ReFrederator Blog

Just when you thought it was safe for the kids to watch old cartoons, that nice young fella, Flip the Frog, starts dashing around hotel corridors, looking at naked women through keyholes!

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We have this Crazy Cop theme going, but today it’s more like Cops and Robbers as we present the first of two prison pictures we’ve scheduled for the week. “Jolly Good Felons” finds that funny paper favorite, the Little King taking a tour of the Royal Prison, where everything starts out orderly, but ends up as a knock down riot (not necessarily a laugh riot, mind you, but a riot none the less.)

I’ve always been bowled over by how hard RKO/Van Beuren worked to simulate the original style and humor in the Little King films. By 1934, a whole heap of comic strip creations had found their way into the movies, but the studios usually took drastic liberties with these pre-sold properties. And, let’s face it, the pudgy potentate sure didn’t look or act like a typical animated star of the era — he always seemed like something you could get away [Read more…]

Porky Pig as policeman — now, there’s a matter that demands further investigation! In today’s film, Officer Pig and his ever sneezing bloodhound, Eggbert, seem to be in charge of some sort of 1943 style Homeland Security activity (no yellow, orange or red alert here, gang — this is one of Warner Brothers’ last black and white cartoons.) And the operative word is ’silly.’ Porky wears a silly Keystone Kop suit, he chases a silly spy (Missing Lynx) who puts on silly disguises — we even have to sift through two minutes of silly signs in the beginning of the cartoon before we see any actual animation!

One of Warners’ unsung cartoon directors, Norm McCabe, piloted “Confusions of a Nutzy Spy” using lots of tricky angles and very stylized background art. Of course, one reliable thing about these wartime toons — you’re never far from a Hitler gag or a ‘V for Victory’ [Read more…]

So if you love cartoons, and anyone subscribing to ReFrederator does -almost by definition- then you know I’m a little late in telling you to run out and by Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern. Amid is one of cartoon-dom’s great resources, and here he again shares his obsessions with us.

It’s got Amid’s trademark thorough research, his unwavering point of view, and not to be forgotten, thousands of unbelievable images (check out a lot of them on Amid’s dedicated blog).
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Elf Help Week comes to a colorful close pretty much the way we started — with a tale all about a creepy looking sprite messing around with seasonal transitions.

“Jack Frost” is a first rate Ub Iwerks ComiColor Cartoon from 1934 set to a jaunty Carl Stallings score. Granted, choices about camera angles, editing and Filmmaking 101 type stuff are pretty prosaic — and, boy, those woodland animals sure are a bland bunch. But once we get around to the jack o’ lantern chorus and that scat singing, rotoscoped scarecrow, things really start to pop!

Then there’s Jack Frost himself! I love that 1930’s character design — from the cusp of his baloney nose to the zig zaggy tips of his little elf shoes. His whole artist-at-large thing provides some really inventive business, like those frost-landscapes painted on window panes. And what do you think of the ‘in character’ way he saves the [Read more…]

Wow! Seems like it’s time ReFrederator weighed in on the whole Turner-clips-out-all-the-smoking-scenes-in-old-Tom-and-Jerry-cartoons-in-Britian issue. In case you haven’t picked up on this in the media, on the Frederator blog, Cartoon Brew or the thousand other sites screaming bloody murder, check the story out here.

I’ve received personal emails from all over on this — some folks are even concerned that this sort editorial over reaction might be contagious, and we here at ReFrederator might be doing some toon tampering ourselves. As if.

Obviously, stuff like this drives us nuts for a whole slew of reasons. Firstly, it betrays a patronizing view of classic animation as artless kid’s stuff, designed, primarily, for unsupervised babysitting. Content is judged not for wit, charm or any possible aesthetic value, but is, instead, dispassionately screened for social toxins (no hint of racism, sexism, violence etc.)

In the second place, these measures always smack of hypocrisy. Big studios continue to [Read more…]

Hey, we’ve had more than a few requests in the last few weeks for one-character marathons. How do the rest of you folks feel about that? Our programming is put together a little in advance, of course… but let us know what YOU think!

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Dave Kirwan

Hey those happy little guys are back! RKO/Van Beuren recycled the model designs from “The Sunshine Makers” for the dwarfs in “Molly Moo Cow and Rip Van Winkle,” made later the same year (1935.) This time out the gang seems to be drinking stronger brew than that sunshine juice from yesterday’s epic, so it’s not surprising things turn from cheerful to rambunctious pretty quickly.

Actually, the dwarfs and Old Rip himself are really supporting characters in this toon, directed by Burt Gillett and Tom Palmer — the title Moo Cow is the main attraction here. The bovine buffoon starred in a handful of cartoons about this time, but never caught on as a popular character — maybe that certain androgynous quality had something to do with it. I mean, her name is Molly, right? And she is a cow, right? But there is no udder. And that voice definitely is male. So, [Read more…]

Our pixie theme rolls on with today’s installment, “Sunshine Makers” — certainly the “Casablanca” of elf cartoons.

In a pre-Prozac world, relentlessly cheerful gnomes bottle sunshine (and, apparently, contentment) to distribute throughout the countryside, like little psychotropic milkmen. Meanwhile, some goblins dressed like undertakers seem to have the misery franchise sown up — they spend most of their day skulking around, singing about how great it is to feel rotten. Pretty soon it’s attitude adjustment warfare, with the sunshine makers forcing everyone to get happy WHETHER THEY WANT TO OR NOT! A classic!

This is a pretty notorious cult favorite, theatrically released in 1935, but also used as an advertisement for Borden Dairy (check out the titles on this print.) Ted Eshbaugh, who directed “Sunshine” for RKO/Van Beuren had a habit of producing happy, jolly cartoons all featuring a rather dark subtext if you think about it too hard, so let’s not. [Read more…]