Now I ask you very confidentally: "Aint She Sweet?" (1933)

If you've only seen the screenshot titles on Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research Paramount page, now's your chance.
This was a 1933 Fleischer Screen Song directed by my favorite sing-along director, Seymour Knetiel and credibly directed by Dave Fleischer. This print has all of the gags without any splices or edits, plus a live action performing sing-along of Lillian Roth's "Ain't She Sweet", a notable
1920's song. Thad K's idea that nobody gets the end gag. I get the gag: the title of the song is a metaphor to sweets and pastries. Suckers (the candy) is a "sweet".
Another Screen Song of the Fleischer era: "Popular Melodies", has a longer end gag.

Imagine if a Famous Studios Screen Song (or a forerunner such as "The Mild West" and "Old MacDonald"), would be THIS long of a short, or at least the timing and humor value.

Don't forget to obey this famous phrase: "Follow the Bouncing Ball!" so you can sing-along!

Off-Topic but important: The truth about my passion of Paramount cartoons and "Two Kitties" to explain it...

I have a confession to make.

When I was a kid, I didn't like the Paramount cartoons as much as you think, "Old MacDonald" was only interesting because I realized home video divisions of movie studios weren't the only ones to make Bouncing Ball sing-alongs, and without the recognizably discovery of the Paramount logo on the original titles, I would have thought the same thing Viacom does with their cartoon library. I was tired of listening to the "Short'nin' Bread" song from the cartoon of the same name. The tape broke and I watched a lot of Looney Tunes (or WB because many were also released as "Merrie Melodies"), on Cartoon Network. No DVNR. No color-saturation. Just a bunch of cartoon violence in the Golden Age.


There was a reason, and is a reason a wee bit similar to Lionsgate's unintrest in relasing the Paramount cartoons on video. They were too old and too obscure. The NTA logo was too creepy. I thought "Short'nin Bread" was advertising desserts or even cheese (which I thought the same when I first saw "Jasper and the Haunted House" with the racial slur billboard in the end I mistaken as a plug for a real brand of pie.).


This is the thing I felt when I returned a rental of "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", a documentary on the world record of the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong.(not to be confused with the "King Kong" films), but more of a feeling that I felt when I saw the Jam Handy Rudolph short on a Republic tape. Only time will tell if I like it more.


I didn't recognize that Capser found a friend, or that Popeye beats up Bluto with a can of spinach in nearly every episode. I once didn't like Popeye because he ate spinach. Now I know that he means more than selling spinach, because Paramount only was advertising their movie studio in nearly all of their films.


I only found more appreciation of the Paramount cartoons when I got a PD tape from the library, years after my "Old MacDonald" tape broke.


I saw a PD tape print "A Tale of Two Kitties", with the "Merrily We Roll Along" theme silenced out, before seeing Paramount cartoons on PD tapes. That was my first WB cartoon.

In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that I sort of didn't like the Paramount cartoons at one point, but found it's fun to watch obscure stuff a lot. I will still post Paramount cartoons. I did not "cheat" on Paramount cartoons, I just didn't like 'em as much as I do now. But I also do like other studios' cartoons as well. I had a variety of cartoons when I was littler, but I like other cartoons today too.


Here's a restored print from Volume 5 of the Looney Tunes set of Clampett's A Tale of Two Kitties, which as I said before was my first WB cartoon, and is a parody of Abbot and Castello.

A Tale of Two Kitties Breakdown
Uploaded by thadk

Popeye The Sailor- The Hungry Goat!!!!

This goat should have starred in a "Noveltoon"! He was very clever in outsmarting Popeye and tattling at Popeye! Directed by Dan Gordon and Joe Oriolo from Famous Studios through Paramount Pictures....

The Hungry Goat
Uploaded by thadk

Debut- Little Lulu in Eggs Don't Bounce

The first episode of Little Lulu on the silver screen. And, it was an animated short.


Little Lulu was started as a single panel comic strip on the Saturday Evening Post by Margje Henderson Bull in 1935. In 1943, Famous Studios got the license to animate Little Lulu, and when Lulu got animated, Paramount, of course distrubuted the films.



In this UM&M retitling, we see the usual Little Lulu TV print opening titles, then it dissolves to a very odd refilmed main title card.Most end titles don't have a vocal, and the maid's character has a Fleischer-like backdrop. Because of this, even though the studio that was taken over by Paramount was now renamed Famous- it still hasn't fully evolved yet into the typical 1940's Famous Studios cartoon.
Now the Marge nickname is a mystery... It seems like UM&M coined that nickname because they were sloppy plus used different fonts.

As a witness of the orginal titles- It looks like there's a translucent "J"...



And now, the cartoon:

New and Improved design!

OK, I was just sorta kidding.

The newest edition: I just did my blog title logo using MS Paint. It is from an actual Paramount logo take from the Popeye DVD. I do not own the logo, I just did this for fun and to catch eye appeal so people who already saw my blog will be like "what?".

Sadly, nobody's commenting.


Coming VERY soon to my blog! (it could be litterally today or tommorow even..)


Here's your "teaser" picture:



But it's not going to be the cartoon that you'll think it be....

Common Classics- Popeye with Little Swee'Pea.

This is the first online copy of a Popeye cartoon taken directly from the new DVD that Jerry Beck did for the Warners, or at least have I seen. This huge Popeye fan/former YouTube memeber posted
his copy of the restored Little Swee'pea.



Fleischer was still at its prime to many historians and this was the first offical introduction of Little Swee'pea- not counting SOCK-A-BYE-BABY. According to the documentary, nobody knew if he was orignally an orphan baby or not. Seymour Knetiel directed the animation and Dave Fleischer was the supervising producer/credited director. Little Swee'pea has the 3-D Stereoptical process- the byline at the Paramount logo says the patent was pending.

Plot? Popeye orginally was going to take Olive Oyl, but then compromises to take Little Swee'pea to the zoo. Like other Swee'pea apperances during the Fleischer era, Popeye thinks he's in great cartoon danger when facing four animals. But unlike some other cartoons with the Popeye formula and the Swee'pea sub-formula, this one has a twist. You may already know this twist if you bought a public domain DVD or seen it on Cartoon Network- but watch it and find out.


Little Swee'Pea (1936)
Uploaded by Rec_Free_Media

Common Classic- Superman in "Terror on the Midway"- compare 3 prints!

Haven't done an on topic post in a while....

3 prints of Terror on the Midway- the most easily found cartoon in all of Max Fleischer/Famous Studios-era Superman history.

If you link to the second video there is a rumor in the summary that the 35mm negative has deteriorated.

Although I have watched Superman cartoons earlier- this is the one I remember the most. I borrowed this cartoon from a PD tape at the library and this where I rediscovered Paramount's Superman cartoons.


This reminds me of King Kong- a gorrila trying to get a woman. Also, when I first saw this- it looked like a prototype for one of the villians in an episode from Justice Leauge a few years back.

Directed by Dave Fleischer, Animation Directed by Orestes Calipini.

Authorized print from Warner Bros. by arrangment with comics department DC Comics and Paramount Pictures. Note there's probably no DVNR because of it's organic-type
naturally grainy print.

The guy who claims he has the "best copy"...
Colorful- but the Paramount logo, series title card (Paramount Presents A Max Fleischer Cartoon "Superman" in Technicolor), and the Superman background narrative is missing from this print.



Standard internet print with added sound effects:




What print do you prefer?