Hi everyone!
I’m very much looking forward to a little less busy here; it’s review week at the school, so the days have been filled with looking at student work, and waiting all day to see how the new scans have been looking that arrive nearly daily right now!
Here’s are scans just done from the Rainbow Parade set. It’s a real thrill to see these films with their original titles… so I can’t help but share them with you as they show up. Here are the original title cards from Spinning Mice, Parrotville Post Office and the 35mm upgrade title from The Picnic Panic as well as a few shots from each of the cartoons.
And now… an announcement!!!
Scanning is now progressing on the Ub Iwerks’ Comi-Color Cartoons.. so today we’re announcing the pre-release offer for Ub Iwerks’ Comi-Color Cartoons, Volume 1! Of course, it’s going to be a wonderful set– calling in the next set of films to be pulled for scan is always exciting! All proceeds from the pre-order will help fund the continued scans of these materials. We’re very happy to be able to work on the release and be able to finally offer high quality versions of this classic animation in picture as well as sound. The pre-release will only be available through May 15th.
Thanks to everyone for supporting these projects! Order information is here:
Volume 1 contains:
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Little Red Hen
The Brave Tin Soldier
Puss in Boots
The Queen of Hearts
Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp
The Headless Horseman
The Valiant Tailor
Don Quixote
Jack Frost
Little Black Sambo
The Bremen Town Musicians
Old Mother Hubbard
Things have been pretty centered around the Rainbow Parades here as of late, I thought I’d post a few of the music-only bonus features we did for the 2009 DVD release of the first half of the Rainbow Parades. I had posted – Along Came a Duck before; it’s one of the cartoons from the pre-curser to the Rainbow Parades, the Toddle Tales series. Since pieces of many of these Winston Sharples scores appeared on TV versions of silent cartoons, we were able to take the pieces of those scores from various cartoons and make the whole film mostly in a music-only version. Here’s that cartoon again, as well as some clips from some of the Rainbow Parades with just music. They’re pretty enjoyable in the music only versions- it gives you a real appreciation of how good the Sharples scores are, especially in matching little musical themes to action; aspects of this work is often obscured by sound effects in the final versions.
And… one more little treat- a sequence from Japanese Lanterns from the 35mm Cinecolor print!
On yet other notes, Fleischer Rarities still isn’t back yet, but I expect it to be through the long wait of replication soon.
On things in the pipeline, the Rainbow Parades and Flip the Frog are coming along beautifully. The very last of the Flip’s are just getting scanned. We’re working hard to get these as well as the other Thunderbean titles all wrapped up and replicated.
My school put up a little video while we were scanning a batch of Flip the Frog’s a little while back; I don’t remember if I wrote about it here, but I stumbled across the link today:
Have a good week everyone!!!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Wow – the quality of that Japanese Lanterns clip is amazing! Both picture & sound are incredibly clear; almost like it’s only just been filmed.
Thanks for all your work on this by you & your team Steve – wonderful to see this excerpt.
Just pre-ordered! I enjoyed the isolated score clips.
What release date are you targeting for the Comic-Colors? This year?
LOL More like 2028, Flip the Frog will likely be released in 2023
John,
There was a little company that attempted to scan and restore as many things as they could in the space of a few years. This little company was one of two doing this particular kind of work. They found material that often the collectors had never seen and did their best to make sure as many people were able to see it as possible. They sometimes bit off more than they could always chew, but the results, although late, were as good as they could make them, and they offered anyone who was tired of waiting for them to catch up a refund. 2018 appeared to be a pretty good year for this little company, and with hopes high and fingers crossed they attempted to move forward as quickly as possible.
Things are looking good for a release later this summer on volume 1 if we can swing the scan expenses!
“Things are looking good for a release later this summer on volume 1 if we can swing the scan expenses!
Okay, so that’s the Comi-Colors… what about Flip?
so when will the Fleischer Rarities set be on Amazon along with the Blu-Ray reissue of Stop Motion Marvels ???
Hey Ben…
Fleischer Rarities is in replication. The two Mid century Moderns are next to be replicated, and we’re working on that expense.
The Stop Motion Marvels Blu-ray isn’t in pre-order yet but Stop Motion Marvels 2 is in pre-order, so that will be out first.
Based on all the screen grabs, it looks like the Rainbow Parades titles were fairly uniform pre-Technicolor.
The titles for 1934- very early 1935, as seen on Parrotville Fire Department and Sunshine Makers, have the idents for RKO and Burt Gillett positioned towards the left of the frame.
The title for later early 1935, as seen on Japanese Lanterns, have the RKO and Gillett idents centered on the frame, but with everything else more or less identical.
The titles for later 1935 up to the jump to Technicolor, as seen here on Picnic Panic, Spinning Mice and Parrotville Post Office, add the word “Cartoon” under the Rainbow Parade title and put the MPPDA logo on the Van Beuren card, but again are otherwise more or less identical.
If originals for any of the outstanding Rainbow Parades can’t be found, reconstructions could be done that would be pretty close to the genuine article.
Hi Kevin,
I think we can make a pretty good guess at this point on the ones that haven’t shown up. It’s pretty neat to be able to see that difference in title cards (that’s why I put those two up) to help us deduce what the missing ones look like as you say!
Was there ever a preorder for Flip?
Steve, you are good. Everything you produce is good and worthwhile. Keep going. Your work is not done. I thank you for all that you have done, all that you do and all that you have in the pipeline and I will continue to support it.
Wonderful, wonderful news! Thank you Steve for all the hard work you’re putting down locating, restoring and releasing these wonderful cartoons!
I thought the “Flip the Frog” Blu-ray was going to be released first. So this means the order has been switched? Comi-Color Cartoons Vol. 1 first, then Flip, then Comi-Color Vol. 2…?
By the way, what’s the release date for this Volume 1 set?