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

Wrapping Up 1939

Well, that was certainly a lot of cartoons. This is the 257th post in the blog; since I set up Google Analytics to keep stats in early February, it has recorded 21,997 visits, 48,596 page views and 7,036 visitors (almost certainly an overestimation of visitors as cookies get erased).

What did we learn? A 1939 cartoon is made up of establishing shots, silhouettes, celebrity caricatures, ripped off radio catch phrases, baby chicks in peril and text gags, and there's a good chance it has had its original title replaced by a later theatrical reissue or tv retitle. If it was from early in the year, it was probably about jitterbugging.

Terry, Columbia and Lantz did not make markedly less funny cartoons than the other studios; they did make a few crappy cartoons, and can reasonably be said to have often made less visually impressive cartoons than the best of the others, tho they each had some visually impressive cartoons. Disney's cartoons were by far the least funny (tho not devoid of funny). The illusion of life, apparently, takes its toll on comedy, as the Fleischers found out when they made the largely unfunny Gulliver's Travels.

You should keep in mind that while 1939 sounds like a long time ago, it was 28 years after Winsor McCay's 1911 Little Nemo cartoon, making it about 28% of the way through the entire history of American animated cartoons, and only slightly before the half way point between the beginning of American animation and the end of the theatrical era.

I should do a best and worst post, but I need a longer view for most of the categories which would go into such a post. The firmest category I could write about now would be the following:
Worst overall studio - Disney
Disney does not perform well in 1939. They had a sure hand in technical quality, but almost no comedic ability, no sense of action, and a marked inability to tell a compelling story. This last they seem to have sacrificed for telling completely self contained stories with no loose ends, made in excruciating (for the audience) detail about almost nothing. Well made unfunny cartoons are not a good thing.

More collateral posts will come in this blog eventually following this post, but it's time to update your links of ongoing blogs to include the Cartoons of 1935 and the Cartoons of 1943. The main work of populating the text of this blog is now complete (The Old Firehorse aside). It is my hope that it will be a useful resource for those seeking to learn about the cartoons of 1939.

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

Jack Benny, New Year's Eve, 1939

The picture above is from Man About Town (possibly taken on July 7, 1939).

However, we have below the New Year's show of the Jell-o Show.

http://www.oldradioworld.com/media/1939-12-31_0355_-_Jack_Benny_Show_the_-_Gladys_Zybisco_Disappoints_Jack_on_New_Years_Eve.mp3

158 The Curious Puppy

Title: The Curious Puppy
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 12/30/39
Credits: -
Series: Merrie Melodies (on a Blue Ribbon retitle)
Running time (of viewed version): 7:34

Synopsis: Puppy breaks in to amusement park, attracts attention of guard dog.































Comments: Silhouette shot. For some reason, this takes place in an amusement park instead of at the NYWF (it does seem to be Coney Island, at least). Wherever it is reopens May 31, 1940. There's a poster of a musician or graffiti on the poster that says "ZIZZ"; I'm not sure what it's a reference to. The dogs are kinda similar to the pair in Jones's earlier cartoons this year. Alternate universe where they aren't pals (or their origin story). Mirror gag; this was surely cliche by now. They had Mexican food at Coney Island, apparently. The search lights in the amusement park landscape look tasty. There seems to be an actual ad for Squirt in the cartoon (more than one, actually); someone liked it in house, I guess. (Not that I don't like; Squirt is mm mm good.) The silhouette chase in front of the lit park is great looking, as the backgrounds are overall.Big dog is really trying to kill little dog at the end, and is left with only impotent rage.

The last US theatrical cartoon of 1939 (of the mainline theatrical US shorts, tied with Mad Maestro in terms of release date, and the last one I watched of those for the year, until I find The Old Firehorse, or decide there is enough evidence to include other cartoons). Onwards.

Father Coughlin, December 31, 1939

Father Charles Coughlin was the voice of American evil in the radio days, supporting Hitler and Mussolini and generally being anti-semetic. This broadcast comes several months after he had become so out of control that he forced the hand of the government and the Catholic church to become involved, and after his support of Germany had become an embarrassment. It is unwise to forget who Coughlin was, or what he did, or how he may be reflected in his modern pink-faced halfwit descendants (not to mention the intervening halfwits, like Joe McCarthy). The cartoons above by Dr. Seuss show the response from the general time period.

http://www.archive.org/download/Father_Coughlin/FatherCoughlin_1939-12-31__ReviewOfPast10Years.mp3

My grandfather's bones lay across the street from the temple of Coughlin's hatred, the Shrine of the Little Flower. I generally give the Shrine the finger when I drive by, tho it is simply a place, as it remains a symbol of vileness, stained by Coughlin's memory.