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Woos Whoopee 35mm (Reissue)

This is one of four Felix the Cat 35mm prints I acquired earlier in the year at an estate sale. It's a reissue of Woos Whoopee that was done in the 1950s for viewing in England. 

As is typical of reissue prints, the original title card is missing and the film title has actually been changed to Felix Goes Out on the Town. Despite these changes, the picture quality on this is better than anything available. 

Many people rate this as one of their favorite Felix films. Enjoy...

1939 35mm Cartoon Scan

This is another get by Jerico. I noted last week that Antonio had this on his Patreon as well. 

In the passing week, I was able to adjust the colors to improve it. I had never realized that the copy that is currently available for this film has a reissue title card. 

The title card here is what was shown during it's original theatrical run.  

1931 16mm Film Scan

This is a 16mm dupe of this cartoon. It is not great quality, but is better than what is otherwise available.

New 35mm Scans

Thanks to a collaborator (& supporter here), Jerico, some cool scans from 35mm nitrates have recently been obtained. The first ever Looney Tune Sinkin' in the Bathtub some of you are already aware.

This week two new scans were obtained. 

This is a frame Circus Daze, the 3rd film to featu...

1937 Cartoon 16mm Scan

One project that I'm working on is to obtain as many possible scans of this character and obtain updated scans of the cartoons. 

1940 Cartoon Scan

This is a recent scan I had done of a very good LPP version of this cartoon. Enjoy.

Vote for the Next Restoration Project

I have a lot on my plate right now, so I want to know what you want prioritized in terms of the project that I will make time for between my other restoration commitments. 

Mechanical Monsters Update

I'm approximately 70% through the film in terms of principle clean up. Afterwards, there are a number of frames that needed to be fixed in photoshop (e.g., splices). Once that is done, I can focus on the color. Here's a brief video of the progress to date.

1942 Cartoon Scan

This is the second cartoon in this series (although a later reissue print lacking original title cards). At this time, he was actually named Super Mouse, which was later changed in The Wreck of the Hesperus. You can see that the character design follows closer to Superman than what became Mighty Mouse's characteristic look. 

Hi-De-Ho (1934)

I was able to get this 16mm scan despite losing the auction for the print.

This is Cab Calloway's second non-animation theatrical appearance. During this era, in addition to being featured in three Betty Boop cartoons, Calloway was frequently caricatured in animation by most studios, most prominently WBs and MGM.   

In this short film, Cab Calloway plays a ladies man who dates the wife of a train porter who is frequently absent from home. Calloway and his Orchestra perfo...

Scan of 1949 cartoon in black and white w/original titles

This was a print that a group of us wanted to get and pooled resources to obtain.

This particular film has been restored by WB, but they used reissue BR titles. Here is what the rings and title cards looked like (minus color) when this title was originally released.

A very capable friend has taken on the task of colorizing the titles. I look forward to sharing his work here soon. 

2022 Restoration #2

It's finally here. 

This is from a 35mm safety print that was acquired by Antonio Fiori (patreon.com/cartoon98100). 

This particular project started around February, but I needed to take a hiatus from it to finish a Betty Boop cartoon for the Fleischer estate. After that, I picked this up again and have been working on it pretty consistently until the beginning of May.  

This final result is very much a team effort that involved myself (duh!), John Ackerman (m...

Mechanical Monster's Update

As I write this, I've gone through approx. half of the film in the clean up process. Because of how the film was scanned and initially encoded, I've had to transform it in order to better visualize the dirt, scratches, etc; so you can ignore the greenish appearance of the cleaned up clip. 

As you can see in the frame above, Lois' hair has a red appearance, but those alterations introduced ...

1937 Cartoon 16mm Scan Preview

This comes courtesy of Thad Komorowski who was kind enough to lend me his print to have it scanned. 

Part of my mission to obtained as many of the MGM Happy Harmonies and have updated scans. 

1946 Cartoon 35mm Scan

From the aforementioned estate sale, this is another 35mm film print that I purchased. I ended up being somewhat disappointed as there are major splices in the beginning and end of the film; plus it is a BR reissue, not with original titles. Those disappointments aside, the picture and color quality of the film itself are very good. 

I don't really have plans for this print, so I'll make it available to download soon. 

Mighty Mouse in Wolf! Wolf! (1942) Preview

My partner over at Rockinpins.com was able to obtain nice scans of some 35mm nitrate prints, including the only Mighty Mouse cartoon that is in the public domain. 

It's generally in good shape, but has a few splices, most of which are fixable.

Enjoy!

Teaser Trailer 2

Almost here.

1949 Cartoon 35mm scan

As the pictures below will demonstrate, the official restoration of this film is awful. 

There is extensive damage done throughout by the DVNR process.

The unfortunate reality is that automatic dust/scratch removal is necessary when cleaning a film that is thousands of frames. And it's normal for some errors because it is very difficulty to make sure every frame is fully protected.

However, to look at the official restoration, it feels very rushed. There are far too man...

Supporter Landing Page

This is my attempt the curate most of my past and future posts to make navigation easier.  Regular posts (i.e., progress reports, news, etc.) not included here. Please leave a comment below with any issues (e.g., dead link).

Blu-Ray Disc(s):

1950s TV Cartoon Series: Click Here 

Saturday Morning Cartoons: All supporters

2022: 2022-05-20 20:57:15 +0000 UTC View Post

Popeye I Don't Scare (1956)

Here is the 35mm scan I acquired at a recent estate sale. It has a couple splices with a few frames missing, but otherwise complete and a nice upgrade to the DVD version, which is interlaced. 

Will update at a later date regarding my plans for this.

The Mechanical Monsters 35mm

I'm really excited about this next project. Most likely due to the repeat exposure as a child, I have a strong fondness for the Paramount Superman series.

The good folks associated with the Max Fleischer Cartoons project have given me this 35mm scan of The Mechanical Monsters to restore.

As it turns out, the "HD" versions of Superman that appeared on DC stream are actually upscales of the DVD standard definition versions (which explains the heavy compression artifacts). Members of...

Teaser Trailer...

Coming soon...

1943 Cartoon Scan

A few weeks ago I posted the video of this 1943 cartoon for everyone to stream. Shortly after I had this filmed scanned, I was able to acquire superior LPP print (see below).

The color of this newer print is far superior to the previous print, therefore, there is no need for me to use the current scan in the restoration of the film. 

Since it is no longer needed, I'm gong to release ...

1936 Cartoon Raw Scan (Preview)

Above is the scan of I Wanna Play House (1936). Initially, when I obtained this, I fully intended to restore it. Then, according to anonymous sources on the internets, I found out that this film has indeed been officially restored. 

The big question is, will it air on TV? Will it be released on a disc? Given the subject matter of the cartoon, I'm not certain that it will air on MeTV. But, WB has a history of releasing cartoons with adult subject matter as special features disc rele...

Betty Boop Be Human (1936) Splice Fixes

I've completed my work on Be Human; I need to wait until I'm given permission before I can release it here. 

In the mean time, I wanted to share one scene in particular that took extra effort to fix. This scene (shown above) had a number of splices with missing frames. Unfortunately, we did not have access to a secondary scan to replace those frames. Instead, I took the missing frames from a DVD print. I upscaled the frames to 4k, resized them to match the proportions of the scan,...

New 35mm Films

Recently in San Francisco, there was an in-person estate sale held in which a number of 35mm animated films were available. I was able to work out a deal with the operator to make some remote purchases before the estate sale began. 

What turned out to be an amazing find was a rusted metal case labeled "Felix." The operator sold that to me at the same price as the other individual prints. However, inside were two reels labeled "Felix Hits the Deck" and "Felix Plays Romeow." As if ge...

1943 Cartoon Raw Scan (Preview)

This is the initial color correction of the Tin Pan Alley Cats scan that I got a few months ago. The print is missing much of its natural blue, but corrects decently. 

1938 Cartoon Raw Scan (Preview)

A few weeks ago I was able to obtained a 16mm print of 1938's A-Lad-in Bagdad featuring Egghead that was directed by the duo of Howard and Dalton.

Here you can exclusively view the scan in it's current state. 

It's a little faded, but should be quite restorable when I am able to get around to cleaning this one up.  

The Talking Magpies

A while ago I mentioned that I (with another person) acquired a lot of Heckle and Jeckle cartoons. A couple were decent and the rest need serious color work. One of the better ones is the first one, which when released was originally titled Talking Magpies.

In this initial film, the characters who would eventually be named Heckle and Jeckle weren't brothers, but a married couple.

Unfortunately this is a re-issue print and lacks the original title cards. The color is okay, but un...

35mm Triple Feature

Myself and one of my supporters shared the cost to acquire a 35mm reel of Columbia cartoons. The scan of those 3 films was completed last week. 

My plans for these films is still up in the air. Since they are 35mm prints, I tend to favor putting time and effort to restoring those over 16mm. When I decide on a game plan, I'll elaborate in another post. 

Enjoy!

First is &nbs...