Super animation art collector Ryan Englade is putting some choice Fleischer Studios pieces up for auction on October 21 and 22. The auction is via S/R Labs with a hard-copy catalog available on October 4th; and posted entirely on their website on October 14.
Among the highlights: these original maquettes for Mr. Bug Goes To Town characters (above, and check The New York Times clipping in the thumbnails below).
Something else you don’t see everyday, original backgrounds from several Color Classics cartoons (click to enlarge):
Kids In A Shoe
Christmas Comes But Once A Year
Little Dutch Mill
How about this original layout drawing for a Popeye cartoon one-sheet poster?
Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh
And take a look at these original BGs from earlier pre-code black and white Fleischers. Click to enlarge. No prizes – but I’ll allow our readers to identify which cartoons these are from…
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of Cal Arts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
Those color backgrounds are beautiful. They show us how much we’re missing by not having truly restored versions of those Color Classics.
Having watched NTA Red prints of the Color Classics for decades,. it’s amazing to see the vibrancy of the background, especially “Kids In The Shoe” can compare them to the colors you’re used to on the available prints (though ‘KitS’ and “LIttle Dutch Mill” would have come out just before the Fleischers got license to the three-color Technicolor process, so that also no doubt affected what ended up on the negative prints).
Love that Dutch Mill BG – with built-in wheels to turn the windmills and the clock hands.
Wow! Those backgrounds are amazing! Too bad the existing prints don’t look that good.
I’m guessing the race car scene is from “Betty Boop’s Ker-Choo” (1933).
Can anybody spare 10 million dimes? I would love to get a hold of one of these….Too bad I’m a broke college student. Maybe somebody should buy these and place them in a museum. Both Walt Disney and Studio Ghibli have their own museums. It would be great if the Fleischers, Warner Brothers, or other prominent animation companies would get one some day too.
Are we being intentionally denied the capability of copying and saving these pictures for our own private use? I seem to be only able to figure out a way to copy the first one in the series and then I’m screwed. Does anyone know a way around this?
I’ve been wondering about that myself. The system for showing images on this site has often annoyed me for that very reason.
The Fleischer b&w backgrounds are as follows: The first one with the truck is from the Popeye cartoon “Let’s Get Movin'” (1936). The next one with the aerial view is from the Screen Song “School Days” (1932). The third background has already been correctly identified as from “Betty Boop’s Kerchoo” (1933). The fourth one with the street scene is from the Screen Song “Stoopnocracy” (1933). The last background with the theater scene is from the Talkartoon “Silly Scandals” (1931). Great art from some great cartoons!
I’m lucky enough to have seen good color prints of these on film and not on the poorly produced PD VHS tapes that transferred faded prints.