First and foremost, let's plug some cool screenings.
It's no surprise to readers of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog that we're big fans of Halloween cartoons and Frankenstein (both young and not-so-young).
A Sunday matinee selection of spooky stop-motion madness in GLORIOUS 16mm, Peculiar Puppets vol. VII, shall be the order of the day tomorrow at Roxy Cinema NYC tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 p.m. EST.
The press release elaborates:
Roxy Cinema hereby presents a seventh retrospective screening featuring various peculiar examples of puppet films from the 1930s through the 1950s+.
This particular showcase features spooky subjects in celebration of the Halloween season. Warning: You may find some of the offerings to be rather creepy, possibly unsettling, and even potentially controversial!
This event is programmed by early animation archivist and historian Tommy José Stathes, and prints are hand-selected from his personal 16mm film archive. Film presentation will be followed by a live Q&A session with Stathes.
Ten days later on October 30, there shall be a Halloween cartoon program at Manhattan's Metrograph on 7 Ludlow Street. Showtime is 5:15pm. NYC aficionados of vintage animation and classic movies, check these Cartoon Carnival shows out!
Also of note: October 20 is National Chicken & Waffles Day.
Not DON & WAFFLES Day, but National Chicken & Waffles Day!
One way to start celebrating National Chicken & Waffles Day is to watch the following cheesy commercial from the even cheesier early 1970's. This one's cheesy enough to be MST-3K worthy.
Since we did not include Jay Ward ads in recent posts featuring a slew of animated TV commercials, here are two excellent ads for Aunt Jemima Frozen Waffles featuring our breakfast pals, Professor Goody and Wallace The Waffle Whiffer.
The best Chicken + Waffles combo this writer/waffle enthusiast has sampled was at a long-gone but incredible restaurant (the name of which utterly escapes me) in Oakland, CA. The food was outstanding!
That said, the famous Chicken & Waffles chain remains Roscoe's in L.A.
Not surprisingly, there are numerous videos on YouTube about how to prepare chicken & waffles.
There are more chicken & waffle recipes on YouTube than one can actually watch or eat in a reasonable time frame.
Our favorite is invariably Alton Brown, here with the chefs of Cutthroat Kitchen.
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).
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.
New York animation fans, take heart: there are two very special events packed with classic cartoon goodness on the weekend. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are happy to plug these fun programs curated and presented by our friend, silent era animation expert and showman Tommy José Stathes.
Tommy and the Cartoon Carnival team are back from hiatus with excellent big screen fun, starting with a Saturday matinee at the Metrograph in Manhattan.
The press release elaborates: Come enjoy silly classroom shenanigans, neurotic school teachers, clever kid delinquents, and other assorted scholarly trials and tribulations.
Spanning the 1910s through the ’50s, this assortment showcases classic characters such as Farmer Al Falfa, Bobby Bumps, Flip the Frog, Porky Pig, Baby Huey, Little Lulu, and others.
On Sunday at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn, the long-awaited theatrical debut of Cartoon Carnival: The Documentary (2021) will be shown as part of Animation Block Party 2023 (20th season!)
The documentary' press release adds: it was wholly inspired by the Tommy Stathes Cartoon Carnival.
Produced and directed by UK-based documentarian Andrew T. Smith, a TSCC admirer from abroad, the film was shot primarily in 2015-2016. It features abundant film clips, interviews with a variety of historians, as well as footage from one of our 16mm Cartoon Carnival programs held at the now-demolished puppet workshop and theater, Standard Toykraft, in Williamsburg. This unique documentary was finally unveiled to the public through a Turner Classic Movies broadcast in October of 2021.
This Sunday, December 18, silent era animation expert and showman Tommy José Stathes of The Bray Animation Project presents his last cinematic Cartoon Carnival extravaganza of 2022 at Rubulad in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
The all-16mm Cartoon Carnival returns, with a special Yuletide program.
Shows will be at 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. that will bring pen-and-ink magic to the holiday season.
Tommy José Stathes elaborates: "DO YOUR LAST MINUTE XMAS SHOPPING WITH US! - we'll have various goodies for sale—such as DVDs, collectible enamel pins (Betty Boop, Gumby, Koko the Clown, and others!)
Additional swag includes brand new cartoon character t-shirts in various sizes!
This will be the perfect opportunity for you to grab some last minute stocking stuffers and to support our film series at the same time."
Now, as far as those last-second stocking stuffers go - and, no, the 2023 Rolls-Royce will not be among them - at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we'll delve into the latest and greatest books about classic movies and animation. One stellar tome by Keith Scott has been covered enthusiastically here - and it bears repeating, his 2-volume work on Cartoon Voices Of The Golden Age 1930-1970 (Animation and Radio) is AMAZING.
There are also two books on silents the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love. One is an outstanding biography, ten years in the making, of the great movie comedienne Marion Davies, by Lara Gabrielle.
In such classic late silents as The Red Mill, The Patsy and Show People, Davies proved a frequently inspired mimic and comic actress.
Lara has done a terrific job tracing the life and times of an inspired and very funny comedienne who remains better known as the mistress of publisher-magnate William Randolph Hearst than as a notable actress in movies.
The other incredible book, Lame Brains & Lunatics Volume 2, the latest by silver screen comedy expert Steve Massa explores the nooks and crannies of silent era comedy films.
There are many ways to beat the July heat much of the world is experiencing, most involving guzzling copious quantities of ice-cold drinks, but this Sunday evening the brisk-brisk-brisk cool down involves watching classic cartoons on the big screen.
The press release adds: This is a rain date for our May Cartoon Carnival, which had been cancelled. Now that we'll finally enjoy the 101st Cartoon Carnival program, get ready for something we've never featured before: Commerce, retail, and shopping-themed cartoons. Shop 'til you drop—vicariously—through some classic characters like Betty Boop, Popeye, Little Lulu, Heckle & Jeckle, and others!
Be sure to bring all your family and friends out to see these classic and now-rare cartoons the way they were meant to be seen—projected on 'reel' film, and enjoyed with a physical audience.
As this installment will be shopping themed, we'll also have a small tag sale of cartoony items in order to raise some extra funds for film archiving costs. You'll find all sorts of fun and vintage goodies available for your own collections, or to give as gifts!
And, as part of our opening Half-Happy Hour, the Reliquary will have bar refreshments available. You may bring your own food to this event, but please support the venue for all drinks consumed on the premises. Bar is cash only.
Happy Hour and Tag Sale: 7:00pm
Seating & Opening Remarks: 7:30pm
Show: 7:45pm-9:45pm
Cartoon Carnival #101 will sell out, so purchase advance tickets here. This is an all-vax event.
The City Reliquary is located at 370 Metropolitan Avenue in Bugs Bunny's hometown of Brooklyn, NY. For more info, call The City Reliquary at (718) 782-4842 or e-mail them at info@cityreliquary.org.
With Cartoon Carnival and the upcoming return of the Silent Clowns film series in the east and various San Diego Comic Con animation programs in the west, as well as the Niles Film Museum's 2022 Broncho Billy & Friends Silent Film Festival on July 30-31 and the re-opening of the spectacular Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA, it appears - hallelujah - that screenings are returning. Now if these danged viruses could just GO AWAY. . .
