Animated Cartoons in the Golden Era

[AdeeC]

Not sure if mentioned but Hot Chocolate Soldiers from the 1934 film Hollyood Party is one of my favourites. Heres the link,
http://youtu.be/6AQMMNeckb4

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is absolutely sublime -- One Second From Every Warner Bros. Cartoon from 1929 thru 1969.

When I'm dictator, my state-run media will consist entirely of this compilation, looped, forever.

 

[scottyrocks]

That's fantastic. And people complain about violent cartoons these days. Except these weren't made for kids.

 

[Fading Fast]

This is absolutely sublime -- One Second From Every Warner Bros. Cartoon from 1929 thru 1969.

When I'm dictator, my state-run media will consist entirely of this compilation, looped, forever.

A bit overwhelming - cool, but I'm exhausted.

That's fantastic. And people complain about violent cartoons these days. Except these weren't made for kids.

I grew up watching insanely violent cartoons - as did all my friends (and, my guess, most kids in the US at that time). IMO, kids have no problem at all separating out fake cartoon violence and real world violence. To wit, they stripped out all the violence decades ago and society doesn't seem less violent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing that impressed me the most about that whole phantasmagoria is how much the music added to it -- even in random, jagged fragments it's a thing of beauty.

And also, no later Warners character was ever so brutal as Bosko.

 

[Formeruser012523]

All I could do through that whole thing was imagine Mel Blanc screaming randomly into a microphone. LOL What a great job for all those years.

 

[vitanola]

"As an animator myself I hate to say, but as far as the animation of cartoons pre mid 30s, I find a lot of the animation unwatchable. I prefer to see my characters animated with weight, and after the principles came to be widely adopted, you see a much better storytelling via the character's movements as opposed to simple visual cues. To me, that's when the characters became characters and not simply these drawings that people watched."
I can partially (or mostly) agree with that. Some of the early stuff is good, such as Felix, as mentioned above, but a lot of it is almost intolerable. Even when we were five years old we would groan when they showed a "Farmer Al Falfa" cartoon on TV. Those were devoid of any redeeming social value, as were a lot of the others of that sort. Just "moving" images with no personality at all... If a five-year-old can tell it's bad - it's *bad*.

Oddly enough, as a child I particularly LIKED the Farmer Al Falfa, and the Tom and Jerry, and Aesop's Fables cartoons. The Synchronization was the thing for me. Songs that I knew and lived were part of the sound track, in a musical style which I enjoyed. The animation, and story telling holds up for me yet, but of course the Synchronization is the thing which "got" me. This Al Falfa short from 1930 is still amusing, and the music is fine.

Or this Tom and Jerry with synchronization by Gene Rodemich:

Or this early Merrie Melodies selection, with synchronization by Frank Marsales, featuring Louis Pancio, no less!

Then we have this, the last Flip the Frog entry, with a fine score taken entirely from two commercial Victor records:

 

[vitanola]

Can't believe how long this thread has been idle! Time to dust off those cobwebs again! How about some food themed cartoons from the Noveltoon series,"Shortnin Bread" (1949) and Candy Cabaret (1954) Anybody remember the old bouncing ball cartoons made by Paramounts Famous Studios, the same studio that made Popeye and Little Lulu cartoons? As for the tunes, Shortnin Bread is that tune I always heard Bugs Bunny sing but never knew the name, quite catchy I must say! The 2nd is an updated version of "Ain't She Sweet" fitting the candy theme!

[video=youtube;wKfOhro14_Q]

Those Paramount "bouncing ball" cartoons are the direct descendants of the Fleischer "Screen Songs", which were developed in the silent era, but hit their stride with the coming of talkies

 

[Haversack]

In the Terrytoon above, Tropical Fish, some of the critters depicted look quite Seussian. I don't think Geisel ever work at Terrytoons but was of the right age. Both drank from the same well I suppose.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The ultimate fever dream -- all 1004 Schlesinger/Warner Bros. cartoons made from 1929 to 1969. At the same time.