Awful Cinema Ad for 5 Color Cartoons from 1953

This is just hideous, obviously draw by some really horrible artist for the Albany Cinema back in 1953. I also find it funny that they are showing Donald Duck, Goofy, Heckle & Jeckle, Popeye and Bugs Bunny cartoons yet of those mentioned only Donald is pictured. The cartoon characters pictured seem to be Barney Bear, Droopy, Donald Duck, some elves (or are they dwarves?), pluto and one of Donald’s nephews.

The Band Concert

“A Mickey Mouse Cartoon”

Characters
Mickey Mouse
Donald Duck
Goofy
Clarabelle Cow
Horace Horsecollar
Peter Pig

Credits
Director : Wilfred Jackson
Animators
Johnny Cannon
Les Clark
Ugo D’Orsi
Frenchy de Tremaudan
Gerry Geronomi
Hustzi Horvath
Dick Heumer
Jack Kinney
Wolfgang Reitherman
Archie Robin
Louie Schmitt
Dick Williams
Roy Williams
Cy Young

Story and Layout
Hugh Hennesy & Terrell Stapp

Release date: February 23, 1935

Running Time: 9:18

(This Youtube clip is missing the opening titles!!!)

The Band Concert was the first ever proper Mickey Mouse cartoon in colour and it is my favourite Mickey cartoon. Mickey here is a supporting player in his own cartoon, upstaged by his co-star Donald Duck several times during the short film. This was just Donald’s third or fourth cartoon appearance and he truly shines and shows off his comic potential. The cartoon has wonderful timing and the music is great too. Some of the animation is very beautiful too.

It All Started With A Mouse

Until July 18 the Silver K Gallery in High Street Armadale are running an exhibition of original animation art. I love the Silver K Gallery and used to go there all the time when I worked at a place around the corner fifteen years ago. Back in the mid-1990s collecting animation art was quite a trendy thing to do, and Silver K had another branch in either Southland or Chadstone. There was also the Animation Art Gallery that was nearby in South Yarra, but to my knowledge that has since closed down, as has the Warner Bros Studio Store and all of the Disney Stores that were in Australia. It seems that since about 2001 everyone has forgotten about the great animated cartoons of the golden age and Silver K’s Armidale store is the only place in Melbourne where you can still get animation art work.

I see that Gold 104 has been heavily advertising the Disney exhibition and are giving away a sericel to promote it. Firstly I must say that despite what Gold 104 have been saying THIS IS NOT AN ORIGINAL ANIMATION CEL. IT WAS NOT USED IN A CARTOON. Instead it is what is known as a sericel, which according to Animation USA is…

Serigraphy, the printing term for the silk-screen process, is a fine art process in which editions are created by meticulously screening the colors of an image onto the back of an acetate cel or the surface of fine art paper or canvas – one color at a time. The image is separated into its individual colors, then each is transferred onto a stretched screen of silk which acts like a stencil. Inks are forced through the stretched screen onto a cel, fine art paper or canvas, one color at a time. When all of the individual colors are screened onto the cel or paper, together they form the complete image. Silk-screened cels – called sericels – are typically modest in price since their edition sizes are open or large, and are not hand-signed. Limited edition serigraphs on paper or canvas are typically hand-signed by the artist indicating their personal approval of each work of art, then individually numbered to identify each work of art as a part of the total edition.

Still it does look nice and appears to be based on the 1938 Donald Duck cartoon Donald’s Better Self. It looks so nice that I have entered the competition myself, in the hopes of winning. There are other nice works featured in the exhibition including a sericel based on Magician Mickey, which I like.

There’s also a painting of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who predated Mickey and was a star in the late 1920s, until Walt Disney lost control of the character.

I also like the silk screen paintings of the cartoon posters such as that for Goofy & Wilbur, Goofy’s first solo cartoon.

Donald Duck: Murderer

I came across this a while ago and I think it’s quite funny.
Not sure who it’s by though.

Be Sly – VD Is High

This poster was used by the Australian Army during WWII to educate soldiers about the dangers of having unprotected sex with native girls while fighting in the Pacific.

It does look a bit weird to use Donald Duck to advertise this… but things were very different at Disney nearly seventy years ago. Maybe in the near future I could post Disney’s educational film about protecting oneself from VD.

Donald Duck’s 50th Birthday Special

Donald Duck’s 50^th Birthday Special

This Wonderful World of Disney special to celebrate Donald Duck’s 50^th birthday was aired in 1984 and features many of that eras celebrities. Since there doesn’t seem to be anything to celebrate his 75^th birthday, despite Disney having their own TV channel (two channels if you include Playhouse Disney), I thought I would post about this special which someone has helpfully uploaded to Youtube.

This has been divided into 5 minute parts, which is annoying.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

BTW, this would have been a good inclusion as an extra for one of the Donald related Walt Disney Treasures dvd sets. The more that I see these old shows the more that I want to see them. It would be great if Disney could release a dvd set full of these specials.

Clarence “Ducky” Nash on What’s My Line?

Here’s a clip of Clarence ‘Ducky’ Nash on the TV show What’s My Line in 1954.

I have just noticed that this post which I did a few weeks ago but had scheduled to come up yesterday was totally blank, which has caused me to re-edit the whole thing. I swear that when I made the original post there was a video and I wrote some witty (or perhaps that should be witless) text to go along with it.

 I can’t remember exactly what I wrote in my earlier post, but I do like seeing Clarence Nash in the flesh having fun on this classic US TV show.

Donald Duck Ride

Undoubtedly you’ve seen this picture before as it has been floating around the web for at least a decade. I just want to know what the creators of this ride were thinking when they made it. I also wonder if this thing is still around and how many were actually made.

Media Reports On Donald’s Big Day

The media has reported that today is Donald Duck’s 75th birthday. I have seen reports on Sky News, Channel 7, 10 and 9 all reporting on this important milestone. The ABC and the Age both have reports on the bad tempered duck’s big day. It seems that everyone thinks that this is something that is newsworthy… except for Disney Channel, who are playing several episodes of That’s So Raven, The Suite Life Of Zac And Cody and other tween orientated shows.

For those who care, here are a few of the media reports on Donald’s big day.

News Limited has an article here.
The Age online has a report here.
The ABC online has a report here.
Sky News have their report here.

Most of the articles say the same thing, with perhaps the News Limited one being the most comprehensive. Still they have at least mentioned this event, unlike the Australian Disney website. At this website you can catch up on Jonas TV, Hannah Montana, Disney Girl (the latest fashion and trends) and Club Penguin. No mention of Don’s birthday. Obviously Disney Australia thinks this is unimportant, which doesn’t surprise me as they haven’t even been able to release any of the cartoon shorts onto DVD in anymore than a half arsed fashion. (Releasing the Chronological Donald Volume 1 doesn’t count, as there are still another three unreleased volumes!)

Happy 75th Birthday Donald

Today is the 75th birthday of Donald Duck. On June 9th 1934, the bad tempered duck appeared as a co-star in the Silly Symphony “The Wise Little Hen”. From this minor role he went on to be Disney’s biggest star, even eclipsing Mickey Mouse’s popularity. Donald has not only starred in over a hundred cartoons but is a major comic book star as well, with his adventures, particularly those chronicled by the late Carl Barks, bringing him world wide acclaim.

Being the major star that he is, you’d think that the Disney Channel would be focussing exclusively on him this month. If you were thinking that then you’d be wrong, as those in charge of programming obviously think that he is not worthy to share the spotlight with Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers or Raven, as after looking at their June schedule, there looks to be nothing special on to celebrate Donald’s birthday. Maybe Disney’s target audience, tween girls, just don’t care about Disney’s second most important character, so why bother to celebrate his career let alone show even one of his cartoons. When we first got Foxtel and Disney Channel was available it was so much more varied. There were lots of classic Disney cartoons and movies as well as the then current stuff, but now it’s 24 hours of Miley, the Jonas Brothers and Raven, no variety at all! Sigh! Thank goodness that I’m around to at least spend this month looking at Disney’s most popular character.