Sunday Morning Special: Little Lambkins, 1940

In this 1940 Max Fleischer animated short, a precocious toddler, wanting to return to his farm and a pair of animal friends in the country, tampers with the electronic gadgets in his new city home—chaos ensues.  Chaos and much knee-bending.

Sunday Morning Special: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor

There you are, with gravy!

--Popeye

I just like Popeye. So, enjoy Max Fleischer’s 1936 short feature, “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor.” 

There’s singing and everything.  And, a two-headed...something!  Hooray!

Sunday Morning Special: Morticia Addams: Spooky, Spectacular Mother

Carolyn Jones as "Morticia"

Sure, she powdered her face with baking powder. Yes, she preferred the thorns over the blossoms. And, sure, she smoked—from her armpits. But, Morticia Addams was a great mother. Her top priority was always her family. She’d fence with Gomez. She’d make sure that Wednesday’s dolls were headless and she always took the time to feed Pugsley’s spider, Aristotle.


Morticia was a modern mother. So, on this Mother’s Day, let’s pay tribute to all mothers everywhere from the kooky to the traditional!

Enjoy these two spoooooky videos.

Seasonal Silliness Continues: Happy Howl-i-days

Silent night, silly night...settle in with some Sugarplum Nightmares 
First with Hector the Dog.




And Rudolph (the Jam Handy version). Enjoy Rudolph's mom's fine legs.



And, finally, follow the bouncing hen fruit.

Sunday Morning Special: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year,” 1936

Another of the treasured “Sugar Plum Nightmares,” this Max Fleischer cartoon from 1936 features his character, “Grampy,” the nutty inventor as he tries to bring some joy to a group of orphans by creating dangerous Christmas gifts for them out of forks, cheese graters and percolating coffee pots.  Sure, they may scald themselves, cut their little fingers, swallow small parts and break their necks, but by jiminy, they’re going to have a happy Christmas thanks to Grampy and his craftiness.  And, yet, the big question I have is “why does the dog live in a cuckoo clock?”  As I’ve said before of 30’s-era cartoons, expect lots of knee-bending and bobbing up and down.  And, of course, yes, the song will stick in your head until 2015. Merry Christmas.    It's coming.

Sunday Morning Special: Morticia Addams: Spooky, Spectacular Mother

Carolyn Jones as "Morticia"

Sure, she powdered her face with baking powder. Yes, she preferred the thorns over the blossoms. And, sure, she smoked—from her armpits. But, Morticia Addams was a great mother. Her top priority was always her family. She’d fence with Gomez. She’d make sure that Wednesday’s dolls were headless and she always took the time to feed Pugsley’s spider, Aristotle.


Morticia was a modern mother. So, on this Mother’s Day, let’s pay tribute to all mothers everywhere from the kooky to the traditional!

Enjoy these two spoooooky videos.

Sunday Morning Special: Grandfather's Clock Tiny Tot Cartoon early 1930s

This rather peculiar short film from the 1930s combines filmed footage and animation and…weirdness.  I can find nothing about it, in fact.  So, let’s not examine it too closely.  Just sit back and let it make you cry.

Sunday Morning Special: Barbara Walters’ Interview with Bette Davis

On this Oscar day, it seems appropriate to showcase one of the greats—two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis.  Miss Davis enjoyed a long and amazing career, but she also suffered many tragic losses and setbacks in her personal life.  By the 1980’s, Miss Davis had battled cancer, a stroke and a broken hip, but the biggest blow was dealt by her daughter B.D. Hyman whose scurrilous book about her mother devastated the plucky Oscar winner.  In this late 1980’s interview with Barbara Walters, a post-stroke Bette Davis talks about her career and getting older.  Puffing on a cigarette, she showed herself to be wholly unsinkable.  We should all be so resilient.

Sunday Morning Special: Lady with a Fan Automaton

This beautiful clockwork lady by Phalibois not only fans herself in time to the music played by the music box in her base, but she breathes and turns her head. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, such automata delighted young and old alike.


With all of our technology, we’ve never been able to replicate animated figures with as much charm and beauty as these early clockwork people. 

Sunday Morning Special: Gypped in Egypt, 1930

Today’s Sunday Morning Special comes to us from 1930 and features the, sadly, relatively unremembered “Waffles and Dan.” “Gypped in Egypt” follows the adventures of the mismatched duo as they freak themselves out in Egypt. It’s a Van Beuren Cartoon, so you know it will be odd. 


As with all cartoons of the 30s, expect lots of knee-bending and muttering.  Enjoy! 

Sunday Morning Special: The Smoking Monkey Automaton

Louis Toot
Also known as Joseph Teeny
Fox Broadcasting

By now, you know, of course, that I’m a lover of antiques and history, and you might have noticed that I’m a devoted fan of The Simpsons. I particularly enjoy when my favorite things somehow converge.


When I was looking for the “Sunday Morning Special,” I came across this lovely automaton of a smoking monkey by a French, Nineteenth Century maker. My first thought was, “Oh, it’s an antique Mr. Teeny!” For those who don’t know, Louis “Mr. Teeny” Toot (also known as Joseph Teeny) is Krusty the Clown’s loyal sidekick. With a long and proud lineage, Mr. Teeny finds himself treated in undignified ways by Krusty and deals with his anxiety by chain smoking. It’s also known that Louis is not the first Mr. Teeny as Krusty’s prop room contains a shelf of past Mr. Teenies who remain in his arsenal via taxidermy.

Enjoy this wonderful, ridiculous thing.

Sunday Morning Special: All's Fair at the Fair, 1938

"All's Fair at the Fair" was released in 1938, and was a Color Classic produced by Max Fleischer and distributed by Paramount.

A review of the short written upon its release describes it thusly:

"A couple of sticks visit the Fair grounds, and find themselves participating in a series of adventures with the ultra-modern mechanism operated by robots. Finally, they reach the dance pavilion, and the wife and husband each are taken in hand by robots and whirled around the floor. Other mechanical gags give them a marvelous meal, beauty and barber treatments, and clinical attention to restore their youth. Very clever and novel. A Max Fleischer cartoon in Technicolor."

Fleischer intended then cartoon as a nod to the coming 1939 New York World's Fair.

Sunday Morning Special: Bunny Mooning

Another Max Fleischer cartoon to remind us that, in the 1930s, people had odd ideas about how animals functioned.

Sunday Morning Special: New Year's Play

Well, of course, we should start 2013 with some animated weirdness...

How about some Popeye?






Another favorite.  Why would flies go to a place called the Spiderweb Hotel?




This one is quite nice, really.  Odd, but nice.

Sunday Morning Special: Happy Howl-i-days

Silent night, silly night...settle in with some Sugarplum Nightmares 
First with Hector the Dog.




And Rudolph (the Jam Handy version). Enjoy Rudolph's mom's fine legs.



And, finally, follow the bouncing hen fruit.

Sunday Morning Special: Max Fleischer's "Hawaiian Birds," 1936

This, I think, speaks for itself. It’s good, healthy Max-Fleischer-y, knee-bending, 1930’s fun! Adulterous birds, bad jazz-birds and, yes, lots of knee-bending—the perfect way to start a Sunday!

Sunday Morning Special: “The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives,” 1933

Nothing says Christmas fun like an orphan in the snow.  Okay, perhaps not.  We have a Christmas tradition in my family wherein we watch an odd assortment of vintage cartoons which we’ve dubbed, “The Sugar Plum Nightmares.”  This is one of them.  To be fair, it’s actually a very good bit of old animation distributed by Warner Brothers in 1933 and produced and directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (“Harman-Ising”).  In typical 1930’s fashion, everyone bends at the knees a lot and there are some truly disturbing toys that, I think, are meant to be cute.  All the same, it’s fun, and I love it.  By the way, the song will stick in your head for the rest of the day.  My gift to you…

Sunday Morning Special: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year,” 1936

Another of the treasured “Sugar Plum Nightmares,” this Max Fleischer cartoon from 1936 features his character, “Grampy,” the nutty inventor as he tries to bring some joy to a group of orphans by creating dangerous Christmas gifts for them out of forks, cheese graters and percolating coffee pots.  Sure, they may scald themselves, cut their little fingers, swallow small parts and break their necks, but by jiminy, they’re going to have a happy Christmas thanks to Grampy and his craftiness.  And, yet, the big question I have is “why does the dog live in a cuckoo clock?”  As I’ve said before of 30’s-era cartoons, expect lots of knee-bending and bobbing up and down.  And, of course, yes, the song will stick in your head until 2014. Merry Christmas.    It's coming.

Sunday Morning Special: Ancient Fistory, 1952

Welcome to a world where Olive Oyl is a beautiful princess and Bluto operates a Beanery. It's a world brought to you by the year 1952.

Sunday Morning Special: A Haul in One, 1956

The 1950s made everything a little stranger, a little more stylized, a little more angular. Cartoons of the era retained some of the monumental weirdness of those of the 20s through 40s, but were a little more reserved. Let’s see what 1956 does to our Sunday friend Popeye.