Today, March 21, is World Puppetry Day. While this blog has not posted specifically about puppetry before, we've covered stop-motion animated films many times. The January 27, 2024 post Stop-Motion Saturday was devoted to a slew of puppetmaster/filmmakers, including Wladislaw Starewicz, Joop Geesink and George Pal.
Of course, World Puppetry Day invariably gets me thinking of the following tune!
As fate would have it, the singularly most perverse “golden age” animated cartoon features puppets. That would be the 1935 Charles Mintz Studio/Screen Gems opus, The Puppet Murder Case (1935), a brutal beaut from the often twisted crew led by Sid Marcus and Art Davis. Is this a sadistic cartoon? Yes. Kafka-esque? Indeed. Did this particularly vicious version of Scrappy richly deserve to be strung up like a puppet (as he does to Oopy/Vontzy, his hapless little brother)? Yes!
Only slightly less sadistic than Scrappy is the following Popeye cartoon, Puppet Love (1944), notable for the imaginative and bizarre animation of Jim Tyer. Just because he could, perennial bad guy Bluto builds a Popeye puppet which, of course, turns out to be a violent psycho. Boomerang actually ran this twisted cartoon!
Getting back to the topic of World Puppetry Day, here's some stop-motion fun from Bryclreem! Bear in mind, us guys who were never even close to tall, athletic and movie star handsome could squeeze the contents of an entire tube of Brycreem on our heads and definitely NOT get the result the puppets and humans in the following commercial enjoyed.
Cohl made a film titled Puppet’s Nightmare in 1908.
Back in the 1920's, stop-motion innovator Lotte Reineger animated using paper cut-outs in silhouette.
Our friend Steve Stanchfield has been posting some very cool stop-motion films on the Cartoon Research website. Here are two by puppetmaster Lou Bunin.
Bunin's stop-motion Alice In Wonderland is an amazing film.
Much enjoyed the two Stop-Motion Marvels Blu-rays that Steve and Thunderbean Animation staff put together.
Continuing on the topic of puppets, there's fantastic news regarding a new Blu-ray of The Puppetoon Movie.
Does the gang here love George Pal Puppetoons? Yes!
First saw The Puppetoon Movie, a feature-length compilation put together by George Pal and stop-motion historian Arnold Leibovit on the big screen back in 1987. After numerous viewings, still find George Pal's stylish 1930's musicals for Horlick's Malted Milk and Philips striking and weirdly beautiful.
Arnie Liebovit elaborates on his work restoring George Pal's work in the following podcast.
Another inventive puppetmaster/animator/filmmaker was Karel Zeman. Thanks to Castle Films, lots of us 16mm collectors are familiar with REVE DE NOEL (1945) a.k.a. A CHRISTMAS DREAM.
Karel Zeman's Adventures Of Baron Munchausen in particular is a must-see.
Another devastatingly imaginative animator who made cinematic magic from puppets was Wladislaw Starewicz (1882-1965).
Hope to see such outstanding 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 on Blu-ray and DVD in Europe.
Wladislaw (a.k.a. Ladislaw Starewicz, Ladislas Starevitch, Ladislaw Starevitch and Ladislaw Starewitch) created astonishing cinematic works.
Starewicz, an entymologist turned animator, began making stop-motion films in 1912.
He began his career in Russia and relocated to France as a result of the 1917 revolution.
Wladislaw and Irina Vladislavovna Starewicz produced stop-motion films through 1958.
The Mascot (1933) packs more startling imagery into its 33 minute length than can be found in 140 minute feature films.
IIRC, the following Starewicz DVD is still available.
The visionary films of Starewicz inevitably compel one to delve deeply into a Willis O' Brien playlist.
Next up on World Puppetry Day: a piece on the great artist O'Brien mentored, Ray Harryhausen.
Another all-time favorite is the great Charley Bowers.
Bowers' last stop-motion film was Pop & Mom In Wild Oysters (1941).
Bowers' blends of stop-motion animation with silent era slapstick remain astounding 100 years after they were produced.
How do we close a World Puppetry Day post? With Jim Henson commercials, of course. This blogmeister is preparing a pot of hot Wilkins Coffee for the occasion.
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.
Known to the French (very enthusiastic fans of his films) as "Bricolo," Mr. Bowers began his cinematic career in the teens as producer for the Barré-Bowers Studio (Mutt & Jeff cartoons), a decade before he starred in the Bowers Novelty Comedies, a series that blended stop-motion animation with live-action slapstick.
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.
Well, it's Thanksgiving (and the start of hearing godawful holday season music everywhere) yet again!
Thanksgiving means turkey songs!
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog posts the same Thanksgiving turkey cartoons every year. Alas, we have no plans to stop that practice anytime soon!
We'll start, not surprisingly, with an inexplicably odd one from the oddest and most inexplicable of all cartoon studios, Screen Gems. I personally get a big kick out of these cartoons but can certainly imagine the likes of Sid Marcus and Cal Howard pondering "what weird bit can we do to vex audiences now?"
There are a bunch of Warner Bros cartoons about Thanksgiving and turkeys. We've posted several repeatedly over the years. As fervent Daffy Duck fans, we note that at least two of the very best Thanksgiving cartoons feature the wacky fowl.
While it's tough to pick one favorite Thanksgiving-themed cartoon, the following ranks high on the list.
It's directed by Art Davis and stars a diabolical but not-too-bright Daffy Duck who becomes Tom Turkey's personal trainer, while devouring food in mass quantities.
Hugh Harman made a pleasing cartoon for MGM starring an all-turkey ensemble patterned on Borrah Minnevich & His Harmonica Rascals. Seems like I post this one every year!
Happy Thanksgiving! Keep calm and watch cartoons before and after the courses (and between football games)!
And, along with Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, tomorrow's Turkey Day entertainment shall include George Pal Puppetoons!
Been watching Puppetoons volume 1 and eagerly await the latest volume (#3) on Blu-ray.
Stop-motion animation, from Cohl to Bowers to O'Brien to Starewicz to Pal to Harryhausen to the Quay brothers, has been on this movie buff's mind of late. Charley Bowers remains a favorite!
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George Pal always pleases.
For stop-motion animation genius, the Dutch Vintage Animation website is quite a treasure trove.
Quite a few terrific stop-motion films of Joop Geesink can be found here and on the stop-motion master's You Tube channel.
Have posted several commercials from Joop Geesink's Dollywood studio on this blog before. They are excellent and in the tradition of George Pal's animated mini-musicals for Philips and experimental animator Oskar Fischinger's Murrati Cigarette ads.
The Dollywood studio's commercial for White Horse Whisky ranks atop the list of most amazing, beautifully designed and imaginative ads. Do not show at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting - that would be a very bad idea, as even the most prim teetotaler would be amenable to downing a couple of shots after watching it.
Rather amazed that the Kinex studio's stop-motion films entirely escaped me for decades, at least until the release of a couple of Kinex short subjects, starring Chip the Wooden Man, on the now out-of-print 2010 Stop-Motion Marvels DVD collection.
Hear there shall be a Stop Motion Marvels 2 later this year from Thunderbean, so hopefully a few more discoveries from Kinex (and stop-motion animator John Burton) will be available then.
Until that Blu-ray release brings further discoveries, here is an indescribable 1933 short subject created by New Zealand filmmaker/painter/animator/sculptor Len Lye and on the first Stop Motion Marvels collection. It features a song well known by the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog from a 1933 Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon and melodious renditions by Louis Armstrong and Django Reinhardt. Lye's love of music, paramount in his subsequent GPO experimental films A Colour Box, Rainbow Dance and Trade Tattoo, combines with way-out imagery here.
Acknowledgements and many thanks to the Cartoon Research website and its Thunderbean Thursdays feature for links in this post that didn't come from the Dutch Vintage Animation page. Also extend a respectful tip of the Jimmie Hatlo hat to a YouTube channel which, among hundreds of 1920's, 1930's and 1940's animated films, includes a playlist of Charley Bowers.
The Puppetoon Movie, a feature-length compilation put together by George Pal and stop-motion historian Arnold Leibovit in 1987, is now available again on a limited edition Blu-ray.
Saw The Puppetoon Movie on the big screen back during its late 1980's theatrical run.
I was thrilled and delighted to find that it included Mr. Blogmeister's favorite Puppetoon ever made, the charming and romantic Together In The Weather, starring Punchy & Judy.
Reviews thus far include a thorough and well-written piece on the DVD release by Francis Rizzo III for
DVD Talk.
George Pal frequently featured swing jazz in his 1930's and 1940's Puppetoons.
Yes, admittedly, Pal's Jasper series, seen in the 21st century, can be a tad dated, but they nonetheless have incredible soundtracks to match the stop-motion invention. Swing-to-bop master Charlie Barnet provides the memorable music in Jasper In A Jam.
Here's a clip from the Puppetoon DVD, including a commentary by stop motion animator Bob Baker, who worked with Mr. Pal on the series, and historian/archivist Steve Stanchfield.
Channel Four, known for some pretty darn wonderful documentaries on music, produced this top-notch look at George Pal.
Even in the era of wall-to-wall CGI, this blogger finds Pal's imaginative special effects in such films as War Of The Worlds still positively mind-blowing after six decades.
The latest scoop from Animation Scoop - there's a new feature film forthcoming from a studio much beloved by Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the incomparable Aardman Animations.
Since Mr. Blogmeister adored the Aardman features Chicken Run and Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, this is truly jolly good news among this week's reeking current events stench.
Of course, ranking high on the short list of all-time favorite films is The Wrong Trousers.
When a October 10, 2005 fire at the Aardman Animations warehouse, the hope was that the company would be able to return from the damage. This blaze wiped out just about all the original sets for the Wallace and Gromit films and panels of original storyboards. . . as fully "up in smoke" as a 35mm nitrate camera negative of a Gale Henry or Alice Howell Universal comedy!
Well, they did make it all the way back, thank Wensleydale, and the official trailer for the upcoming Aardman opus, to be released in 2015, is here - the epic, the sensational, the big screen spectacle topping the special effects and severed-limb packed "300" movies. . . the Shaun the Sheep feature film!
While this will not be a horror flick that crosses Shaun Of The Sheep and Shaun Of The Dead, one sincerely hopes that the next feature from Aardman proves itself at the box office as an enormous international hit and Aardman gets to make more features (maybe even starring Wallace & Gromit). So today, the respectful tip of the Jack Buchanan top hat goes to the outstanding creative artists of Aardman Animations!
From the sublime to the pastoral to the ridiculous to (DISCLAIMER, dear readers) the politically incorrect, always with imagination to spare - classic animated ads.
Your Blogmeister finds the jaunty stop-motion animation of George Pal's stylish mini-musicals for Horlicks Malted Milk and Philips astounding and weirdly beautiful.
The Philips ads pre-date the elaborate musicals the stop-motion specialists would later produce in the 1940's George Pal Puppetoon series for Paramount.
As the underlying theme is the "music 'round the world" content of programs to be heard in the 1930's via cutting edge Philips radios, in 2014 this means frequent lapses into stereotype. The view from Holland of American culture, and especially black music - gospel, jazz and blues - can be both awestruck and grotesque.
With Pal, these at times cringe-worthy moments in his Dutch and American puppet animation films are the direct byproduct of both his love of music and genuine fascination with masks, carvings, costumes, totem poles and tiki motifs from Asia, the South Seas and Africa; snobs referred to it as "primitive art" - just "art" sounds more like it.
It's apparent, even in the earliest of George Pal's puppet animation short subjects for Philips, that he had an aesthetic goal of bringing the world to stop-motion.
This content notwithstanding, the brilliant visual presentation and invention of George Pal and his hard-working animators shines through.
Pal's studio would go on to produce dozens of imaginative puppetoons and innovative special effects for such feature films as Destination Moon and War Of The Worlds.
Again, from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's some stop motion fun in lower budget yet memorable commercials from the 1950s.
The following animated cigarette ads, although very well executed, are hardly an original idea. The legendary painter and filmmaking innovator Oskar Fischinger produced an incredibly imaginative and elaborate theatrical commercial for Muratti Cigarettes (alas, not available online or on DVD) in 1934.
Still, Your Blogmeister, as ever easily amused, enjoys the square dancin' smokes in the following Lucky Strikes ad.
When watching these ads, the (much later) stop-motion work of Henry Selick and Aardman Animations and classic George Pal cartoons, the thought arises, "eat your heart out, CGI!"
