Woody Woodpecker’s 1944 cartoon The Barber of Seville is a dizzying display of cartoon comedy and animation artistry. It’s easy to see why The Barber of Seville was counted among The 50 Greatest Cartoons in Jerry Beck’s 1994 book of the same name (Barber came in at number 43). In the book, contributor Joe Adamson wrote, “We can still ask the logical questions, but rather than just evade them, Woody in The Barber of Seville is transcending them, making himself an understandable personality, if never quite an explicable one, and one of the greatest cartoon characters of Hollywood animation’s go ..read more

First some really quick Thunderbean news: We’re working hard to get a big batch of the seven ‘Special’ discs out the door right now, along with the Sneak Preview 2024 disc. We should be through them by Friday. Buster Bear has been freed! We’ve also opened the ‘Special Disc’ vault for old special discs, but only through Sunday— so if you’ve missed any you wanted they’re available at the Thunderbean Shop. And – onto our reel! One of my favorite things is finding something really odd while collecting, and even better to be able to use it on one of the sets we do. Here is one of those oddities ..read more

Quite a bit of ground to cover today, as we deal with the last gasps of the theatrical short, then move on to big top action from the screwball television world of Jay Ward. Seal on the Loose (Lantz/Universal, Woody Woodpecker, 1/26/70 – Paul J. Smith, dir.) – As all followers of Lantz’s product know, Woody Woodpecker by this time had long before seen better days. With budgets ever-dwindling, and only one director left to helm all studio productions, creativity was at a minimum, art “quality” was down, color choices were restricted by the price of paints, and most films had a feeling of asse ..read more

September has always heralded the somber end of summer and the inevitable start of the school year. For several generations however, the sad farewell to vacation days and re-emergence of three ring binders came with only one glimmer of light: the beginning of a new Season of Saturday Morning TV. Forty-Six years ago, Saturday Morning Cartoons were in the midst of their own “Golden Age” and one show was about to emerge that would represent the pinnacle of this era: Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics. From Hanna-Barbara, the Studio synonymous with Saturday morning, Laff-A-Lympics, which debuted o ..read more

What’s your favorite episode of The Brady Bunch? Is it the one where the kids sing “Time to Change,” and Peter’s voice cracks? Maybe it’s when Jan pretended to have a boyfriend named George Glass? Or perhaps it was the episode where the kids met Wonder Woman? Wait, what?!? Yes, that last episode happened, and yes, it was part of the “Brady Universe,” but it didn’t happen on The Brady Bunch; it happened on The Brady Kids. During the height of popularity of ABC’s now iconic prime-time sitcom, The Brady Bunch, the show inspired a Saturday morning animated show focused on the three brothers and ..read more

By popular demand (?!?) A Screen Song! Think of this post as seeing a really good showing of old 16mm cartoons at someone’s house in Brooklyn, sitting on a bed with four other cartoony people surrounded by cats and stacks of old Village Voices. We just happen to be watching a Famous Studios Screen Song, in-between an IB Tech Looney Tune and a Kodachrome Puppetoon. But first— some Thunderbean news! We’ve been attempting to send a bunch of things at the same time that are finally going out. There’s seven special discs sending at the same time, including the special 2024 sneak preview set. Beck ..read more

I begin today with an aside, providing to readers as a public service a detailed description of a “find” which had its world re-premiere in a newly-restored print at UCLA’s Preservation Festival last Saturday. The title is the elusive first Farmer Al Falfa short produced at the official Terrytoons studio, French Fried (1930), a pre-code item too hot for the CBS censors to handle. The film seemed to get the liveliest audience reaction of anything on the bill this year, with Fleischer’s Hold It ranking number 2 (although several other Fleischer color entries, and a charming Van Beuren Rainbow P ..read more

1934 was a year of change, and a year of franchises (or attempts at same) which would predominate Van Beuren studios. Probably the least-noticed change (and maybe the most positive) was the eventual passing of the musical baton from Gene Rodemich to Winston Sharples, who would subsequently find a longstanding niche in New York animation by moving on to become musical director in the 1940’s for Paramount. His arrival resulted in a movement toward composition of original scores and song material instead of incorporation of the hit parade of Tin Pan Alley. The Aesop’s Fables and Tom and Jerrys h ..read more

What do Walt Disney, Saul Steinberg and Hugo Pratt have in common? Short answer: Mr. Civita. A famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg summarizes the idea in a perspective of New York City streets. Next comes the Atlantic Ocean and then Europe and Asia; it’s easy to imagine a slightly deeper version, with the New York City streets looming again in the skyline. This merry-go-round could also synthesize the life of Cesare Civita, the man who was fundamental for Steinberg to ever arrive in New York City. Or for many other things. Meet Cesare Civita, the original Merry-go-round Man. A Star is ..read more

“On April 1, 1944, [Tex] Avery unleashed an April Fool’s joke on the world. In the short Screwball Squirrel, he introduced Screwy Squirrel, who was two degrees of separation on the insanity scale from Daffy Duck, another of Avery’s ‘discoveries’ when he was at Warners.” – John Canemaker, in his book Tex Avery: The Great American Director from the Golden Age of the Hollywood Cartoon. MGM’s Screwball Squirrel, celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, does indeed dial-up the “insanity” to 11 and stands as another brilliant notch in director Tex Avery’s legendary, over-the-top animation caree ..read more