I haven’t been able to catch up this week since being out in Los Angeles for the Lightbox Expo. It was a lot of fun to see old friends, and the panel I was on had some really good things to say as well. Afterwords I had some really good conversations with some folks that also teach, and a few Thunderbean fans as well. Thanks much to everyone that attended that!
I spent a good amount of time on this trip over at “The Vault”, organizing a whole much of films and figuring out next steps for them. When I got back home I could still smell the vinegar syndrome on my clothes! Film isn’t always forever, but we’re really lucky some things have lasted as long as they have.
Speaking of Halloween, as we were headed to the airport in an Uber, my phone blew ups from several people giving me the happy news that the first Thunderbean cartoon offerings were shown on MeTV Toons. It was a Van Beuren Tom & Jerry, Wot A Night, and it was screened as part of a special Halloween edition of Sunday’s Cartoon All Stars block. There’s a bunch more to come, and I’m so happy that some of our films are making it to a much bigger audience than has seen them in years. When was the last time a Van Beuren cartoon was actually broadcast? We’re super excited for this new venture, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with them to bring many more shorts in addition to this first big batch.
Now — Onto this week’s Cartoon!!
Although not officially Halloween just yet, Halloween cartoons are fun to watch at this time of year, and this is one that I hadn’t really seen too much of for many years.
Boos in the Nite (1950) is pretty standard fare for Famous Studios around 1950, and even though the song sequence isn’t a highlight as it is in others, but it’s still a fun little ride. Silly ghost gags abound, and one gag even includes ‘It’s a Hap-hap-happy Day’ from Gulliver’s Travels. The most fun sequence features ‘Spook Jones and his Seven Creeps’ with the invisible band members playing their instruments, leading to a series of sauced-up ghosts jumping out of a Barrel still and dancing to the music as they morph into various things. It’s an especially creative sequence that happens just before a pretty boring sing-along version. A guest appearance at the end featuring Peter Lorre feel like you’re watching a different cartoon right at the end- and makes you wish Famous had done something more along those lines for a whole cartoon.
The print itself isn’t great, juts a standard red NTA print that I’ve tried to color correct a little bit. Hope you enjoy it anyway, and Happy Halloween!
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.
This song has puzzled me since I first heard it as a small child, and my mother had to explain to me what a “kit bag” was. Why would you want to pack up your troubles and bring them along with you wherever you’re going, like a toothbrush? You’d be better off taking the advice of another song, and “leave your worries behind.” That goes double for Lucifer and the fags.
Another puzzling question is: Why didn’t Famous ever feature “It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day” as the singalong number in one of their Screen Songs? They used it in so many of their cartoons over the years, they might just as well have.
I’m delighted to hear that Van Beuren cartoons are being broadcast for the first time in decades. Wot a night! Wot a cartoon! Happy Halloween!
This is a great sample of the Screen Songs series! It’s ironic that with so much tie-in with the spooky theme (little red ghoul house, spook-easy), the song “Pack Up Your Troubles” doesn’t have much to do with it, unless the “troubles” referred to in the song can be the troubles of being haunted by ghosts–which isn’t really suggested. And I would think that the association of this famous song with World War I removes it even further from truly fitting into the theme. A more appropriate choice of songs available back then might have been “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” or even “You Do Something to Me” which could have been altered only slightly to “You Boo Something to Me” To tie it in even more closely. (I don’t know the date of the latter song, so it’s possible it may not have been written yet, but its reference to “voodoo” and “spells” makes me consider it as a viable candidate.)
The reality, then as now, was probably a matter of copyright and availability. I’m guessing that “Pack Up Your Troubles” was public domain by the time the cartoon was produced. So, they probably had to shoehorn whatever song was feasible into the cartoon. They made it work in any event, it’s just that it seems an odd choice for a Hallowe’en themed cartoon. In any case, Happy Hallowe’en!
Another great scan you’ve done, Steve. Sure, it could have been better, but it’s better than nothing. Something to note about this cartoon, besides the fact that we see many ghosts who could easily be Casper’s siblings or relatives, is that this is the last cartoon not featuring Popeye or Superman to be part of the National Telefilm Associates (or NTA for short) package. All the cartoons starting with Casper’s Spree Under the Sea up to Funderful Suburbia would be part of the Harvey Films package, with the remaining ones still under Paramount’s control.
What a great cartoon! There are probably so many of these, some that I even have not even seen yet! Hope you enjoyed your weekend, possibly restoring films! As always, I enjoy the special discs, but most of all I enjoy the completed full restorations and I hope there are more coming soon. Thank you for all you do.
That’s awesome that METV is running cartoons from the Thunderbean Library! Congratulations Steve!
I remember back in the early 2000s, a now defunct short film channel here in Canada called Movieola had a block of public domain cartoons and I also remember they showed a lot of the old Van Beuren cartoons including Tom and Jerry; in fact, that’s where I first discovered them. Anyways, many congratulations, Steve on the MeTV Toons partnership. It’s so great to see that the Thunderbean library is now reaching a wider audience!
I recall something similar in California. There was a cable movie channel devoted to presumably public domain movies, from primitive talkies to 60s Bs. Their cartoon block was called “Cartoon Carnival” I think, and consisted of wildly variable prints of everything from Toddle Tales to foreign shorts to what looked like student films. Not all were kid friendly.
Steve does heroic work. It’s a pity there is no home video collection of Paramount Screen Songs, but it may be due to music licensing.
Well, there is no way the line “Though you’ve a lucifer to light up your fag” would be used nowadays. As everyone knows, the “F- -” word originally referred to cigarette butts, and from the context, I can infer that Lucifer refers to matches, either a slang term or a specific brand.
Incidentally, there is a Halloween connection to “Pack up Your Troubles in your Old Kit Bag”. It appears on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” as one of the songs Schroder plays for Snoopy’s WWI Flying Ace. If you notice, Snoopy flashes a toothy grin to coincide with the line “Smile, Smile, Smile!”
In relating to Paramount and their cartoon division, could anyone be willing to make a animator breakdown of some of their 60’s Noveltoons and Modern Madcaps?
(I’m aware of the general negative opinions towards the 60’s shorts, but I’m probably the only one who actually really likes them. Reason being that, I think Paramount Cartoon Studios have the best animators [e.g. William Brewer Pattengill, Martin Bernard Taras, Isadore Klein, John Gentilella, Nick Tafuri, etc.] and the best background artists [Robert Owen, Robert Little, and Anton Loeb].
I think their work is more better than what Depatie-Freleng would be doing after it’s formation in 1963, the same year that Good Snooze Tonight, featuring “Snoozer”, was distributed to theaters. I think that should be the first to have an breakdown and here it the link: https://youtu.be/c5Asm4UduFE?si=oIFjDmfzviMFLrxJ (Basically what I would describe as a “kind of restoration”, despite it being an upscale)
Good luck to those who accept this challenge.
Hey, I recognize that print! Wink wink
Save that scanner (GRRROWR), save that scanner (GRRROWR), save that scanner (GRRROWR)…