It turns out that watching spring – themed cartoons isn’t the same as watching Christmas or Halloween ones — they port much easier to late summer viewing – but next year I’ll try to time them better.
But before the cartoons, in brief Thunderbean news this week:
These weeks just before going back to the school are full of meetings and the usual emails setting up this and that at the school, and it’s funny that I think about them as interruptions to working on the Thunderbean things, but it’s should sort of be the other way around. The summer defiantly belongs to the work we do on these old films, and I’m always a little sad when it starts to come to sharing that time again. I know there’s a lot of late nights in these coming weeks doing both jobs— but happily so honestly. Being almost done with a few longer term projects is gratifying.
We’re working on final versions of all the films for the Rainbow Parade, Volume 2 Blu-ray set. Color grading is happening on the films now, though not done as of yet (!)— and when we have the set assembled we’ll be sending to colleagues to take a close look. While I’m tired, I’m really liking how the set is looking as we’re rounding the final corners.
The Bunin set continues, happily, with some new scans happening soon. Most of the material for this set is now final, and the feature is the last thing to finish.
The little Halloween set is rounding the corner as well. These three will be the next releases, along with about six of the special discs or so.
As we’re moving forward with some new opportunities, we’ll definitely be doing less special discs, if at all. It’s been a lovely run. We’ve got a new one up at the Thunderbean Shop for a week, but it will be one of the last of the current run. We’ll be in catch up mode for a bit, but I’m looking forward to sending a bunch of these early in September. Thanks to everyone that’s supported all these things through the years.
Now..a late summer show of two spring-themed cartoons!
When I was out in New York about a week and a half back, I got a chance to scan some more films- some for official sets, and some for the special sets. These two cartoons will be on the ‘Cartoon Seasons’ special set. I really enjoyed the contrast of the type of animation produced in 1929 versus 1949- and thought it would be a fun thing to put both these up, even though these are not the best prints.
In Springtime, we have the typical Disney/Iwerks Silly Symphony approach from that year. It’s really interesting to compare this film with Fiddlesticks, made the next year, and all the similarities in style and direction of Iwerks’ animation. Flip isn’t much different than the frog here— and an argument can be made that this is Flip’s first appearance. The print isn’t the best— a screen attractions print made for the European market I think, but it does have one really cool aspect – the original end title, and the end title being revealed with animation, missing from the later prints. I love this sort of thing, and you probably do, too.
In Spring Song, we have the usual Famous Studios approach, but it’s ne ver a bad day when Jerry Colonna shows up in a Famous Studios cartoon, even though it’s brief. I like the animation throughout, but the screen songs are, well, screen songs.
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.
Steve, it may be late for Spring in the U. S., but we are about ten days away from Spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
“‘Song Without Words’, eh? We’ll see about that!”
I assume that the lyrics Buddy Kaye provided for Mendelssohn’s Spring Song were written specifically for the cartoon, as he contributed quite a bit of work to Famous Studios in the ’40s, notably the Little Lulu and Little Audrey theme songs. His lyrics here are very good, following the scansion of the melody precisely and adding a lot of appealing internal rhymes, with charming imagery and even a bit of jazzy contemporary slang. He (or his collaborator Sharples) wisely truncated the melody to tighten up the rhyme scheme and make it easier to sing; Mendelssohn’s full melody has a range of nearly two octaves, beyond the scope of most casual followers of the bouncing ball. Bravo, Buddy!
Kaye was not the first person to set lyrics to Mendelssohn’s Spring Song. Arthur J. Lamb, probably best remembered today for his collaborations with Harry Von Tilzer like “A Bird in a Gilded Cage”, did so early in the twentieth century. Lamb’s version, however, isn’t nearly as good as Kaye’s; he occasionally has to spread a single syllable out over two or more notes to shoehorn the text into the melody, and the accented syllables don’t always align with the strong musical beats. He also used Mendelssohn’s complete melody with all of its uncomfortably high or low notes, so it should only be attempted by trained singers, not that any are likely to. Little wonder that it never became a standard.
Just to make things confusing, Felix Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, also composed a famous Spring Song, this one with words by the German Romantic poet Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, who wrote many, many poems about springtime. The coming of spring is a very big deal in northern countries with long winters.
Don’t worry about showing these cartoons out of season. After all, the Iwerks ComiColor cartoon “Summertime” actually takes place in springtime, beginning, like the Famous Screen Song, with the sun melting away the winter snow and Pan playing his pipes amid a landscape of dancing flowers. Though I have to give Iwerks extra points for those naked dancing girls in silhouette.
Hey Steve:
I noticed one of your Special Sets is Original Titles:
Can you tell me what will be on there? Is it cartoons from various studios?
On top of the original end card for 1929’s Springtime, there’s no syncing issue during the last minute, unlike the Walt Disney Treasures release of said cartoon. Nice!
HI Steve,
Please re-do the transfer of Springtime, as the original end title water wipe is nearly ruined by a bad glitch just as the stork falls into the water puddle, stomach full of frogs. Thanks so much!
Neat that Springtime (1929) exists with OG titles.
I’ve been trying to order the rainbow parade vol 2 Blu-ray preorder since this morning I’ve already pre-ordered cartoons for Victory and the Ub lwerks comicolors vol 1 and 2 but when I get to the end of the ordering process it won’t complete the transaction???? how can I get the order process completed please call me @ 727-383-1214. thank you Walter Deanovich
I’m so excited that the Bunin set is so close to completion. I’ve resisted watching Alice over the years, simply because the versions that were out there were in such bad shape that I didn’t want to spoil my first viewing. I got to see one of the original stop motion puppets from Alice at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta a few years ago. It was the Three of Diamonds. Such a beautifully made figure.
Time for Spring I say!
Great to see Rainbow Parades Volume 2 coming together, Steve. I hate to nitpick, but while Bold King Cole is certainly the sharpest looking, hence coming from the OCN, the colours tend to look more muted than the rest of the shorts judging by the screenshots you’ve been sharing here and on the Blu Ray forum. I know you’re still busy with colour grading for the set, but I thought I should point that out. Again, I’m glad to see it all coming together. Cheers!
Thank you for sharing these, Steve.
I was especially interested to see the original end titles to Springtime.
Do you have any more ‘Screen Attraction Corporation’ prints of Disney cartoons? Going by 16mm and 35mm film cataloges of the 1930’s/late 40’s, it seems they offered several of the early Mickeys and Silly Symphonies in 16mm and so it’s possible some more special titles survive in this format (for example, I believe they offered The Merry Dwarfs and this may have had a ‘drunken’ special effect to the end title originally).
“Midnight In a Toy Shop” (1930) should end with a similar vertical wipe to end title, as the fireworks explosions subside.