Autumnal Eye-Works

Ub Iwerks

These days, every year in October you get compilations of public domain Halloween themed short films. Prominent among them tends to be The Skeleton Dance, the very first Disney Silly Symphony, mainly animated by Ub Iwerks. What I did not realize until this year was that Iwerks, having separated from Disney for eight years, made what amounted to a color remake of the short, named Skeleton Frolic. Iwerks was also responsible for a rather autumnal cartoon, shading into winter, called Jack Frost, parts of which I only first saw on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Fred ‘Tex’ Avery was responsible for another scarecrow themed cartoon in 1936 which I somehow feel is connected with the fall season.

Skeleton Frolic 1937 Ub Iwerks Columbia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndZwmzaTaUI

The Skeleton Dance (Disney’s First Silly Symphony) 1929

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61t22VGByok

Jack Frost (1934) Ub Iwerks ComiColor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihCF4jwz688

I’d Love to Take Orders from You (1936) Fred Avery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEOLpuuCs7o

 

Saturday Cartoons

A more obscure batch of cartoons we watched in the old days were the Noveltoons, by Paramount/Famous Studios, the same people who made the old Popeyes. You can see a bunch of oddly familiar names attached to these shorts, I. Sparber and George Germanetti and Winston Sharples, all people who worked on  many Fleischer productions, from Popeye to Gulliver and Gabby. The Noveltoons were never quite as prominent as Popeye though, never played as much. I imagine they were part of a package deal but never got prominent airplay, mostly filling up time after a movie was over. Noveltoons also presented characters from Harvey Comics, Casper and Wendy and Baby Huey. Anyway, here is a weird batch that I somewhat feverishly remember:

The Wee Men (1947) - YouTube

Blackie The Lamb and Wolfie the Wolf | 4 Episodes of Cartoon Compilation | Dan Gordon - YouTube

Noveltoons - The Voice of the Turkey (1950) (HD 1080p) - YouTube

1944-05-19 Lulu in Hollywood - YouTube 

'The Voice of the Turkey' would have been an interesting addition to my Thanksgiving posts.

I guess my upcoming birthday has me looking irresistibly backwards; that we are going through troubled times again makes the past all the more appealing, though looking back at the late 60's - early 70's one can hardly say things were exactly bucolic. Maybe just slightly better (in some ways) than they are now; certainly not a kid's concern. Perhaps I should just heed these words of wisdom from the Mambo King:

Mr Mambo - SCTV - Words To Live By - John Candy - 1984 - YouTube

Wideo Wednesday: Odd and Old Cartoons

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AobrKFsvznY Greedy Humpty Dumpty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbD1RoGvscE The Fresh Vegetable Mystery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1QUUmShhMM Tulips Shall Grow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZZNi9vypyI The Sleeping Princess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LNiFGvIwag The Chinese Nightingale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2frLZ9VLZg The Calico Dragon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwz-aoZJLw The Field Mouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj17GeJYXZY The Little Mole

A batch of old cartoons that are not often (if ever) played on TV these days, but which haunted my childhood. They seem to come from the Thirties and Forties, and veer from the sentimental to the nightmarish, often in the same picture. They also tend to be a little longer than later theatrical cartoons. And now you can be traumatized, too. The already posted 'To Spring' should really be listed with these.