Released by Paramount | Directed By Dave Fleischer Swing You Sinners: Death Becomes Him Swing You Sinners is eight minutes long and contains more imagination than features ten times its length. Or, as in modern blockbusters starring CGI trees, 20. The plot is simple enough: Bimbo tries to catch a Read more…
Released by Hal Roach Studios | Directed By James Parrot Below Zero: Would You Like to Eat a Snowman I’m never sure how to approach Laurel and Hardy. It terms of being icons of early Hollywood, they probably rank behind Chaplin in how easy they can be recognized not just Read more…
Released by United Artists | Directed By Burt Gillett Babes in the Wood: A Murder Most Fun Say what you will about Walt Disney the man (and we’ll all say things, that’s for sure), there’s little doubt that the Disney Studios has produced some impressive work in their eight decades Read more…
Released by Paramount | Directed By Dave Fleischer Minnie the Moocher: Ghostly Goofs As a boy growing up in Illinois, there’s really only one thing that was a staple in every child’s cultural education. That was the movie The Blues Brothers, of course, which ran on WGN at least once Read more…
Released by Warner Brothers | Directed By Hugh Harman Bosko’s Picture Show: A Day At the Movies “Bosko’s Picture Show” is one of the most dense cartoons I’ve seen, a whirlwind skewering of the 1930s theatrical experience. Anyone who wants to get a feel for what it was like to Read more…
Released by Paramount | Directed By Dave Fleischer Old Man of the Mountain: On Top of Old Fogey “Whatcha gonna do now?” “I’m gonna do the best I can.” Cab Calloway’s third appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon sees him as a white haired, white skinned crazy magic mountain hermit Read more…
Released by Paramount | Directed By Dave Fleischer Mother Goose Land: Hating Spiders and Snakes Kid’s stories are dark, man. You’ve noticed that, right? Hansel and Gretel ends with a witch being immolated, three blind mice lose their tails, the Pied Piper commits a widespread (and unpunished) kidnapping, the little Read more…
Released by MGM | Directed By Jules White Show Business: Nothing Like It “Say, you don’t need to get so high hat. Your ancestors swung through trees too.” Of all the Zasu Pitts/Thelma Todd shorts I’ve watched, “Show Business” is the one with the most screen time devoted to getting Read more…
Released by MGM | Directed By Gus Meins Asleep in the Feet: 10 Cents a Dunce “Nautical, but nice!” For this go-around, Zasu and Thelma are a poor pair of working girls who decide to help out a friend by making the $20 of back rent she owes down at Read more…
Released by MGM | Directed By Morley Lightfoot and Gilbert Pratt Seal Skins: House of Whosits “A seal for sale– cheap!” For this installment, Thelma’s a newspaper stenographer who yearns to beat one of the female reporters at her game. A mix up in search of a stolen Siberian seal Read more…