Fundraiser: Help Preserve Two Rare Bray Cartoons!

Dear friends, fellow researchers and animation fans...

Many of you are probably familiar with my Bray Animation Project. Over two hundred cartoons have already been collected, and a LOT of time is spent seeking new titles to add to the film collection. However, the film prints found are not always in good condition. Such is the case for two very rare Bray cartoons from the mid-1920s.

Col. Heeza Liar’s Knighthood (1924) and Dinky Doodle in Just Spooks (1925) are held here in, so far, seemingly the only known film prints. Both of these films are early Walter Lantz directorial efforts but, unfortunately, these seventy-year-old 16mm prints are suffering from a progressive form of vinegar syndrome and they may not be easily copy-able for much longer. Thankfully, though, the picture quality of both is really very nice, and they are definitely worth preserving due to the scarcity of prints of these particular two titles. They may turn up again in other, old 16mm prints, but we never can know the condition of film prints that will be found in the future. Why leave the survival of these two cartoons to chance?

Like many of the other Bray cartoons in the collection, they should be copied to a digital HD format and should be made accessible to the public at some point. However, I don’t consider digital copying to be a proper preservation. These should be preserved in the actual format in which they currently exist--16mm film. Thankfully, this is not impossibly expensive to do, but it is still too costly for me to do on my own. So, I’m looking to the community here for some help and I think we’ll all benefit! 

What I’d like to do as an incentive for you to help is offer my Tom’s Vintage Film/Cartoons On Film unrestored silent animation DVD collections to all at a sharp discount of 3 titles for $20. That’s three DVDs for the price of one. The list of DVDs can be found at http://cartoonsonfilm.com ...this would be a great opportunity for some of you to add a bit more early animation to your collections. 

Some more aspects of the offer:

-This offer is only good for DVDs with a catalog number, not letter code. For instance, discs TS-01 thru TS-45 are part of the offer, but not discs like TS-H or TS-W. 

-Discs that are part of this offer will come in paper sleeves, not standard plastic cases. I will still include the plain DVD case paper inserts with title info if needed.

-I ask for a minimum order of $20.

-For orders of $40 and up, shipping within the US will be free.

-Paypal is strongly preferred.

-You’ll also receive a DVD copy of the two Bray cartoons that we’ll be trying to preserve!

About $500-700 will be needed to make this preservation project a reality. I’m hoping that as a community, we can all come together to make this happen...and I thank you all in advance for your help!

I’ll be pushing this fundraiser throughout October/November and will see how possible preservation will be in the beginning of December.

For all inquiries, reach me at cartoonsonfilm (at) gmail (dot) com

Many Thanks,

Tom Stathes