On Sunday morning, the first in October, shall we be industrious and fruitful? No, I don't think so, definitely not. Feel more like this guy right now!
So this Sunday, we're watching 1950's commercials, starting with our favorites, Bob & Ray, as Bert and Harry Piel.
The Wizard Wick Deodorizer Company gently reminds overworked and under-appreciated 1950's housewives that offensive odors linger in your home for hours!
Can't wait to celebrate National Jell-o Week!
Don't forget, modern gas brings home automation!
The gang here especially likes animated cigarette commercials.
Relax - it's light up time!
Instead of the dance of the hours today, it's the dance of the marching cigarettes.
On the topic of marching cigarettes, animation and painting genius Oskar Fischinger beat everyone to the punch.
Indeed, we Way Too Damn Lazy To Write a Blog love love love stop-motion commercials, especially those produced by Joop Geesink's Dollywood.
First and foremost, it's Tea Time with Ted Eshbaugh, who spun off the glum gloomy gus guys from The Sunshine Makers for this industrial film extolling the virtues of a cuppa hot tea.
Seared into my consciousness as well as the very souls of numerous individuals in my age group: the following much televised Chef Boy Ar Dee spot for Beefaroni and Beef-o-getti.
Levis produced these early 1970's time capsule ads, designed with psychedelic style by Chris Blum.
The following Levis commercial would go perfectly with that advertising film Johnny Carson made plugging his clothing line.
The Simpsons, not surprisingly, starred in commercials. . . LOTS of commercials.
As The Simpsons and Ren & Stimpy were going great guns at the same time, that brings to mind the following question. . . Did Spümcø and John K make commercials? Yes - here are two very good ads Spümcø produced for OLD NAVY.
One source of fantastic stop-motion commercials is the Dutch Animation Project. This masterpiece for White Horse Whiskey would be this scribe's pick for the coolest ad ever.
LOVE this Quaker Oats commercial by Joop Geesink's Dollywood studio.
On Cartoon Research on a Thunderbean Thursday, Steve Stanchield posted the following trio of humdinger animated commercials mastered from 35mm, including a BRYLCREEM ad animated by Fleischer Studio stalwart Bill Sturm (who I did not know worked with stop-motion) and one for motor oil by Ub Iwerks' Animated Cartoon Films studio.
Closing today's post: a selection of pretty darn spectacular ads by the ridiculously talented Canadian-British director, educator, animator, draftsman/illustrator supreme, voice actor and Who Framed Roger Rabbit contributor Richard Williams (1933-2019) of The Thief And The Cobbler fame.
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.
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!
>
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.
Submitted for your approval are yet more stop-motion pitches for Your Favorite Product, including a historic German advertising film for LEGO, a most jaunty Quaker Oats ad animated by Joop Geesink's Dollywood Studio and Dave Allen's epic King Kong Volkswagen spot.
Although Your Blogmeister is not under the impression that wolves are interested in Del Monte Zucchini as anything other than a side dish, who knows - haven't had any wolves as pets, maybe they adore canned zucchini.
The following ad encouraging parents to crank up their kids yet further with super-sugary Apple Jacks cereal reminds me more than a little of Art Clokey's classic Budweiser commercial and very funny Lawn Party short subject.
2013 marks the 100th anniversary of Joop Geesink's birthday - and that means the Dutch filmmaker and illustrator joins Frank Tashlin and Bob Clampett among those animation luminaries whose centenary is being celebrated this year (and yes, this blog is definitely a tad late with this - the stop-motion animation guru was born in The Hague on April 28, 1913).
Joop Gessink and the intrepid artists of Amsterdam's Dollywood studio are right there with Emile Cohl, Charley Bowers, Ladislaw Starewicz, George Pal, Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Jiri Trnka and Art Clokey as powerhouses of pixilation - as well as the artistic and spiritual predecessors of the Quay Brothers and Jan Svankmejer.
Working actively to restore the Joop Geesink films has been Leenke Ripmeester of the EYE Film Institute in the Netherlands.
The Dollywood Studio produced puppet animation films from the 1940s into the 1980's.
Fortunately, many classic animated films by Joop Gessink and stop-motion guru George Pal have been posted to YouTube by the Dutch Vintage Animation website.
At its height, the studio employed a staff of more than 150 animators, cameramen, doll makers, set designers, woodshop gurus and visual artistes of all kinds.
It could be said that Dollywood, which produced thousands of short animated shorts and advertising films, was the successor to George Pal's studio. After her father's passing in 1984, voice-over actress and artist Louise Geesink, in collaboration with illustrator Wil Raymakers, has carried on the creative torch, reviving the studio and its characters in books for children, comics, merchandising, ideas for television series and other projects.
The Geesink Studio can be reached at info@geesinkstudio.nl.
