tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post116604029188599120..comments2024-03-12T10:31:11.815-07:00Comments on The Ward-O-Matic: The Holy Grail of AnimationWard Jenkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05013085293679968596noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-56116999693739410452016-03-17T07:48:12.915-07:002016-03-17T07:48:12.915-07:00If ever there was a candidate for Holy Grail of An...If ever there was a candidate for Holy Grail of Animation, this is surely it: the ultra rare original opening titles for Filmation's The Batman-Superman Hour (CBS, 1968). Apparently the original intro from 1968 on CBS appears to be lost...totally unavailable to collectors online. Yet the original 1967 CBS open to The Superman-Aquaman Hour Of Adventure has surfaced... :/ https://youtu.be/jzXMjvQxT-c A brief snippet of the instrumental for the original 1968 CBS theme can be heard in this snippet from Sesame Street: https://youtu.be/mmoE5pRo6ho :)<br /><br />Here are the lyrics to the original Batman/Superman Hour, courtesy of @Ferd Appleby, who worked on it:<br /><br />batman! su---perman!<br />watch. out. villains. here. we. come!<br />(music then);<br />penguin, riddler, jo-ker too...the caped cru-sader's af-ter youuu!<br />(music)<br />batman!<br />(more music) <br />batman!<br />to combat crimmmeee, they work together; <br />batman....batman,,,,,<br />it's a birrddd, it's a plannee.......<br />it's suu-perman!<br />it's superman, the man of steel, it's supeman!<br />(music) <br />batman!<br />superman!<br />batman! <br />superman! <br />(announcer norm prescott): the batman superman hour!<br /><br />:)AH3RDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10643510232466195909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-8664174035558585752016-03-17T07:35:40.668-07:002016-03-17T07:35:40.668-07:00Definitely the super-rare opening titles for Film...Definitely the super-rare opening titles for Filmation's The Batman-Superman Hour (CBS, 1968). If ever there was a candidate for Holy Grail of Animation, this is surely it. Here are the lyrics to the original Batman/Superman Hour, courtesy of @Ferd Appleby:<br /><br />batman! su---perman!<br />watch. out. villains. here. we. come!<br />(music then);<br />penguin, riddler, jo-ker too...the caped cru-sader's af-ter youuu!<br />(music)<br />batman!<br />(more music) <br />batman!<br />to combat crimmmeee, they work together; <br />batman....batman,,,,,<br />it's a birrddd, it's a plannee.......<br />it's suu-perman!<br />it's superman, the man of steel, it's supeman!<br />(music) <br />batman!<br />superman!<br />batman! <br />superman! <br />(announcer norm prescott): the batman superman hour!<br /><br />:)<br /><br />Apparently the original intro from 1968 on CBS appears to be lost...totally unavailable to collectors online. Yet the original 1967 CBS open to The Superman-Aquaman Hour Of Adventure has surfaced... :/ https://youtu.be/jzXMjvQxT-c <br /><br />A brief snippet of the instrumental for the original 1968 CBS theme can be heard in this snippet from Sesame Street: https://youtu.be/mmoE5pRo6ho :)AH3RDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10643510232466195909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-6846146687120562922008-04-06T07:03:00.000-07:002008-04-06T07:03:00.000-07:00Hi!,If anyone knows anything that can lead to find...Hi!,<BR/>If anyone knows anything that can lead to finding a color print of "Erase una vez... La Cenicienta" (Estela Films, Spain, 1950), or any trace of its distribution outside the country of origin, please let me know.<BR/>Thanks,<BR/>IrelaIrela Núñezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03436174613721439318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-36957542404180167852007-12-21T12:23:00.000-08:002007-12-21T12:23:00.000-08:00The "true" Holy Grail is a "RED" lion title card "...The "true" Holy Grail is a "RED" lion title card "Droopy's Good Deed"! This is the only original version, and it contains a short scene of Spike holding an obese black woman in his arms after he saved her from the burning house. All other versions are "re-issues" and have been modified from the first release.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-874540191250592482007-11-17T06:59:00.000-08:002007-11-17T06:59:00.000-08:00I would love to be able to see a animated short th...I would love to be able to see a animated short that we saw in the 80's on HBO. It would often be shown at the end of the cartoon "Dot and the Kangaroo". It was called "Learning to Walk" or "Learning How to Walk". We often speak of this cartoon at family gatherings. It is amazing how something we saw so long ago is still etched in so many of our memories.BFlandershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187995703294679274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-40449416649678526812007-09-20T11:23:00.000-07:002007-09-20T11:23:00.000-07:00another vote for "the Great" animated docu-com abo...another vote for "the Great" animated docu-com about Brunel and a plea for SOMEONE to have a copy of Lorenzo Music's "Carlton your doorman" cartoon which CBS showed only once...<BR/>ah, the memoriesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-21174595974796710502007-07-19T00:00:00.000-07:002007-07-19T00:00:00.000-07:00You can buy alot of old 'lost' cartoons at BuyoutF...You can buy alot of old 'lost' cartoons at BuyoutFootage.com under classic cartoons http://buyoutfootage.com/pages/pd-toons_a.html, but it takes some searching. Song of the South and Coal Black are available on eBay occasionally. I bought Coal Black.<BR/><BR/>For a long time a B&W wartime cartoon with carrier pigeons was my grail, until I found it and bought it on a Daffy Duck wartime collection. Mati Hari is a curvy foreign pigeon working for the Nazis to intercept American carrier pigeons to seduce them to get their messages. She kisses a dopey pigeon for an uncomfortabley long time, melting him into butter. As a kid, this was the hoottest thing I had ever seen on TV (in the 1970s). She looks something like Jessica Rabbit, with hair over one eye and a leg garter. She was probably the inspiration for Jessica.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-55080951139018854302007-07-18T16:28:00.000-07:002007-07-18T16:28:00.000-07:00I as able to finally get a copy of The Box from Fr...I as able to finally get a copy of The Box from Fred Wolf Films for the project.<BR/><BR/>I was able to find all the animations except for one:<BR/><BR/>35 - 1966 - Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature - John Hubley and Faith Hubley, Producers<BR/><BR/>We contacted Emily Hubley directly but she's busy working on her first feature film and has basically<BR/>closed herself off to the world. I did contact the Library of Congress, and the Archives, and they both<BR/>only allow the 16mm film to be viewed on premises!<BR/><BR/>If you have any knowledge on where we can find a copy please get in touch with myself<BR/>at kittysafe(at)gmail(dot)com<BR/><BR/>Thank you!<BR/><BR/>JonathanKittysafehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14858747824338755068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-49079030153836593092007-07-11T22:28:00.000-07:002007-07-11T22:28:00.000-07:00Re: Amazing 3 (W3)It seems that the Queensland Art...<B>Re: Amazing 3 (W3)</B><BR/>It seems that the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art was able to screen the opening episode of The Amazing Three this past April. So maybe there are other episodes hidden away somewhere...Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03345291320959635401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-60849300481893018012007-07-07T05:49:00.000-07:002007-07-07T05:49:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Kittysafehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14858747824338755068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-86317778770738716412007-05-31T10:46:00.000-07:002007-05-31T10:46:00.000-07:00"Black Cauldron" underwent so many revisions and c..."Black Cauldron" underwent so many revisions and changes that it would be difficult to define where one production ended and the other began (I wouldn't mind seeing some of the work Don Bluth, John Pomeroy and Gary Goldman did on that film).<BR/><BR/>I was lucky enough to see Burton's "Hansel and Gretel" short on the Disney Channel (but I don't have it on tape, unfortunately). It was a live-action film (with some animated effects).<BR/><BR/>Re: "The Beagles". There are prints of at least three complete episodes floating around (two in black and white, one color), and an entire episode was apparently posted to Google Video (but has since been pulled). FYI.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1170578398413799842007-02-04T00:39:00.000-08:002007-02-04T00:39:00.000-08:00Really fascinating thread. I'd love to see the unc...Really fascinating thread. I'd love to see the uncut "Black Cauldron". I met Andreas Deja at a screening of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" at the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood, and he told me that he wouldn't be surprised about an eventual release, which appeased me and yet simultaneously made me even more anxious for a release of it.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Another ultra-rare Disney artifact is Tim Burton's 1982 Disney Channel film "Hansel and Gretel", which was aired only once and is primarily animated from what I've read. <BR/><BR/>"Escalation" is a great pick.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1168167378273235672007-01-07T02:56:00.000-08:002007-01-07T02:56:00.000-08:00This version of The Thief and the Cobbler misses o...This version of The Thief and the Cobbler misses one of the most amazing scenes in the movie, which I saw on English television when I was visiting London in the fall of 1988. I suspect it was an episode of "The South Bank Show" hosted by Melvin Bragg. Anyway, the scene must have been an expanded version of the atmospheric but very short introduction that the recobbled version starts with. In it, one has the powerful, incantatory narration while looking from a distance at the golden city. The camera or shot moves into the city in an amazing, surreal, hallucinatory and spiralling way, as if created with the most complex dolly shot in all of history, although it's all done by animation, of course. It was absolutely magical. I thought the narrator for that scene was Vincent Price, which would explain the drawings of the wizard's hands which one sees in the recobbled version's opening.<BR/><BR/>If I had to review the film: First of all, it's great to see this masterpiece, or the remains of a masterpiece, in some sort of recognizable form. I saw the execrable American butchering in the 1990s, and every moment, every second of that made me squirm with displeasure. Here, I'd say that the best parts are the scenes of evil, with their deep, saturated colors and visionary power. The comical and heroic characters generally have a cutesy feeling, and a lot of the shots of the golden city, all candy-colored pastel and soft-focus drawing, look rather dated in a 1960s/1970s way. But the scenes of evil are undying classics.<BR/><BR/>If you are not burning a CD and you simply want to view the movie, you only need to download 4 .vob files from the numerous files in the bittorrent: vts_01_1.vob, vts_01_2.vob, vts_01_3.vob, and vts_01_4.vob. That should save you some on download time.<BR/><BR/>Then you might want to do what I did, which was to convert the .vob files to .mpg files. I used my free file conversion software from eRightSoft, and then watched the files with Windows Media Player, which all worked out fine.<BR/><BR/>If someone has better movie making software than I have, or is more skilled than I am, maybe it would be a good idea to make the four .mpg files, then splice them together and then post the film as a zipped file at Rapidshare.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166804557187322152006-12-22T08:22:00.000-08:002006-12-22T08:22:00.000-08:00What? No "Bambi vs Godzilla"? Guess I'm an animati...What? No "Bambi vs Godzilla"? Guess I'm an animation buffoon ;)<BR/><BR/>--Rock<BR/>(Ward's computer geek cousin)Humble Heathenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12995322663046621750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166678332141125882006-12-20T21:18:00.000-08:002006-12-20T21:18:00.000-08:00My "Holy Grails" run towards the modern, but there...My "Holy Grails" run towards the modern, but there are certainly a few:<BR/><BR/>Song of the South and the uncut Fantasia-Thanks to the Treasures, I can honestly say that these are the only "forbidden" Disney films I have yet to see that aren't readily available.<BR/><BR/>The Lantz library-Other than an old Woody Woodpecker record (which I still have on hand, but no record player), I have never seen a single Lantz cartoon (the only major Golden Age studio I wasn't exposed to as a kid, no less).<BR/><BR/>Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies-Unlike most, I tend to enjoy the Filmation canon (though mostly Fat Albert and their action-adventure shows), but this special strikes me as so odd that I need to see it before I die.<BR/><BR/>The Filmation canon (such as it is)-What is out there on DVD (except the Star Trek animated series) is sourced from PAL (since Hallmark supposedly destroyed the 35s for their chunk of the Filmation library) and edited, which drives me batty. While it's certainly not a priority to most, I'd like to see these restored to their proper speed and without any edits.<BR/><BR/>The original Fat Albert special-Bill Cosby apparently disliked the original special greatly, so it's likely not to resurface. But it would be nice to see why he disliked it so much.<BR/><BR/>Dungeons & Dragons as aired on DVD-Besides the ridiculous music replacement, the DVD set lacked the proper intros and credits for each episode (with the second season intro included being a fuzzy PAL transfer), and most of the "Today, on D&D" trailers not present. I for one would like to know just how Marvel and CBS tried to tease "The Dragon's Graveyard", which had the heroes going out to kill Venger, the series villain.<BR/><BR/>The DePatie-Freleng Spider-Woman and Fantastic Four cartoons-Within a few years of these shows being produced, Friz retired, and DePatie-Freleng was bought out by Marvel and became an action-adventure studio (with most of Friz's old animators credited as sequence directors on all of Marvel and Sunbow cartoons). I'd like to see these shows to understand just what Marvel liked, and how a studio heavily slanted towards comedy was able to switch gears so quickly and completely.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166581514975987052006-12-19T18:25:00.000-08:002006-12-19T18:25:00.000-08:00As a mere artist who one day hopes to see his work...As a mere artist who one day hopes to see his work move and come to life, 2 Holy Grails for me; <BR/><BR/>1) The Selfish Giant, already mentioned earlier.<BR/><BR/>2) Simple Gifts. An hour of approx. 7 shorts, each relating to the season in some way, each animated by different people. My fave, The Great Frost, from Virginia Woolf's Orlando..like Vogue covers from the 20's come to life. Ran 2wice on PBS in the early 80'sAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166568080624278572006-12-19T14:41:00.000-08:002006-12-19T14:41:00.000-08:00Y'know, I'll just bet some 16mm copies of "Here co...Y'know, I'll just bet some 16mm copies of "Here come the Beagles" episodes are still out there somewhere. <BR/>For what it's worth there's an albums worth of Beagles tunes as bonus tracks (for some reason) on a Banana Splits Bootleg CD I see at conventions from time to time. The music is very beatle cartoons-era inspired, though in all honesty the majority of the songs aren't all that great.C. Martin Crokerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09041493460159667469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166557534409347882006-12-19T11:45:00.000-08:002006-12-19T11:45:00.000-08:00Great post, and great comments!Of all the ones I'v...Great post, and great comments!<BR/><BR/>Of all the ones I've read, I'd say the one true "Holy Grail" is <I>Here Come the Beagles</I>, mentioned by Cap'n Quisp. Can you imagine? An <I>entire</I> TV series, lost to the sands of time...<BR/><BR/>Nearly all the other "grails" mentioned can be found either on YouTube, Google Video or on bootleg DVDs (including such "lost" titles as <I>Linus the Lion-Hearted</I> and <I>The Amazing 3</I>). It might take a little searching, but it's out there, Scully. Ain't technology grand?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166535055447423922006-12-19T05:30:00.000-08:002006-12-19T05:30:00.000-08:00This is a great list! As an animation collector a...This is a great list! As an animation collector and producer of DVDs, a lot of those films above were on my wish list for a lot of years...<BR/><BR/>My holy grails are almost all strange or lost cartoons. If I coudl have had access to those Romer Grey drawings I would have shot them- I wonder if that guy still has all of those....<BR/><BR/>The film collectors (and Ebay) have helped make a lot of the really rare stuff available- sometimes a rare print is about the only way to see soem of these things...<BR/><BR/>My current Holy Grails are:<BR/>*The rest of the KINEX studio shorts (strange stop motion shorts produced especially for Kodak's home movie market in 1928-1930)<BR/>*Goofy Goat by Ted Eshbaugh, in COLOR. First of the lifelong missions.<BR/> *The missing Disney Oswald cartoons<BR/> *A complete sound print (including those strange outtakes) of Les Elton's MONKEY DOODLE (and ANYTHING else Les Elton did)<BR/>*Daffy Ditty Cartoons by Frank Tashlin<BR/>*That color print of TEAPOT TOWN by Ted Eshbaugh (I know where it is, but getting it is the hard part!)<BR/>*Mintz' Toby the Pup cartoons (a life long mission!)<BR/>*The recolored MUTT AND JEFF and BUGOFF feature (no one has this, but Milton Knight discribed it to me years back as having live action belly dancer footage mixed in with the recolored cartoons- I can't even imagine what this looks like..)<BR/>*The Soundtrack for 'An Egyptian Gyp' (a 'colortone' cartoon from 1930)<BR/>*The rest of Cartoon Films, Inc. Commercials<BR/><BR/>Steve Stanchfield Thunderbean AnimationAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166477228141943162006-12-18T13:27:00.000-08:002006-12-18T13:27:00.000-08:00For me the Holy Grail is a long list but it can be...For me the Holy Grail is a long list but it can be summed up in one word, "Oscar". I was kind of surprised that no one mentioned Academy Award winners other than Dan Goodsell and esn. <BR/><BR/>Go to Wikipedia and look at the list under "Academy Award for Animated Short Film". Let's not make things hard on ourselves and since it might be hard to find the winners on DVD alone, can you find them all on DVD <B>or</B> VHS? Too hard? How about online? Let's not worry about finding them for either download or YouTube separately, can you find all the winners using both combined? Let's make it even easier, including all the sources named above, then adding TV and theaters and skipping all the nominees, how many have you seen? Remember that at one time these short films were considered the greatest achievment in short animation for the year they were made. Because they have won the highest award a film can win and being beautiful works of art, you'd expect the world would be flooded with them, instead of being ingored (e.g. Mr. Magoo, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom) or outright banned (e.g. Three Orphan Kittens, Der Fuehrer's Face).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166476818747246922006-12-18T13:20:00.000-08:002006-12-18T13:20:00.000-08:00On my must see list, for starters: Richard William...On my must see list, for starters: Richard Williams' "The Little Island"; Hugh Harman's "A Rainy Day" and the 'Bosko' "Happy Harmonies"; Bob Godfrey's "Alf, Bill & Fred"; The Gene Deitch Terrytoons (Gaston, Silly Sidney, The Fabulous Fireworks Family, Flebus & The Juggler of Our Lady) - in cinemascope, please; hard to find U.P.A. titles, such as "Willie the Kid", "Georgie and the Dragon" and "Fudget's Budget", as well as seasons one and two of the "Gerald McBoing Boing Show"; Hubley's "Old Whiff" (the only toon in "smellovision"); the George Pal adaptations of Dr. Seuss ("It Happened on Mulberry Street and "The 5,000 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins"); a restored version of Bunin's "Alice in Wonderland" AND the Columbia Color Rhapsodies (especially if they're all as good as Iwerks' "Skeleton Frolics"). There are a slew of oscar-winners that have never made it to video (e.g. "Is It Always Right To Be Right?"; "The Crunch Bird"; "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature"); also some Zagreb studio curiosities ("Tup Tup" and "The Game", both oscar nominated) and Ofuji's "Ghost Ship" and "The Whale" (the latter admired by Picasso). There's more! Ward Kimball's Monty Pythonesque "It's Tough to be a Bird" and the rest of the hold-outs from Disney ("Lorenzo", "Dali", "Redux Riding Hood" and "Donald in Mathmagic Land"); "Winds of Change" (Metamorphoses) with the original music score and/or a decent wide-screen transfer of the American release (with narration by Peter Ustinov and funky disco score by Costandinos) - and Jean Image's "Jeannot l'Intrepide (Johnny the Giant Killer) - complete, newly remastered and in French. Gene S.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166473011324754212006-12-18T12:16:00.000-08:002006-12-18T12:16:00.000-08:00For those 80's survivors who remember Boston/Cambr...For those 80's survivors who remember Boston/Cambridge's Off the Wall theater (RIP), I actually remember them showing not only Coal Black on the bigscreen, but the Lost ending of Warner's "Heckling Hare" at one festival: <BR/>Bugs and the dog screech to a stop, say "Nyah, fooled you, didn't we?", turn...and promptly walk off a SECOND cliff--The cartoon fades out as they plummet toward the camera again. (Tex reportedly intended them to fall three times, but the studio had enough.) It exists, it must be out there somewhere!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166469917443848532006-12-18T11:25:00.000-08:002006-12-18T11:25:00.000-08:00Since most of the Censored 11 are in public domain...Since most of the Censored 11 are in public domain, can't somebody easily make a DVD of them?<BR/><BR/>Personally, I'd like to know or find proof if Gary Panter ever showed my old <I>Captain Saucers</I> to Matt Groening way back when. There's a good possibility that I'm an unsung influence on <I>Futurama</I>. Just ask Polly Phemus...doug holversonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04404841254507439766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166463587801437872006-12-18T09:39:00.000-08:002006-12-18T09:39:00.000-08:00One film I've wanted to see for years was Hanna Ba...One film I've wanted to see for years was Hanna Barbera's "Rock Odyssey" only because my girlfriend worked on it as an animator.(she also claimed to have modeled for the main character.) As far as I know, the finished film was a mess (she told me that a lot of people involved in the production were on drugs at the time)and it was never released, although it was shown a few times at special screenings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984824.post-1166414926767271652006-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:002006-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:00What about any of the footage from the early "Blac...What about any of the footage from the early "Black Cauldron" years. Burton, Dejas, Ron/John & co. had to have completed some pencil tests. Plus the reported completed footage personally edited by Jeffery K. himself. (I picture him with these oversized PeeWee scissors & Elmer's paste)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com