AHAA needs help

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is curtailing operations due to a lack of funds. Please consider donating to them. The Archive is a resource for people who like animation and related arts (for example, this 1939 Terrytoons studio tour movie). I sent $20. Perhaps you could too.

http://www.animationarchive.org/?p=2515

Title Cards of 1939 in Review

As with yesterday's post, I present to you a compilation of all the title cards, as seen on this blog (I think). These each last for a second, tho, so you can see them much more clearly than any given image in yesterday's video, wherein each image lasted for about 1/10th of a second.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzIXz4mGBZw

A quick visual review of 1939

Here for your perusal I present screen caps of all the US theatrical shorts as they have appeared on this blog. I tried to remove all the other things, but I notice that I at the very least missed clearing out the Mickey Mouse Nabisco short. Think of it as A Clockwork Orange meets animation history. It'll be real horrorshow.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzIXz4mGBZw

156 The First Robin

Title: The First Robin
Studio: Terry
Date: 12/29/39
Credits:
Story by
John Foster
Directed by
Connie Rasinski
Music by
Philip A. Scheib
Series: Terrytoons
Running time (of viewed version): 6:47

Synopsis: Robins move in, have kids, do not get eaten by cat.




















Comments: Open with text, but not a character free monumental establishing shot, rather on a prop held by a character. I wouldn't call it a gag; it's just "From the South". Birds have unsettled domestic lives in cartoons. Horrific featherless chicks, like in real life. The title is confusing; there being two robins to start with, and they have three chicks. It's like they just picked a name that had robin in it. Way to make the effort, Terry. Self flagellating cat; now with sticking out tongue! Interesting moving backgrounds in the cat on balloon scene. Vocally wordless cartoon. Should it be considered funny that birds would take an elevator to their nests? This isn't really any funnier than Gulliver's Travels, but at least it's compact. There was a fairly large amount of golfing in the '39 cartoons; I would not have expected that.

151 The Ice Pond

Title: The Ice Pond
Studio: Terry
Date: 12/15/39
Credits: -
Series: -
Running time (of viewed version): 5:43

Synopsis: Pig can't skate, rabbits can't outwit or outskate fox, pig decides to ingratiate himself to rabbits.





















Comments: Beginning feels truncated. Yet another skating short. Even a crippled rabbit is better at skating than a healthy pig. Skating under the ice feels wrong. Unlike in Peace on Earth, the predator in this short is willing to capture the prey. Pigs and rabbits ultimately team up versus fox; the pig gets skating partners out of the deal, the rabbits get to live. Ah, Terry, where the main character will be small in a corner with the back of his head to the audience while a slow and elderly rabbit methodically walks towards him, sits down, and slowly puts on his skates in a vast 30 second sequence. Terry wasn't very good at villains; the fox is barely villainous. The fish is nicely designed. No voice acting in this cartoon. Jingle Bells is used a few times.

147 The Hitch Hikers

Title: The Hitch Hikers (on a retitle; The Hitchhiker in some lists, which could be correct for the original, especially as there is only one hitchhiker in the cartoon)
Studio: Terry
Date: 12/01/39
Credits: -
Series: Terry-Toons (probably; less formally, Gandy Goose, maybe)
Running time (of viewed version): 6:40

Synopsis: Goose with trailer hooks up with mean dog with car; hijinx ensue.
















Comments: Some non Gandy Goose it looks like. But he kinda sounds like him. And a dog who kinda sounds like Sourpuss. There's a Gandy title card on this retitle. I'm not sure if it's right. They may have ret-conned it. If not, Terry was futzing with the series. This may just be an interim Gandy design I'm not familiar with. The dog is afraid of automation, like the earlier WB dogs this year. Effects sound odd again. Silhouette shot. They just met and went to bed together; was this normal at the time? Dog takes a pistol to the mosquito. This is why you shouldn't hitchhike. Gandy ultimately powers the trailer with mosquitos and runs the dog off the road into a tree, making the car explode. Which is why you shouldn't pick up hitchhikers.