On Sunday at 5:00 p.m. in beautiful Bushwick, weather willing, there will be a new installment in the Cartoon Carnival series, presented by Tommy José Stathes (the guy behind the projector here).
Sunday's extravaganza, 16mm Cartoon Carnival #110: Public Domain will be an extra long show, featuring more than two hours of film material.
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.
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