Comments on: Movies in the Cartoons, Cartoons in the Movies

By: PJ

PJ — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Growing up in the 50s, cartoons were a constant source of Hollywood information for me. That’s where I learned who Clark Gable was, fer chrissakes, and Theda Bara and Gloria Swanson and others. Also lots of classical music that I knew by sound but not by name, so that when I heard it as an adult I would think wow, that’s from the cartoons! Never thought about that “learning” aspect before, but in retrospect they were highly educational without being annoying. Hmmm.

By: Jerry Beck

Jerry Beck — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This is a topic you and I could talk endlessly about. Have you ever seen SHE MARRIED A COP (1939)? It’s an obscure Republic “B” picture about a New York City policeman being wooed by a woman who runs an animation studio (”Fay Fables”). She tricks the cop into using his voice in a cartoon short (about a Pig policeman!). The animation in the film was suppliled by Leon Schlesinger’s then independent studio. This story was remade by Republic as a Gene Autry B-Western, SIOUX CITY SUE (1947, and available on DVD), with Walter Lantz providing the animated sequences. Both films have interesting interpretations of what an animation studio supposedly looks like.

By: Dave Kirwan

Dave Kirwan — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I’ve seen them both a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng time ago. Hard to remember exactly what the animation looked like. Have you ever read the old mystery novel “Cold Poison” by Stuart Palmer? It’s a 1954 Hildegarde Withers story set in a very thinly disguised Walter Lantz studio. Someone lent me a copy last year (I had never heard of it)… very cute on what he gets right, and what he gets wrong (they refer to animation ‘gels’ all the way through.)