Cartoon Roots Kickstarter ends Sunday!

Fans of vintage animation by the Fleischer Studio will be thrilled to hear good news regarding the next Cartoons On Film crowdfunding project, devoted to the 1919-1923 entries in the innovative Out Of The Inkwell series. The producer of the Cartoon Roots series, Tommy Jose Stathes of Cartoons on Film, wrote a detailed post on the Cartoon Research website about it, Out of the Inkwell Restorations? Yes, With Your Help! on February 1.

Here's the promo video (kudos, bravos and huzzahs to David Gerstein, Devon Baxter and Steve Stanchfield) for the new stretch goal and Out Of The Inkwell restoration.



The Cartoons On Film YouTube portal elaborates: "It's official! The next Cartoons On Film crowdfunding project will now also cover a group of rare 1919-1923 Out of the Inkwell films from Max Fleischer. Max's famous Inkwell Clown, in his earliest rotoscoped form, will come to you in brand new 2K scans and restorations from rare archival prints in the Stathes Collection—and only if YOU help make this a reality by pledging on Kickstarter by Sunday, Feb. 7th."

Tommy Stathes adds, “This will be a really good opportunity to go back to a variety of prints and to rehabilitate the films in a way that hasn’t really been done before, especially not in our modern era of 2K scanning and HD film viewing. In doing so, I’ll be able to present some films that a few of you have seen before in far better looking versions, as well as some true rarities that have not been in distribution for decades.”

This is the second Kickstarter by Cartoons On Film in 2021; the first one for the restorations of 15 early silent Walter Lantz cartoons quickly met and exceeded its goal.



Stretch goals have been added to the original Kickstarter to fund the Out Of The Inkwell set. The earliest Koko The Clowns were among "Goldwyn Bray Comics" as Max & Dave Fleischer's studio were among the production crews making cartoons for J.R. Bray.



While the mid and late 1920's Koko The Clown, especially such "Inkwell Imps" vehicles as Ko-Ko's Earth Control, have been frequently screened (and even featured prominently in classic film programs curated by the writer of this blog) and seen as often as any silent era cartoons, including those produced by Walt Disney and Otto Messmer, the earlier Out Of The Inkwells are much more rare and in many cases seldom seen. When it comes to the films of Max and Dave Fleischer - and for that matter Max' son Richard (the director of such unbeatable classic movies as Narrow Margin and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea) - we're ALL IN!

New for 2021: Cartoon Roots, Comique Magazine and Kliph Nesteroff's latest

Wrote the last post, "What We Want For 2021" on the morning of January 6th, when my agenda was to take it slow, have a quiet after-breakfast time and write something inspired by outstanding 20th century music (that trifecta of The Amazing Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Elmo Hope ALWAYS works for me). Alas, practically the moment after this posted, "I read the news today, oh boy". . .

While the violence, mayhem and swaggering idiocy feels alarmingly like an appalling continuation of horrible 2020, the infinitely better topic of today's post, believe it or else, YES, that's right, I said BELIEVE IT OR ELSE, is that actual good things are beginning to emerge, rather sheepishly, in the thus far miserably misbegotten new year. First and foremost, Tommy Stathes has spearheaded a Kickstarter fundraiser to support the upcoming Cartoon Roots Blu-ray/DVD collection, this one paying tribute to the silent era animation of Walter Lantz.



We are pleased as pomegranates to support the Kickstarter and looking forward to seeing the latest Cartoon Roots release, devoted to Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat. Tommy does great work and somehow manages to find cartoon rarities this lifelong dyed-in-the-wool animation buff hasn't seen.



A collection of the top film historians in the country - the best of the best - have joined forces on COMIQUE - The Classic Comedy Magazine, which can be found on archive.org. The roster of writers includes many of our favorites. Among them is Sam Gill, formerly of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (and more recently with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum), who knows more about silent era comedy movies and film history than anyone else walking this planet. I'd be thrilled to see some of Sam's interviews with those both in front of and behind the cameras in the silent movie days find their way into future issues!



Kliph Nesteroff, author of The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels & The History Of American Comedy and the mastermind behind the fascinating Classic Television Showbiz website, has a new book: We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy.

It's officially out in February and can be pre-ordered both here and here. Can't wait to read it! As Mr. Nesteroff has an investigative journalist's instincts and drive to get the story, I expect that We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy will go to areas very few authors have attempted to explore.

Nesteroff's 2015 book, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels & The History Of American Comedy, takes a deep dive into the worlds of nightclubs and standup comedy in mid-20th century America, but not in a way that is pedantic, academic or dull in any way. It remains highly recommended reading.



Mr. Nesteroff, extremely adept of finding the seamy underbelly of show business, is a former standup comic and sees comedy from the inside. From backstage tales of the wisecracking vaudeville and nightclub denizens (and the mobsters who owned the clubs), he constructs an expansive, thoughtful and unsparing overview of 20th century American culture and politics. Add to this a Canadian's take on America and superb reading is the result. For more, listen to the following interviews on WGN Radio and LA Review Of Books.

All that said, I expect to learn a lot from Nesteroff's latest tome and hope he does guest appaearances on such terrific podcasts as WTF With Marc Maron, Norm McDonald Live, Maltin On Movies and Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast to promote it.



Undoubtedly, Mr. Nesteroff will have amazing stories and anecdotes that did not make it into the final book.



While I never had the pleasure of seeing such Native American comedians/satirists as Charlie Hill, quality time spent with standup philosophers from Robin Williams to Richard Pryor to Mort Sahl enriched my life and expanded my perspective in no uncertain terms.

The preference on this blog 99.8% of the time is to stick entirely to 20th century pop culture as subject matter and stay the hell away from current events, but the unspeakably horrible past 48 hours puts us in a .2% scenario. Sadly, this writer is neither surprised nor shocked one bit by this latest turn of events.

All one can say is HOLY SHIT, these are the 1995 Oklahoma City bombers multiplied by 1000!

This is followed by the realization, looking at a rabid, rampaging mob of moronic, violent and vile 4th grade dropout redneck terrorists, a veritable Coup Klux Klan ransacking the United States Capitol, reading about how they, keepin' it classy, smeared feces on the Capitol Building walls and urinated on the carpets (all the while yelling lunatic gibberish and grinning stupid goober grins) and how the coup's ringleaders were trained former police and ex-military officers (no doubt getting revenge for dishonorable discharges), that uncontrolled inbreeding is never, ever a good idea.


Smearing feces on paintings in the Capitol Building and urinating on the carpets are not tactics that will elicit the respect these guys so desperately desire. The Breitbart Brainwashed insurrectionists had the money to travel across the country, spend lots of dough on firearms and stay in D.C. hotels, so they did not represent the hackneyed "Hillbilly Elegy" stereotype, affected by rural poverty.

I don't know if there will be better days ahead, but I will read Kliph Nesteroff's latest and Comique magazine, then enjoy the Cartoon Roots DVDs to take the edge off.

Happy Halloween 2020 from Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog

Tomorrow is Halloween of what has been a horror show year - and a very tough time for all of us at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write To Blog, with the sudden loss of a beloved, esteemed and wonderful mascot to a blood clot earlier this week.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” — Anatole France





The best this blogger can do is confirm that he, unlike our lovable mascot, is not dead, here to write the Halloween 2020 blog post - and that he and Madame Blogmeister have long since mailed our ballots.



We will start Halloween as we do every year with a viewing of the Cartoon Roots series' Halloween Haunts, a ghost, goblin, ghoul and animation rarity-filled DVD/Blu-Ray set from Cartoons On Film which gets the official Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog Red Seal of approval.



The 15 film set is an exceptional compilation of spooky cartoons representing a slew of studios and animation techniques. Here are low-res examples of two gems from the Halloween Haunts set.





All the studios - from Lantz to Mintz to Iwerks - produced Halloween-themed cartoons, in response to the success of Disney's The Skeleton Dance.







The Fleischer studio made more Halloween-themed cartoons than anyone.





Wish there was a post on Vimeo, YouTube or DailyMotion of the complete version of Boo Boo Theme Song, an exceptionally creepy Halloween "Screen Song" cartoon from Fleischer Studios. Here's the one bit from this Screen Song which is up on YouTube: the Funnyboners singing Boo, Boo Theme Song - and spoofing Mr. Showbiz of 1933, Bing Crosby.



Oddly, the 16mm film prints of Fleischer Screen Songs cartoons struck for television distribution by UM&M/NTA often do not feature the live-action song sequences. Frequently, the song segments were cut from the 16mm negatives. One hopes 35mm materials on complete Fleischer Screen Songs are still intact and sitting in an archive (UCLA? LoC? Eastman House? Eye?) or a cold, dark cave somewhere.




We'll follow that up with, rather amazingly, a couple of Walt Disney cartoons. Yes, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, believe it or not, has a couple of favorite Disney cartoons, after "Pink Elephants On Parade" and Goofy in "Hockey Homicide" (and, at #3, the attempted Diz-Dali collaboration, unfinished back in 1946 but completed in 2003).



A few Disney films are actually apropo for Halloween. The following classic, The Mad Doctor, is right up there with Mickey's Garden and Through The Mirror as one of the truly great cartoons from this series - and, for who knows what reason, passed into the public domain. Don't know why - there were many Copyright Catalog errors regarding Fleischer, Famous Studios and especially Van Beuren Studio titles going public domain, but very, very few mistakes involving Disney cartoons.



Another film we love is the Silly Symphony Egyptian Melodies.



Alas, Walt, no doubt planning the move to full-length animated features, put the kibbosh on the surreal and dark imagery seen in the first two seasons of Silly Symphonies. The Mad Doctor could be considered the last gasp of this at Disney, very odd moments involving ducks eating chicken in Donald Duck cartoons notwithstanding.



In Disney's extremely ambitious animated features, the memorable Night On Bald Mountain segment in Fantasia, may have, to some degree, been inspired by an incredible film made seven years earlier by pinscreen animators Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff and Claire Parker. Have not seen a quote from Walt Disney confirming that he was aware of this, but it would come as no great surprise that he did, and that it was one of the inspirations for Fantasia.



The Alexeieff and Parker films were created using a technique even more intensely painstaking and detail-oriented than the animation Disney made showcasing the multiplane camera: the pinscreen.





In closing, here's Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker's 1963 homage to that lighthearted partying guy and literary visionary, Nikolai Gogol, Le Nez. It's even better than Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart and will haunt your dreams.



Happy Halloween from Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, where Don & Waffles, Mutt & Jeff and Alexeieff and Parker all co-exist on the same psychic plane!