Walter Lantz Thru United Artists
When Walter Lantz met with Universal in 1947, to renegotiate his contract, the studio played hard ball. It wanted to completely own all of the Lantz cartoons in perpetuity. But…
Category Archives: Animation History
A Terrytoons Poster Gallery
To paraphrase former President Ronald Reagan, the six most terrifying words in the English language are: “This Theatre Regularly Shows Terrytoons Cartoons!” – or language to that effect. Let’s be…
The Adventures of Lariat Sam (1962)
From the files of forgotten cartoon characters, The Adventures of Lariat Sam – the official follow up to Gene Deitch’s pioneering TV cartoon Tom Terrific (1957). Like TT, Lariat Sam…
Theatrical Cartoons in 1965
The Hollywood short was practically dead by 1964. But you wouldn’t know it by reading the Hollywood trades. When BoxOffice Magazine printed its annual Short Subject issue in late 1964,…
Betty Boop in “Be Up To Date” (1938)
Today we’ll dig into one of those later Betty Boop cartoons – you know, the ones produced after the Production Code went into effect. No character was more affected than…
Disney’s Forgotten “Puppets Cereal” Commercial
Does this image ring any bells? If you were a child in 1966, you might have bought Nabisco’s Puppets Cereal. Crunchy, crappy breakfast food sold in plastic “dolls” in the…
View Masters!
I love the old Viewmaster slides. Not to get nostalgic, but who didn’t grow up with these and cherish them in those innocent days before home video, the internet and…
The Lion’s Roar for MGM Cartoons
From October 1937 until August 1941 MGM published a magazine (MGM Short Story, at left) – exclusively distributed to its exhibitors – devoted to its live action and animated short…
The Strangest Mighty Mouse Comics You’ve Never Seen!
Cartoonist/animator Paul Terry was known for his archaic sense of humor and style of drawing. So when Mighty Mouse achieved commercial success in the 1940s he apparently turned to similarly…
Vocal Geniuses
My friend Bob Bergen is Warner Bros. go-to guy when they need to record Porky Pig – that’s him these days on The Looney Tunes Show, and previously on Duck…
