The Almost-First Warner Bros. Cartoon: “Buster Bear” (1931)

One of the things I love best about scanning rare material is that rare material being seen again and poor Buster Bear (1930) was scanned ages ago, and languished, waiting for a release. I had shown some stills, but as waiting for the time to release it. Since scans were done December 4th, 2016, I think it’s time to get poor Buster more officially out of the bag!

Buster, the creation of silent cartoon animator John ‘Scarfoot’ McCrory, has been made a little famous over these past few years with the lost media crowd. There’s quite. Few YouTube videos mentioning the character now, and some are sort of fun to watch, even though they’re not always accurate.

Buster is sort of out already. Earlier in the year we did have a sneak preview set with this film on it. A handful of days back I also gave permission to one of the lost media animation fans— who was nice enough to ask if they could post it. So, since that’s happened, it seems like a good time to do a little post about the film here.

Cartoon Historian and Cuisine fanatic David Gerstein is the real hero when it comes to unearthing Buster. His sleuthing and care made it possible for us to scan the short from the master elements. Dave has unearthed all sorts of things, and more to come!

It’s hard to say what the actual arrangement was While Buster was clearly made for a Vitaphone release, it doesn’t appear to have ever been actually released to theaters. Perhaps there were sneak previews first, or perhaps Warners didn’t like the product in the first place. There are two previous ‘Buster Bear’ cartoons copyrighted. “The Life and Adventures of Buster Bear” (1930) and Buster Bear in the Spring Carnival” (1930). I think it’s pretty clear that there is at least footage from ‘Spring Carnival’ in this release. Footage from Spring Carnival has shown up in silent home movie releases, but a complete print of these has yet to be seen by more than just the few collectors that may or may not have them. Time will tell!

Tralfaz has a pretty good article on cartoons of 1931, listing a whole series of press releases on animation as well as reviews. It’s a great read, and lists these Buster Bear shorts as a sidenote.

Clearly McCrory was trying really hard to make a cartoon with appeal and clever synchronization-without understanding completely other contemporaries’ ability to incorporate those elements consistently in their films. From watching this attempt- and comparing to other studio films around the same time, it’s pretty clear he’s already behind the times in most production aspects. Perhaps part of that is that at least some of the film was made in 1930 or before. The lack of innovation or at the least having a film close to the standards of the time most likely is the real reason the film never really saw the light of day.

Personality is the most important thing that’s really lacking in this film over anything else, and no amount of animation extravagance can help Buster find one.

I ever much enjoy happy 30s cartoons. This one is historically interesting but clearly not a masterpiece. Sometimes viewing for enjoyment allows you to skip past a production’s shortcomings. One of the most historically interesting things is hearing the early Loony Toons theme “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” as the opening theme in this cartoon. Clearly this must have been a choice that Warners made.