A day early, we wish our readers a Happy Thanksgiving!
And also seek advice for turkeys. . .
On Thanksgiving, are we super thankful for numerous blessings, including Swanson TV Dinners? YEAH, BABY!
And the fact the silent movies from 100 years ago still exist!
And that those Three Stooges comedies involving Thanksgiving themes are still around, too.
Ever the avid Jay Ward Productions fan, I am ever-thankful for giant Bullwinkle and Rocky balloons at Macy's Thanksgiving Parades.
Rather oddly, am also thankful for the many mishaps that have transpired at Macy's Thanksgiving Parades. As these epic balloon blunders were the cornerstones of our 2022 Thanksgiving blog post, we'll bring 'em back for an encore.
Do I take some measure of guilty pleasure in the unfortunate impalings of gargantuan and not terribly well thought-out parade inflatables? Absolutely, provided I was definitely NOT there in person to witness the balloon-bursting disasters and get clobbered with flying debris!
Thankful for first responders and others with the task of dealing with the aftermath of parade disasters? YES - more than can be expressed!
As always, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remains thankful for classic cartoons!
The great Hugh Harman made a bunch of terrific cartoons for WB and MGM in the 1930's and 1940's.
Have posted the following, Tom Turkey & His Harmonica Humdingers, a homage to Borrah Minnevitch & The Harmonica Rascals, on several Thanksgiving posts - and shall do it again now!
Thanksgiving cartoons starring Daffy Duck (and Porky Pig) are always the right call.
This Sunday, November 23rd, Matthew Ross and our film buff friends from The Lost Laugh are presenting the Kennington Bioscope Silent Laughter show at London’s Cinema Museum. The press release elaborates:
We’ve got a full programme featuring some brilliant silent comedies that you won’t see on the big screen anywhere else, including some being shown for the first time in almost a century! As regular attendees will know, we’re all about telling the forgotten stories of silent comedy: the overlooked performers, the forgotten gems and the long-lost.
So, among the highlights this year are a rediscovered adaptation of the P.G. Wodehouse novel The Small Bachelor (1927), an unlikely pairing of W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks, and a celebration of some of the brilliant funny women often neglected in the male-centred narratives of the silent comedy genre: Wanda Wiley, Mabel Normand, Colleen Moore and Marion Byron.
We’ll also be featuring some familiar favourites, too: Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase all feature in the programme.
The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tip a battered top hat worn by Charlie Chaplin in Making A Living to our fellow film buffs across the pond attending Silent Laughter Day at the Cinema Museum. Tickets are available here.
Is there anyone in the animation business not named Charley Bowers, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett or Frank Tashlin who has crushed a wider range of genres than Bill Melendez (November 15, 1916 - September 2, 2008)?
Don't think so. Did any other artist or filmmaker excel in more avenues of storytelling than Bill Melendez? Nope.
Over a seven decade career, Bill Melendez was an ace animator, filmmaker and ultimately a producer/director supreme. His work was all over the map, including everything from WB and UPA cartoons to the Peanuts adaptations to a 1982 Stan Freberg PBS special to George Schlatter Productions' experimental and blackout-filled TV show Turn-On (1969) to a successful animated adaptation of C.S. Lewis.
After beginning his career at Walt Disney Productions, Bill Melendez worked on cartoons by Warner Brothers and UPA, before directing and producing numerous Peanuts specials. Matt Zoller Seitz from Roger Ebert.com elaborates here:
Here's documentary footage of Bill Melendez Productions.
Fortunately, as Bill lived to be 92, there are lots of interviews with him. Here, Jerry Beck of Cartoon Research and numerous books about animation interviews Mr. Melendez and fellow brilliant animator Bill Littlejohn.
While Bill Melendez is primarily remembered for the Peanuts specials he directed and produced, he was a key animator at Warner Brothers and worked on a slew of outstanding cartoons, including some spectacular ones directed by Bob Clampett.
In the intrepid crews helmed by the aforementioned Bob Clampett, Arthur Davis and Bob McKimson, Bill worked, credited as "J.C. Melendez," on quite a few of the greatest cartoons ever produced by Warner Brothers.
Bill Melendez was among the few to animate for both Warner Brothers Animation and UPA (United Productions of America), the creators of Mr. Magoo and the 1950's animation style known as "Cartoon Modern."
The gang here has a soft spot for Gerald McBoing-Boing.
Especially love the cool graphic design of Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony.
One of the lesser known but marvelous movies from the 1970's is the Melendez adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe.
Bill Melendez Productions captured the essence of Charles M. Schulz' comic strip and successfully brought it to animation.
SFSFF's Festival 2025 begins with Chaplin's The Gold Rush on Wednesday evening and closes with Buster Keaton in Go West.
In between, there will be, among numerous cool classic movies, the 1926 version of Beau Geste, starring Ronald Colman and (as a bad guy) William Powell, three Sherlock Holmes adaptations, The Unknown (1927), co-starring the ridiculously talented "man of 1000 faces" Lon Chaney Sr. with a very young Joan Crawford (that's right, Joanie was young once, way back in the halcyon days of silent pictures and her 1928 box-office smash OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS) and the always excellent Amazing Tales From The Archives.
There will also be a morning Fleischer Studio cartoon show featuring Ko-Ko the Clown in Jumping Beans, It’s the Cats, KoKo at the Circus, KoKo in 1999, KoKo’s Kane, KoKo’s Klock, KoKo’s Kink and KoKo’s Earth Control.
While it will be more than a bit odd to not go to San Francisco's Castro Theatre to see silent movies on the big screen, the Orinda Theater is a very cool venue. Shows by both the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Psychotronix Film Festival have been presented there.
This shall be
the 33rd anniversary KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival and grace the hallowed halls of Room 5015 of Foothill College in the lovely Los Altos Hills.
No doubt the show shall feature the great Joi Lansing and Scopitones will be ready to roll to entertain audiences once again!
Will have more about the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival when December begins and hope hope hope there will be NO problems forthcoming with my passport or the NY-SF flight that will get yours truly to his former stomping grounds, the San Francisco Bay Area.
