Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #48 - Christmas Edition

Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Since Christmas is still approaching, let us have another look at some classic Christmas themed cartoons. 

The Max Fleischer Color Classics served as the Fleischer Studio's version of Disney's Silly Symphonies. Like that series these cartoons rarely featured reoccurring characters. It was definitely uncommon to see a character from one of the Fleischers' other cartoon series. An exception was Christmas Comes But Once a Year (1936). This short movie featured Grampy from the Betty Boop cartoons. This is one of the most charming Color Classics and one of the best uses of sentimentality (something that was not the studio's forte) at the studio. Grampy was one of the best things about the later Betty Boop films and he definitely gets to shine here. The title song in this short movie would later be reused in the Popeye cartoon, Let's Celebrake (1938) with the lyrics changed to be about New Years instead. Some of Grampy's household toy ideas would later be used in the Casper cartoon, True Boo (1952). So enjoy this delightful cartoon.
 

Jack Hannah's Donald Duck cartoons were always fantastic examples of slapstick cartoon comedy at its finest. These were fast paced and very funny cartoons that could hold their own with any comedy shorts from any other cartoon studio. Some highlights were definitely the ones with Chip and Dale. These two Chipmunks always perfectly fit Hannah's slapstick sense of humor and they were never funnier than when directed by him. One of my favorite of these films is Toy Tinkers (1949). 

The next cartoon might be a bit of a cheat, because it is about many holidays instead of just one, but so is Holiday Inn (1942) and that movie is always associated with Christmas. Plus this cartoons stars that near and dear friend to you and me Scrappy. This is the delightful, Holiday Land (1934). Unusual for a Scrappy cartoon this film is in color. In fact this short movie marked the first color cartoon from Columbia. This cartoon played for two weeks at the Radio City Music Hall to a very good response and was even nominated for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar (Disney's Tortoise and the Hare (1934) won). A review in The Film Daily called this cartoon "a generally enjoyable cartoon fantasy." In the 1940's this cartoon would receive a 16mm home viewing release. Speaking about Scrappy and Christmas together in 1936 Columbia had a Scrappy Christmas party where various cartoons (most of which featured Scrappy) were shown to Children in the Hospital For Joint Diseases in New York City. Anyway enjoy the cartoon.




Ending this post is a classic silent short movie from stop motion master, Ladislas Starevich. So enjoy The Insect's Christmas (1913). The animation here is not only impressive for being a film over one hundred years old, but it still looks masterfully done today.




Come back next week for more classic Christmas cartoons.

-Michael J. Ruhland

 

Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #30 - Silent Edition

Hello again my friends and happy Saturday morning. As always we are going to greet this morning with some classic cartoons. This week however I will be focusing specifically on silent era cartoons. So enjoy. 

We will start our look off with one of Walt Disney's great Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. This one is a delightful gem called The Fox Chase (1928). Walt must have liked the idea of a comedic fox chase cartoon, as he would use it twice more. These cartoons would be the Silly Symphony, The Fox Chase (1931) and the Donald Duck and Goofy cartoon, The Fox Chase (1938). All three of these cartoons end with a similar gag involving a skunk. This cartoon is an excellent fast paced cartoon of the kind us silent cartoon fans should except from the Oswald series. The animators on this film were Ub Iwerks, Rollin "Ham" Hamilton and Hugh Harmon. Hugh Harmon would later direct a Looney Tune entitled Bosko's Fox Hunt (1931), which would also be about a comedic fox hunt and feature Rollin "Ham" Hamilton as an animator. 

Next comes a classic Russian stop motion film, directed by one of the all time greats of stop motion, Ladislas Starevich. This is The Cameraman's Revenge (1912). This short is a material farce starring very realistic beetles. There is a reason these animated beetles look real. They are. Starevich used dead beetles for his stop motion animation here. This is an excellent film and in my mind one of the classics of silent animation, so enjoy.

Though Felix is often associated with his bag of tricks and high pitched voice of the 1950's TV cartoons. The character is actually 100 years old and starred in many great silent cartoons, before he ever got his bag of tricks. This cartoons were some of the funniest and most creative cartoons of the silent era. Case in point, Felix Goes West (1924). Though only Pat Sullivan gets credit on this cartoon, Otto Messmer was extremely important to the creation of the character and his cartoons. It is a shame he never received on screen credit for his contribution.



One of the most popular cartoon characters of the silent era not from the U.S. was Jerry the Troublesome Tyke. This British dog's cartoons more often than not, excellent films. One of his best cartoons was his very first one, a self titled cartoon from 1925. This cartoon has the very clever premise, where Jerry tries to apply for a job as a cartoon dog. This meta type of humor was surprisingly to those who know little about silent cartoons, not very unusual at this time. Therefore it is hard to this was ahead of its time, but it certainly holds up excellently today.

    
 We close with one of the Fleischer brothers' excellent Out of the Inkwell films. So enjoy, Modeling (1921).



Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more classic cartoons.

-Michael J. Ruhland