Comments on: Turning Chicken

By: 2oonhed

2oonhed — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I found a strange artifact at 0:08:32.
Looks like the corner of a ration stamp.
Anyone know what it is?

By: Joel Schlosberg

Joel Schlosberg — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The “I. W. W.” on the communist agitator rooster’s suitcase indicates he’s suppsed to be from the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical union that was a frequent target during the Red Scare; it was quite common for attacks to associate them with the Soviet Union. (This cartoon isn’t even the weirdest example of this: Edgar Rice Burroughs re-wrote an unsold novel about a Communist invasion of the United States called “Under the Red Flag” into the science fiction novel “The Moon Maid”, changing the invaders to be Communist/IWW-like aliens from the Moon!) In fact, a clip from this exact cartoon is featured in Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer’s 1979 documentary about the IWW “The Wobblies”, which coincidentally was released on DVD last month.

By: Joel Schlosberg

Joel Schlosberg — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Disney has officially released a bunch of the Alice Comedies on their DVD set “Disney Rarities” in the “Walt Disney Treasures” series, and they also turn up on public domain tapes — I’ve seen this cartoon in one called “Johnny Legend Presents Weird Cartoons”.

By: Dave Kirwan

Dave Kirwan — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I love these old silent toons too! As to the name of the series, I believe people have called them “Alice in Cartoonland” for years, but I don’t think that was ever the official on-screen title. The pilot film (part of Disney’s ‘Laugh-O- Grams’) was called “Alice’s Wonderland” and the actual series was sold as “Alice Comedies” There’s a good book on the subject called “Walt in Wonderland — the Silent Films of Walt Disney” by Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Weren’t these cartoons called “Alice in Cartoonland”?

By: tom_w

tom_w — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you so much for putting on an Alice cartoon. I have read about them, but thought they were either lost forever or locked away in a Disney vault.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Loved the comment you put on the end of this one.