overseas on 9.5mm offered by Pathe (the films' distributor) for home use. Almost immediately during the 1920s, Kodascope Libraries offered a dozen or so Fables cartoon as part of their 16mm rental libraries. As some of you may or may not know, Kodascope was the Blockbuster Video of the 1920s; a major library where individuals could rent (and possibly buy?) films for home exhibition. As the film cans stated, "Rental Charged for Each Day Held Whether Used Or Not". Kodascope Libraries lasted into the 1940s and so did this small handful of Fables. In-between that period, Pathe also offered many Fables in abbreviated and complete 16mm prints as part of their Pathegrams Home Movie line. Here and there, some Fables were also butchered by the low-end home movie companies like Irwin Safety Film.

The big "Hurrah" for Fables in the 1940s would be their surfacing under two new series titles. Snappy Cartoons, a Sterling Films release, were Fables with new main titles and intertitles with added music offered on 16mm, as well as standard 8mm. Some speculate that the Fabletoons series was a theatrical reissue although it has been unconfirmed. Both types of prints would wind up on television in subsequent years.

The unavoidable new medium, television, would emerge soon thereafter. Since old silent and early sound film was viewed as saleable product for filling in time slots in early broadcasting, the Fables would also see much exposure on television in the early 1950s. Due to the sheer number of pre-existing Fables, as you can imagine, the distribution rights would be split among a handful of different TV distributors. Sterling Television used the Snappy Cartoons prints as previously mentioned. There was also Commonwealth (who also handled many Van Beuren cartoons at this point) as well as Guaranteed Productions and Stuart Productions (these two, probably one and the same, also carried Out of the Inkwell shorts.) Last but not least, there would be the occasional bootleg print of a Fable turning up.

In the 1960s, color television was becoming the standard and old black and white content was deemed useless. In this period we see a heightened availability of 8mm Carnival Films prints of Fables. Although these have cheerful and collectible packaging, they are fearlessly low-quality dupes of older Snappy Cartoons 8mm prints and often suffer great quality loss. That, my friends, is the end of the Fables until casual VHS and DVD collections came along (cough, cough). Hope you enjoyed the visuals as well.

The Infamous Kitty Kat

In the days before home video, there was "home movie". Aside from being able to make your own home movies with a 16mm or 8mm or Super 8 camera, there was a massive selection of pre-produced films you could buy for your projector.
In the 1920s-1940s, you could find many random prints of silent-era cartoons on 16mm being offered by a large number of distributors. While some were complete prints, more often than not you would find butchered clips in lengths all the day down to 1-minute (and less!). The most common length of 16mm silent cartoon clips was 100 feet, or approx. 3-4 minutes (depending on the FPS rate ones projector is set on.)
Anywhoo, it was somewhat common practice to take several different cat character cartoons and rename them "Kitty Kat" for convenience. However, this notion did not really skyrocket until the 1950s and 1960s with the growing popularity of 8mm.
As some of us history buffs might realize, post-WWII America was one hell of a prosperous place. War veterans bought little suburban houses, and their wives happily popped out 'Baby Boomers'. 8mm film was cheap, so this may explain the reason for home movies to boom in this period.
Considering these facts, there was again a need for cheap old content. The bootleggers and distributors found old 16mm Kitty Kat cartoons (among other things) and had their way with even more old films they discovered. This was the birth of the infamous Kitty Kat fiasco. Feast your eyes...but wear protective lenses.
Nota Bena: I've included the Alice boxes simply because Julius the Cat was sometimes thrown in the Kitty Kat mix :-D

Haven't forgotten you!

Howdy-do loyal bloggers and surfers...just letting you know I have not forgotten you nor abandoned this blog. The menagerie of college forms and other tasks appropriate to these times, well, cut into my blogging time. I'll be back soon. :-D
Tom

LLL #3: A Barnyard Mix-Up (1915)

Now, I'm not sure if any Vincent Whitman cartoons survive. This one? Naaaah.:-(

.COM

Things have been busy lately...sorry for the absence of moi from mein blog.
Along with the good people at PWEB | GamerCS (hosting) and with artistic help from Mike Matei, I am currently working on moving my DVD site to a .COM (yay!)
Say goodbye to a bland website and say hello to visual eye candy (for us early animation groupies, that is.)

The Lost Tom Stathes Cartoon

Below you will find a YouTube video of a VERY short animation I did at age 10 or so. In a meager attempt to clean what I call my bedroom (which looks more like a condemned film archive these days), I found these drawings I had made. I scanned them and sent the drawings to my friend Dillon of DANDU STUDIOS, and the outcome was this nice video file.
The animated sequence is only around 5 seconds long. I was going for the look and feel of very early Bray cartoons...and in the fashion of "Mickey Mouse presents", this is a Colonel Heeza Liar cartoon presented by Goodrich Dirt (hah! talk about obscure.)
Now I feel like making cartoons!

Copyright 2007 by Tom Stathes, of course.

Thunderbean's new LITTLE KING DVD

If you're a fan of obscure and ancient cartoons, you'll need to check out the new Little King DVD collection from Steve Stanchfield and Thunderbean Animation.
Our blogger friend Lee Glover has written a well-constructed review of this DVD on his blog, Mice Laugh Softly Charlotte.
Enjoy!

Trans-Atlantic...Children's Favorites...(for real?)

Here's another popular 1980s PD re-hasher you may be familiar with. Trans-Atlantic of Hillside, NJ started putting their tapes with hilarious sleeves out on the market in 1986. In the following years, their sleeves would be updated at least twice and Children's Favorites as a series title would be replaced with the more sleek "Cartoon Favorites" (as you'll see later on.) IIRC, Trans-Atlantic may be one of the handful of companies consumed by Sterling in the mid-90s.
Enjoy the 1986 horror.

The Good, The Bad, and the UGLY: Amos & Andy

If rare is your thing, you'll appreciate these two PD tapes featuring Amos & Andy. We could probably all agree that this duo didn't star in very many PD tapes (aside from the VHS collection of the actual live action show, that is.)
Kids Klassics (1985) vs. Trans-Atlantic Video (1986). Enjoy the 'Rasslin' Match'.

Now for some info on the two Van Beuren Amos & Andy cartoons, graciously borrowed from imdb.com :
The Rasslin' Match (1934)
This is one of the few Amos & Andy cartoons, so you definitely won't see this around much! I have the two cartoons, and they are both hilarious, this one being my favorite. Kingfish somehow manages to get Andy to fight the champ, and of course Andy doesn't do too well, but he does make a few great jokes of course! It's also hilarious how during the big match, Amos and Andy's voices were done seperately than the crowd's cheers but on the same vocal track, so every time they spoke a line, the crowd was silent all of a sudden, then cheered again when they were finished speaking!. But this is serious old-school stuff here, no computer crap, real elbow-grease animation. (courtesy stevenfallonnyc@yahoo.com)

The Lion Tamer (1934)
'The Lion Tamer' is an animated short starring Andy Brown and Amos Jones, two black men with the voices of Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden. I have not seen other cartoons with these two characters and after this one I do not really want to. The story that involves Andy as a lion tamer, a fake lion with two men in a suite, and a real dangerous one is as predictable as these things can be. You can probably guess the outcome by reading the sentence before this one.

Besides the story that is not good we have a racist kind of animation. The black men (and the black audience watching the lion tamer for that matter) are caricatures, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but here it is sort of offending. Of course you should watch pass that, but with a predictable cartoon like 'The Lion Tamer' that's pretty hard. (courtesy rbverhoef@hotmail.com)

Kid Pics goes Jack [Warner] Crazy

Beloved blog fans, here is some more Kid Pics material for ya. If the Disney art didn't scare you enough, there will be much more of that later (snicker). On a sidenote, I did make some observations...not only was Kid Pics a division of Amvest Video, but also of Videofidelity Inc., which itself was a division of Audiofidelity Inc. (whew!). Audiofidelity, from the light online research I've done, seems to have been a huge corporation re-hashing all sorts of music and video material through the years. My next project is to track down the people behind this conglomeration.
Enjoy.

With Disney's blessings...or were they?

That's what Amvest Video, parent company of Kid Pics must have thought. Kid Pics was a cool line of public domain cartoon compilations aimed at kids, of course. The only difference with this company was that it did grab a hold of some rare stuff which was atypical for packagers like their competitors.
Kid Pics was in Rahway, New Jersey but it's very likely that several huge lawsuits didn't help them make it to the 1990s. More on this later, and from the samplings below, you'll probably be able to tell why.

Terry had his influences as well, it seems...*

Here's a rather recent discovery. Apparently, Paul Terry had a boy cartoon character in some of his early Aesop's Fables cartoons.
Here in these screenshots from FEARLESS FIDO (1922), we see what I would call a hybrid of Jerry on the Job and Bobby Bumps.

In my opinion, the character looks most like the Bray Studios film version of Jerry on the Job. This is not a frame from an actual film (and excuse the MS Paint corny-ness) but you can judge for yourself.


Aside from that, the character seems to be dressed a la Bobby Bumps, a big favorite of mine. Tell me what you think.


*Sorry to be quiet lately but I've been a tad busy. More tomorrow!