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

It's Time For Saraka

Remember when I said I would put up scans of the entire Inbad the Ailer pamphlet if I got one? Well, I got one. I'll assemble these into a movie (well, a glorified slideshow) at some point.
Merry Xmas.

149 The Sleeping Princess

Title: The Sleeping Princess
Studio: Walter Lantz
Date: 12/04/39
Credits:
Directed by
Burt Gillett
Story,,, Victor McLeod and Gil Burton
Music ... Frank Marsales
Animators ... George Nicholas Lester Kline
Series: Nertsery Rhyme
Running time (of viewed version): (Columbia House v3: segment 10:12; cartoon begins 0:16 ,ends at 10:12; alt ver, 9:32)

Synopsis: Standard sleeping beauty storyline.

























Comments: Unusual narrator voice. The fairies have an incredible grating set of voices. Beauty, Wealth, Wisdom and Destiny. Seems a waste to wish wealth on a princess who seems to not be fallen royalty. The princess's face looks like that of the standard TV blowup woman (a variation on the Nellie look). Destiny does the "I'm a baaaaad girrrrrl" line. The "good" fairies don't seem to have a problem continuing to live with Destiny for 100 years after she curses the princess. Mel Blanc as the dopey lover. (This is the first commercial DVD I've run across for this year of cartoons that seems to have the interlacing issue.) Destiny has an unpleasant level of foolish motion in the waking up scene. Non-dopey lover is unpleasantly rotoscopey. Destiny's reflective nails are interesting. The face manipulations seem almost Fleischery. I assume the vanity scene is meant to call to mind the magic mirror from Snow White. Several crowd scenes are dealt with by use of painted backgrounds. Falling asleep as a teen when being pricked by a spindle is a metaphor for sleeping after sex, right? Mel is stuttering in this with hiccups. We've seen him do this before this very year. The prince ends up like Aquaman.

145 Scrambled Eggs

Title: Scrambled Eggs
Studio: Lantz
Date: 11/20/39
Credits:
Directed by
Alex Lovy
Music
Frank Marsales
Animators
Frank Tipper
Hicks Lokey
Story by Elaine Pogany
Designed by
Willy Pogany
Series: A "Peterkin"
Running time (of viewed version): 8:47

Synopsis: Satyr hates birds, mixes their offspring, has to deal with that old devil consequence.































Comments: One of the '39 Lantz cartoons on an official DVD release. So is the next one (the final from the year), but only on the Columbia House set, whereas this one is viewed from volume 1 of the newer multi disc collections. The title has animation in it, but separate from the cartoon, and it's quite brief (one of the briefest showings of an original title card so far, I think). Very unusual backgrounds. Not exactly nice looking, either. The trees look like they're made out of rice crispies and feces. Redheaded woodpecker appearance. I'm not sure if the stork OB is a Fred Allen voice. Apparently the birds all do it at the same time, as their eggs all hatch at the same time. Peterkin is an evil little prick. Blackbird has a southern voice. Everyone breaks up because the guys assume the girls all mated with the other guys (they aren't mad at each other tho; also, the girls don't seem to be denying it); this makes for (at least) the third bird cuckoldry cartoon of the year, after Disney's The Ugly Duckling and Terry's The Orphan Duck. Here they abandon the chicks to die, which is normal for these cartoons. "Hey stupid, I want some jelly beans"; good line, almost in the Screwy Squirrel voice. The chicks picket Peterkin. Outgrowth of union organizing in the industry? There are 8 birds pictured in the initial maternity tree shot; there's also one empty nest. There are three other species in the stork shot; a parrot (or similar), a finch (labeled), and green bird with orange highlights (and the stork OB, but he doesn't count). And there's a pink/purple male with a top hat and a grey faced male (sparrow) with a hat in the pacing scene. I'm not sure if the canary is the yellow bird in the maternity tree; might be. There's a pigeon in a speaking shot. There's a crazy eyed orange bird; it may be intended to be the ruffled looking bird in the maternity tree, or maybe not. Peterkin's nipples are disturbing. Peterkin's face design doesn't animate well. The blackbird's socks look a bit like draggly... well, you know. There's a red brown warbler when Peterkin starts messing. Red with white throat and blue tail in there too. There may be some extra chick species too. I wonder if they had people pitch a bunch of random gags like for I'm Just A Jitterbug? It feels more cohesive than that. It certainly has lots of visuals tho.

(Update 1/22/11: see Peterkin in image 210 at http://www.animationarchive.org/?p=1906 )