Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.)

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Michael Barrier
Topic Started: Feb 19 2007, 07:40 AM (7,735 Views)
Mantan
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
I've just recently started reading the posts on the various topics in this folder.
I just want to thank ThadK and the rest of the knowledgeable participants here for the very interesting posts. In particular, this topic on Michael Barrier and his interview with Bob Clampett was especially enlightening. I've since put Barrier's website in my favorites list. Barrier has a huge amount material on the 'toon creators that I'm most interested in.
And hey - the publisher of the Realist was Paul Krassner - not Steve.
Thanks again, folks.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mort bakaprevski
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
thadk
Oct 22 2008, 08:08 AM
What I mean is his own studio's shorts. It's fairly clear Disney was not giving them the full attention they deserved, which is why they had a high miss rate in the 1940s.
Books could be written on what I DON'T know about animation. However, as a kid, I was always disappointed when the first frame announced a Disney cartoon. They just seemed to be singularly un-funny. And the Donald Duck presented on the screen was one-dimensional compared to the fully fleshed-out personality developed by Carl Barks.

The only cartoons I liked less than Disney were "Casper" & old Columbia's

"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chandu
Member Avatar
Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart!
[ *  *  * ]
I recall that during my own Saturday afternoon matinee days, a cheer used to go up when the Looney Tunes or Mighty Mouse logos went up on the screen for the next cartoon, while the rest were met with silence.
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Batman
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
Yep, Looney Tunes, Mighty Mouse and Popeye always got cheers at my house. Only jeers for the less-spectacular Disney cartoons.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
thadk
Member Avatar
Resident Curmudgeon
[ *  *  * ]
Any time the credits of a cartoon I hadn't seen before read "Directed by Charles M. Jones" or "Directed by Tex Avery" was a special event for me. Then again, I could tell who directed what by at least the age of eight without looking at the titles anyway.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mort bakaprevski
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
You guys bring up an interesting discussion point: how much enthusiasm did you muster for the various cartoon product when it flashed upon the theatre screen (I think it's important to differentiate theatrical viewings from TV. With the former, what you got was a surprise. On TV, you had a pretty good idea of what kind of product was coming up.) I'm organizing this by distribution company as opposed to production company:

1 -- MGM - Usually good stuff: Tom & Jerry plus Tex Avery. Unfortunately, it would sometimes be a re-release of an old Harman-Ising production which I uniformly detested.
2 -- Fox - Loved Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle. The rest were pretty lame.
3 -- Paramount - Well, there was Popeye and then.... And gawd help us if it was one of those damn singalongs.
4 -- Warners - Great stuff... but they seemed to dominate the scene in sheer number of shorts displayed. And, I've gotta admit, I never warmed to Inky & the Mynah Bird.
5 -- RKO - Already bitched enough about Disney.
6 -- Columbia - Some of the Fox & Crow films were funny & I loved the weird (to me at the time) UPA productions. Unfortunately, a lot of their product was re-releases of old Charles Mintz (worse than Harman-Ising) cartoons.
7 -- Universal - For reasons I never discovered, neither thatre in my home town ever ran Universal product (unless it was a Realart re-release). Consequently, I loved to see these when I was visiting relatives. Probably because I LOVED the blue Universal logo.
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
The only cartoons I saw on the big screen when I was a kid were Pink Panther cartoons and Mr. Magoo cartoons. I always thought cartoons were a treat; they mainly showed them at the drive-in, as I recall. This would've been mid to late '60s.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Frank Hale
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Same here.

Sounds like you’re talking about the 40’s, Mort. My recollection is that first-run cartoons were largely a thing of the past even by the mid-50’s.

(I do remember newsreels quite vividly, however.)

Ignoring the theatrical premise, I largely agree with your studio assessments except for MGM, whose cartoons I find absolutely soulless.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chandu
Member Avatar
Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart!
[ *  *  * ]
I pretty much agree with Mort's assessment and my experience would come from the late '40's and very early '50's.
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
panzer the great & terrible
Member Avatar
Mouth Breather
[ *  *  * ]
Soulless is just the word for the Hanna-Barbera MGMs, Frank, but I loved the Tex Avery Droopys. I never realized that you young squirts never saw cartoons on the big screen -- sad that you missed the Saturday morning Cartoon Carnivals, when Mom would drop us off and go shopping while we watched a couple hours of cartoons from several different studios, with a Three Stooges short usually thrown in (and sometimes booed). These were noisy affairs in general, with cheering, catcalls, and delighted derision of Andy Panda and Casper. We would, however, sing along with the singalongs, which is why I still remember "Let's all sing like the birdies sing, tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet..."

Ah, golden yout'!
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Dec 18 2008, 11:30 AM.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
thadk
Member Avatar
Resident Curmudgeon
[ *  *  * ]
I like at least something about all the studios, but I do find myself returning to the Disney shorts least on a regular basis.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
thadk
Member Avatar
Resident Curmudgeon
[ *  *  * ]
And have a heart! Some of the Caspers were charming when they weren't front-loaded with saccharine. And I don't think Andy Panda was in more than a handful of his cartoons for more than two minutes. Walter Tetley gave him the perfect voice too.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
Well, I saw most of these 'toons on the cathode ray, and here's my capsule comments from my days as a kid...

1 -- MGM: Ddn't like 'em at all. 'specially didn't like Tom & Jerry.
2 -- Terrytoons: Enjoyed Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle.
3 -- Fleischer/Paramount: The Fleischers were my faves; c'mon, Popeye was the MAN. Loved Betty Boop. Didn't care for the Famous years at ALL. Except I did kinda like the ScreenSong Singalongs, although not as much as I like the Fleischer versions. Loved Casper then (the poor picked-on friendless Friendly Ghost) and still do.
4 -- Warners: Oddly, I liked them as a very small child ("On with the show, this is it!") but outgrew them when I discovered Yogi and Huck and Quickdraw and those guys and never really went back to them until maybe 10 years ago.
5 -- Disney: The showcase program for cartoons, what with reruns of Mickey Mouse Club during the day and that Sunday night program. Once I saw a bunch of the cartoons outside of those frames, though, I found them uniformly unappealing with the exception of the Silly Symphonies and the 1930s Mickeys.
6 -- Columbia: Only ones I ever saw were Gerald McBoing-Boing (occasionally) and Mr. Magoo (constantly) and enjoyed them very much.
7 -- Universal: Somewhere in the middle. Liked 'em better than the MGMs, that's for sho'.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mort bakaprevski
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Nahhh, Gravy, I’m afraid you’re just too young for this game. You HAD to sit in a darkened theatre anxiously awaiting that fourth cartoon. Would it be a Fox “Heckle & Jeckle” (yay) or a Paramount “Little Audrey” (boo). That juicy anticipation was part of the whole experience.

As for the time frame, I’d say late 40’s thru mid-50’s (I know the Lido Theatre in Newport was still screening Saturday Matinees as late as 1955). I’ve got a feeling you weren’t even in amniotic fluid at that time.

Interestingly, Fleischer cartoons were definitely NOT part of the equation. I think Paramount would include some scenes in one of those “reminiscence” cartoons they infrequently did of Popeye, but NEVER a complete Fleischer production.

Thad, you don’t qualify either… but not because you’re too young. I just can’t picture you as an average 10 year old. When you were ten, I’m sure you were doing an in-depth analysis of the different styles of the animators working at Van Beuren in 1931.

At any rate, it’s time for that fourth cartoon to begin. Omigawd, it’s NOT a cartoon… it’s a Leon Errol comedy. Oh well, I liked them too!!!

"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
thadk
Member Avatar
Resident Curmudgeon
[ *  *  * ]
At ten? Nah, back then I vomited my Lunchables at the sight of a Van Beuren.

I did have every Warner cartoon I had seen memorized front and backwards though.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Name that 'toon! · Next Topic »
Add Reply