Today, the spotlight's on "pixillated" content, since last weekend's post plugged Cartoon Carnival, which is presenting a stop-motion show, Peculiar Puppets vol. IV at NYC's Roxy Cinema tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 p.m. EST.
Kicking a very animated Stop-Motion Saturday off: a documentary about the incredible Willis O' Brien (1886-1962), the prehistoric world-creating genius behind The Lost World, King Kong and Mighty Joe Young - and the animation genius who inspired Bob Clampett to make cartoons.
Follow that by delving deeply into a Willis O' Brien playlist and then watching this piece on the great artist O'Brien mentored, Ray Harryhausen.
LOVED seeing The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason & The Argonauts on the big screen!
The new Blu-ray set of Harryhausen classics is a keeper.
Like director and dyed-in-the-wool animation buff Joe Dante, we're big fans of George Pal.
The stop-motion fans at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are especially fond of the George Pal Puppetoons.
Love the 1930's Puppetoons produced in Holland (often as advertising films promoting Philips high fidelity audio products), followed by the series made in America for Paramount Pictures in the 1940's.
The George Pal Puppetoons have been restored, thankfully.
The Puppetoon Blu-rays get our highest recommendation.
Of the restored Puppetoons, especially like volume #3.
There's very cool stop-motion animation on YouTube.
In particular, the Dutch Vintage Animation YouTube channel is quite a treasure trove, including a bunch of classic films by the brilliant Joop Geesink.
How can one follow such blazing stop-motion genius? By watching more blazing stop-motion genius by delving deeply into the incredible work of entymologist turned filmmaker Wladislaw Starewicz (1882-1965).
Hope to see such outstanding Wladislaw Starewicz films as The Magical Clock released on Blu-ray in the United States.
The Starewicz family and Doriane Films have made a few of these terrific films available in Europe.
Could the great-grandchildren of Wladislaw and grandchildren of Irina Vladislavovna Starewicz please, pretty please, travel to the U.S. and remind us dumb American classic movie buffs of the stop-motion animator's greatness and present a retrospective on Turner Classic Movies while you're at it?
Wladislaw a.k.a. Ladislaw Starewicz, Ladislas Starevitch, Ladislaw Starevitch and Ladislaw Starewitch created astonishing cinematic works, first in Russia, then for decades in Paris.
Wladislaw and Irina Vladislavovna Starewicz produced exceptional stop-motion films from 1912 through the end of the 1950's.
When someone innocently asks this blogger, Paul F. Etcheverry (A.K.A. Psychotronic Paul), "what's your favorite film?" one response that always gets the conversational ball rolling is, "that love triangle tale in which all the characters are dead insects - LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!"
We dig the 1922 Wladislaw and Irina Vladislavovna Starewicz gem FROGLAND the most!
The Starewicz masterpiece The Mascot packs more startling and surreal imagery into its 33 minute length than can be found in 140+ minute feature films.
How do we finish a stop-motion Saturday? With the ridiculously talented filmmaker, animator, director, special effects innovator and movie comedian Charley Bowers.
Charley Bowers remains our favorite eccentric inventor in the history of motion pictures! Within that eccentric inventor persona, Bowers merges Buster Keaton's understated style with elements of the equally unconventional and imaginative silent movie comedian Harry Langdon.
After Bowers' starring 2-reeler series for FBO and Educational Pictures (a.k.a. "The Spice Of The Program") ended in 1928, he did make a successful transition into talkies and continued producing highly original (and way-out) stop-motion animation showcases.
The last stop-motion films by Charley Bowers and frequent collaborator Harold Muller were produced in the late 1930's and early 1940's.
One, Wild Oysters, appeared as part of the otherwise undistinguished Animated Antics series released by Paramount Pictures in 1940-1941. Am hard pressed to think of another cartoon that features crustaceans not only as main characters, but as bad guys!
It's likely that the usual suspects at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are finished - at least for the moment - overworking all the superlatives available in the English language when discussing such filmmaking innovators as Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, Joop Geesink, Wladislaw & Irina Vladislavovna Starewicz and Charley Bowers.
The Cartoon Carnival is returning to Bugs Bunny's stomping grounds, Brooklyn.
Tommy's press release elaborates: For this special return installment, the theme centers around something prevalent in the news, lately: the public domain, copyrights inevitably lapsing, and the liberation of Walt's early 'Steamboat Willie' version of Mickey!
In addition to showcasing that beloved and notorious mouse film, we'll have fun with a whole slew of other classic early & Golden Age cartoons, featuring noteworthy characters, that have enjoyed public domain status for the past few years (or even decades).
Come and enjoy the likes of Koko the Clown, the original Tom & Jerry (the humans, not the cat & mouse!), Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Betty Boop, Felix the Cat, Molly Moo Cow, Little Lulu, and others.
The cartoon fun commences at 5:00 p.m. Space is very limited.
For more info & advance tickets, go to cartoonsonfilm.info. There will be a followup stop-motion animation Cartoon Carnival matinee at the Roxy Cinema on 2 Avenue of the Americas on Sunday January 28 at 3:00 pm.
Am I guilty of getting my mind off unending terrible current events news over the past eight years by watching videos of squirrels eating nuts? Yes - guilty as charged.
It turns out there actually is a Squirrel Appreciation Day, which precedes Groundhog Day and in 2024 falls this Sunday (January 21). Am now pondering asking Madame Blogmeister to award me a nut gift bag along the lines of what these squirrels are perusing in the following video.
Is the following fake or real? I don't care - it's entertaining and the model airplane is very cool.
After writing a blog post about sleuths in cartoons on January 12, gave a thought to 1960's cartoon star and sendup of the 007/Secret Agent (Patrick MacGoohan version)/Man From U.N.C.L.E. spy craze Secret Squirrel (in the series produced by Hanna-Barbera, not the 1993 version by Genndy Tartakovsky of Dexter's Laboratory fame).
My favorite aspect of the series is the terrific voice acting by Mel Blanc and Paul Frees as Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole.
Secret Squirrel was among a slew of mid-1960's Saturday morning shows - Magilla Gorilla, Peter Potamus, Adam Ant - that were quite literally pitched at my generation. All these decades later, these series leave me cold, especially in comparison to Jonny Quest and the more satiric competition from Jay Ward Productions and Pantomine Pictures (Roger Ramjet). On the other hand, I find Hanna-Barbera's Yogi Bear, The Flintstones and The Jetsons very enjoyable.
Couldn't finish a post Squirrel Appreciation Day post without a reference to Tex Avery's nose-thumbing anti-hero anti-cartoon Screwy Squirrel. Wally Maher plays the ultra zany protagonist who always has a head cold.
Screwy is a deliberately obnoxious cartoon character, sticking his tongue out at the camera while breaking the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh walls a la Bertolt Brecht - and strictly a vehicle for unrelenting gags.
First saw Screwy Squirrel on TV in the silliest cartoons ever made at a tender age, as a kindergartener, and loved the sniffling wiseguy - don't ask me why.
Would have written to Tex if I knew how in 1961!
Find the least funny of the Screwy Squirrel cartoons, Big Heel Watha, actually pretty hilarious. Has this writer been known to ROFL at dubbed versions of Screwy Squirrel cartoons? Yes.
Tex Avery provides several voices, including that of the dumb dog.
It's not the first time a cartoon studio took this formula and cast it with an aggressively obnoxious protagonist - there's the irritating mouse star of the Lou Lilly Columbia Fable Kitty Gets The Bird, as well as the pre-A Wild Hare loudmouthed version of Bugs Bunny (in Ben Hardaway & Cal Dalton's Porky's Hare Hunt and Hare-Um Scare-Um).
Now, if it is not possible to travel to these classic movie events (either the Cartoon Carnival at Rubulad in Bushwick, NY or the epic Noir City festival at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, CA) - perhaps, as we are, you're snowed in - take heart, yesterday was Dolly Parton's birthday, her 78th - so break out some tunes and listen to her numerous excellent records, alternating with cool stop-motion animation made by Joop Geesink's Dollywood.
In my old stomping grounds, the San Francisco Bay Area, there are events galore, including the 2024 edition of the Noir City film festival at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre.
If you happen to reside in Northern California (or have generous family members or friends with available guest rooms there), by all means check these events out.
Have had the pleasure of seeing many Noir City festivals, which always present an amazing and varied classic movie extravaganza. Also attended a very funny performance of The Kids In The Hall comedy troupe at SF Sketchfest a few years ago.
SF Sketchfest starts tonight and extends through February 4. A bunch of my favorite comics, including Eric Idle and Weird Al Yankovic, will be performing in the 2024 lineup of the San Francisco Comedy Festival.
Noir City 21 at Oakland's Grand Lake Theater kicks off tomorrow night and Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal comedy show, featuring John Fugelsang, Hal Sparks and Frangela, will rock San Francisco's Herbst Theater at 401 Van Ness Avenue this Saturday at 8:00 p.m.
Today's cornucopia of WAY TOO MANY CLIPS, inspired by viewing Jack Kinney's excellent noir-toon Duck Pimples and that "sleuth in training" tested by a Richard Haydn type in the way out Columbia Phantasy cartoon The Vitamin G-Man yet again, involves detectives in animation. That means the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has been. . . Watching The Detectives.
Chuck Jones' Deduce, You Say (1956) strikes me as the best Sherlock Holmes spoof among the hundreds in cartoondom. The usual suspects - Ken Harris, Abe Levitow, Ben Washam, Michael Maltese, Maurice Noble, Mel Blanc and June Foray among others - shine brightly as usual. Did not find a complete version of this online, but the three minutes of Daffy Duck as an utterly inept Sherlock here conveys the Bleeker Street flavor - and the likelihood that Chuck Jones was an A. Conan Doyle fan.
We now segue to 1960, plunging into the TV-toon era with the following. . . Q.T. Hush, produced by Animation Associates. Have had a soft spot for this series since it ran on TV way back when.
This, along with the 1949-1950 version of Crusader Rabbit by Alex Anderson and Gene Deitch's Tom Terrific are among my favorite animated cliffhangers and I love the opening theme that reminds me of Hammond B-3 ace Jimmy Smith. Find the character designs frequently very clever. Here's one of the "capers."
From 20+ years later, there was Inspector Gadget, a TV series with a heckuva theme song and a good premise. Go go gadget femur!
The satiric stop-motion of Robot Chicken took on Inspector Gadget with its usual cutting edge.
Those of us of a certain age, much older than the Inspector Gadget and Robot Chicken audiences, just think of GET SMART and The Bill Dana Show!
On to the topic of terrible theatrical cartoons produced between 1930-1960, here's Buddy a.k.a. Mr. Excitement in Buddy the Detective.
There are two viewpoints here. . . One is that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever watch any Warner Brothers cartoon from the period that commenced when Leon Schlesinger established an in-house animation studio in 1933 (beginning with the infamous - and infamously unfunny - Buddy's Day Out) and ending with the 1935 arrival, not a moment too soon, of Fred "Tex" Avery.
There's something to this; many 1933-1935 Warners cartoons are indeed, unlike the features starring Jimmy Cagney, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, etc. pretty lousy.
Among the turkeys: arguably the single worst cartoon ever released by Warner Brothers, the Merrie Melodie GOIN' TO HEAVEN ON A MULE, made in 1934.
The other viewpoint is that most of these are not all that bad and both entertaining and enjoyable when viewed through the right lens, provided the point of comparison is not Pinocchio, Fantasia, the Fleischer Supermans and the best of the best from 1940's Warner Brothers and MGM.
Infinitely less terrible - actually quite good - is the following 1954 opus from Famous Studios, Private Eye Popeye. It's an international adventure framework, quite entertaining and indicates what the crew at Famous could have done with the right storyline. Formidable voice talents Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Jackson Beck are in top form. Beck plays a jewel thief and does his usual excellent job.
Famous Studios could still succeed when avoiding formula, which is the case with Popeye cartoons from late in the run such as this one and Insect To Injury (1956). There’s no Bluto, eliminating the tired Popeye vs. Bluto over Olive scenario, which Famous Studios beat like the horse in the 1935 Fleischer misfire Be Kind To 'Aminals’. Screen credits note Famous/Fleischer veterans Seymour Kneitel, Tom Johnson and Frank Endres.
Screen Gems, of course, contributed a unique and uniquely strange Sherlock Holmes sendup, The Case Of The Screaming Bishop, to the mix. Along with Deduce, You Say, this is by far the most British of the sleuthing lot and both the stellar voice work and original gag mind of John McLeish are evident throughout.
The running gag about "the best bones of all go to symphony hall" refers to a radio commercial - "the best bones of all go to Carnegie Hall" - from Your Hit Parade.
Tex Avery made a cartoon for MGM featuring a detective based on character actor Fred Kelsey. It is more in the whodunit school than the gumshoe school and, as is Tex' custom, loaded with gags, many extremely funny.
Never to be undone, Bob Clampett at Warner Brothers created the masterpiece THE GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY, starring Daffy Duck as "Duck Twacy." Is this the greatest of all WB toons? It's certainly way up there on the short list. Clampett's crew clearly had a field day bringing to life Chester Gould style bad guys. Rod Scribner's super-rubbery animation alone is worth the price of admission.
In closing, noting that there were at least 500 sleuthing cartoons that could have been included, again, here's Watching The Detectives.
The first music post for 2024 spotlights Great Britain's finest crooner and a New Orleans trumpet great, both born on the 7th of January. The former, the king of British dance bands, was arguably the biggest star of English popular music through the 1930's and into the 1940's. The latter: the essence of New Orleans jazz and blues.
Who was Al Bowlly, prominently featured vocalist in the Fred Elizalde, Ray Noble, Roy Fox and Lew Stone orchestras? Take a listen.
And another. . .
Indeed, he's very, very good and also a heckuva rhythm guitarist. Admittedly, as a devotee of the later 1950's male vocalist style exemplified by Chet Baker, Mel Torme, Nat King Cole, and, of course, the Capitol Records Sinatra, I did not know that much about Al Bowlly or, for that matter, the astonishing early records of Bing Crosby. Both Bowlly and Bing were already quite advanced in their concept and approach to singing when they began recording in the late 1920's.
Good places to start amassing knowledge about the British big band luminary are his Wikipedia entry, the Al Bowlly biography page, all writings about him by Ray Pallett - and the following BBC Four documentary. Then start delving into the 1200+ songs he recorded!
The fabulous Learn the Legends: Musical Performers of the Early 20th Century by the University of Wisconsin at Madison elaborates. . .
Al Bowlly, one of the most popular singers in Britain in the 1930’s, had quite the diverse background. His father was Greek, his mother was Lebanese, he was born in Mozambique, and he was raised in South Africa. His career started with dance bands in the 1920’s that toured Africa and Asia. He made his first recording in Berlin in 1927, singing Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies.” Bowlly then relocated to London and sang with Fred Elizalde’s orchestra. Bowlly’s song “If I Had You” became one of the first recordings by an English jazz band to find popularity with American audiences.
He found some success performing in New York and again in London, but he died during the bombing of London in World War II. His last recording, “When That Man is Dead and Gone,” an anti-Hitler song, was made two weeks before his death.
It could be said that the guys who developed the art of crooning and set the stage for Sinatra were not "Crosby, Columbo & Vallee" but "Crosby, Columbo and Bowlly!"
Born on January 7, 1908 in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans was the great trumpeter and vocalist Henry "Red" Allen.
Have thought of this master musician recently, as my favorite post of 2023, along with the Johnny Mercer tribute, was the one on singing brass players. Very few musicians not named Louis Armstrong could both solo on the trumpet and sing with the brilliance of Henry Red Allen.
One snapshot of his illustrious and prolific career as bandleader and sideman is the following Henry "Red" Allen discography.
One favorite recording is Ride Red Ride a.k.a. Man On A String.
In closing, just in case the excerpts from The Sound of Jazz CBS 1957 were insufficient to whet the musical appetite, here is the CBS special in its entirety. Not a bad way to celebrate musical birthdays.
Cannot overstate how thrilled and delighted this blogger is to be still here, reasonably awake, drawing breath and guzzling coffee on January 1, 2024!
Of course, ringing in the new year means a few generous slugs of More Coffee, my favorite brand!
We shall start today's "OMG we made it through another year - yippee ki-yo ki-yay" post and kick off the new year with some classic cartoons! Here's a favorite of mine that I generally must explain to folks under a certain advanced age. It's a spoof of the very popular Information Please radio program (check 'em out on archive.org), which aired on NBC from 1938 to 1951, and features a caricature of the brilliant pianist, composer, recording artist, author, raconteur and supporting player in MGM musicals, Oscar Levant.
To this aficionado of Incredibly Strange Cartoons, The Herring Murder Mystery presents the answer to the question of whether the Screen Gems studio, between the constant churning of personnel and general upheaval, presented anything remotely resembling an original style? YES - it's in this cartoon!
As close to a noir-toon as they ever got at Disney's, this classic turned up a few months ago in Charles Gardner's splendid Animation Trails series on Cartoon Research. Noted in the Guide to the Virgil Partch Cartoons and Artwork, this Donald Duck opus features an imaginative story by reknowned comics artist Virgil "VIP" Partch and Dick Shaw. Jack Kinney, who helmed some of the greatest cartoons and sequences ("Pink Elephants") ever made by Walt Disney Productions, directed Duck Pimples with his usual panache.
Arguably the closest thing to a "cartoon noir" would be Frank Tashlin's brilliant 1937 Looney Tune THE CASE OF THE STUTTERING PIG.
Many attempted to make "noir-toons" but didn't quite pull it off. Back to the surreal sensibility of Screen Gems, THE VITAMIN G MAN, directed by Paul Sommer & John Hubley (yes, THAT John Hubley), is too way-out and incoherent even for the most dyed-in-the-wool animation buffs, with the exception of this writer, who is fine with utter incoherence and extreme suspension of disbelief in an animated cartoon.
Continuing today's post, a topic near and dear to us at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is impressionists, both old school and new school. This is due to the passings at the tail end of 2023 of Tommy Smothers and Shecky Greene, two outstanding comedians who were not known as impressionists but could do amazing impressions. Tommy's impersonation of Johnny Carson is the best!
Those who saw Shecky at his peak considered him the epitome of the post WW2 era standup comedian, a master of songs, dialects, improvisation, showbiz stories and, of course, Hollywood and recording star impressions, all delivered with linguistic prowess. Alas, we have not been able to find complete sets of Shecky in his 1950's and 1960's heydey as King Of The Vegas Lounges. A contemporary of Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles and Jack Carter, he did appear semi-regularly on The Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show and The Match Game.
The closest thing to a Shecky standup set - unfortunately, his December 16, 1977 episode of the HBO series On Location is M.I.A. - would be his extended appearance on the The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson on November 7, 1975. No doubt Shecky had Johnny ROFL through rehearsal and after the show!
Two impressionists the gang here never tires of are Sammy Davis, Jr. and Bobby Darin, two all-time showbiz greats.
Love Bobby Darin's impressions of Hollywood stars, especially Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and W.C. Fields.
Almost as ubiquitous on TV as The Smothers Brothers in the 1960's was impressionist and cartoon voice ace John Byner.
Here he is on Late Night with David Letterman.
Last but not least in today's New Year's post will be the multi-talented impressionist Keith Scott.
He is also quite the historian and expert on all things voice-over.
In closing, shall note that Keith penned Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's favorite cinema-related book of 2023.
