Happy February everyone!
It’s a short one today, but here’s a better copy of a short that should be seen if you haven’t!
As I was looking through stuff this past week, I stopped and looked again at the version of the Walter Lantz Cartoon Boy Meets Dog and wondered if I had ever put up on line the version that was released years back on the ‘Lantz Treaures’ set. This cartoon was the subject of the very first “Thunderbean Thursday” post back in 2013, and back then I talked about putting the print together, but showed a pretty terrible 2 color print, many generations down! The original article is here and features some cool cels from the film as well as an article about the short. I think it was a fun way to start these little weekly posts- and was amazed we never posted the Kodachrome print.
Interestingly, at one point Lantz had the option of ‘buying back’ this cartoon from Ipana Toothpaste, who had sponsored its production. He turned down the deal, but home movie distributor Castle Films, who had an association with Lantz and Universal already, purchased it. Clearly it was one of the most printed of *any* of the cartoons Castle released in 8mm and 16mm– there are still bountiful copies of the film in black and white, and you can find them on Ebay almost always.
Frank Churchill writes the score for the short, in a rare moment away from the Disney Studio. It’s a breezy and fun piece of music, and funny to accompany characters that are more than just a nod to Snow White.
Willy Pogany’s beautiful backgrounds are one of the big stars in the short; we owe collector Craig Davidson a huge debt of gratitude for allowing this rare print to be scanned – revealing at least a pretty close to the original look version of the film.
Mark Kausler was also kind enough to lend his Mizzell film’s print of the film that had the rare ‘Ipana’ plug intact. This version was from a silent Cinecolor print of the film that Mizzell released with the help of Kausler’s soundtrack, back in 1981.
Here’s the version from the Thunderbean set. I did some cleanup on the film and edited the opening and closing (from the Mizzell print) onto the almost complete Kodachrome print. Clearly the cartoon was actually produced in Technicolor originally.
Have a good week everyone!
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.
I saw Boy Meets Dog on Matinee at the Bijou years ago, with a 1930’s Universal logo on it. Are there actual Universal prints out there, or was it “restored” by Matinee at the Bijou?
The producer of the show probably did that on their own to obscure the fact they were probably using a Castle Films print for their presentation.
Nice. Among the very best Lantz product I’ve seen. (It skews toward Iwerks). And, I’ll bet, the first use of the word ‘neurotic’ in a cartoon.
Short but sweet. Thank you!
Did you all notice the “cameo” appearance of two well-known dwarves at around 4:25?
Anyone know who voices Bobby? IMDB says it’s Cecil Roy.
Isn’t that Danny Webb doing his Egghead/Joe Penner voice as the typewriting elf?
Since this is a tie-in to the Reg’lar Fellers comic strip I added a link to this post to the Wikipedia entry on the strip.
I bought that print nearly 40 years ago from a camera shop that was closing out its 16mm rental library.
Amazing that no other kodachrome prints seem to have surfaced since 1980! You have to figure Castle made multiple color prints; where ARE they?
The Thunderbean crew did a great clean-up job on this one.
Glad to hear this cartoon show up again, among some of the meanest characters that Billy Bletcher played. Yes, that is definitely the “voice of Egghead”, part of what makes Lantz cartoons around this period so collectable, but I never saw this as one of the old Lantz cartoons transferred to silent Castle Films titles. I’d love to hear this with the original toothpaste ad intact with soundtrack sometime.