Tom, Nelson, John, Soggy, Pietro, David....Need help with some Columbia cartoon info

[Larry T]

Hey GAC'ers,

Recently I got a call from a film production lab that transfers my 16mm cartoons to digital media for me. A local man brought in a bunch of tins he found in his attic and had them run. Aside from a bunch of home-movie throwaway stuff, I was notified there were these cartoons in the bunch and was asked if I want to purchase them.

I couldn't find listings in the BCDB and don't recall them offhand- could they have been retitled for home movie markets? Anyway, they are all Columbia cartoons in B&W prints:

Barney Google: "Barney's Banquet"
Scrappy: "Stage Struck"
Krazy Kat: "Woodland Wedding"

None of these are familiar- I had thought they might be TV prints or something.

Anyone care to shed a little light on the subject? Thanks :bosko:

[Pietro]

They sound like shortened home movie toy prints to me (Tom can give you more information here).

"Barney's Banquet" is most likely a reissue of "Major Google" (1936).

-Pietro:daffy:

[Tom Stathes]

Hello,
These are shortened (around 100 feet each) prints made and retitled by Exclusive Movie Studios in the 40's for home use. They were also issued in 8mm.
Did the guy have anything else?
-Tom

[Tom Stathes]

In addition to that, being silent and partial prints without original titles, they don't have much monetary value either- I'd say $5-$15 each.
-Tom

[Nelson]

I don't think that any of the Columbia Barney Google cartoons survive, since they were made in technicolor, so those Google titles may be redrawns.As for the other titles, you may want to find out if they have the Samba titles or original Columbia title cards.

[Tom Stathes]

Nelson,
I beleive Columbia has all the Barney Googles b/w in their archives, but without sound (dupes.) Trust me, I'm a "toy film" collector and know exactly what these are. Shortened Barney Googles in b/w are a bit common, and I've found a 6 minute version on 16mm for a couple dollars!
-Tom
P.S. Exclusive or Excel (same company) added their own main titles to these, so they won't have either original or Samba titles.

[Nelson]

From what I was told, that Columbia doesn't know for sure if they have any of the Barney Google cartoons in their vaults.:confused:

[Sogturtle]

Hey GAC'ers,

Recently I got a call from a film production lab that transfers my 16mm cartoons to digital media for me. A local man brought in a bunch of tins he found in his attic and had them run. Aside from a bunch of home-movie throwaway stuff, I was notified there were these cartoons in the bunch and was asked if I want to purchase them.

I couldn't find listings in the BCDB and don't recall them offhand- could they have been retitled for home movie markets? Anyway, they are all Columbia cartoons in B&W prints:

Barney Google: "Barney's Banquet"
Scrappy: "Stage Struck"
Krazy Kat: "Woodland Wedding"

None of these are familiar- I had thought they might be TV prints or something.

Anyone care to shed a little light on the subject? Thanks :bosko:

Larry~

As Pietro, Tom, Nelson have already stated the Barney Google is LIKELY a 'cut-down' and indeed retitled (which they also did to Scrappy, Krazy Kat etc.). The interesting thing is that with Barney Google being a major comic-page star of long-standing, the company saw fit to cut the handful of Mintz-Columbia (Davis-Marcus) toons into as many "titles" as possible. Thus there are significantly more 'cut-down' titles than there were original Barney Google toons!! (As I count up there's AT LEAST eleven 'cut-down' titles made from the four original toons!!)


However... In at least the case of one of the 'Google' titles they DID release the entire cartoon ("Tetched In The Head") in FULL length form without retitling it (100 ft. 8mm silent that I know of right now). Most of the ones that I have are 16mm silent and cut-down (okay "condensed":tweety: ). Definitely a few full-length 16mm toons were sold as well. I have a 16mm 200 ft. silent that is entitled "Sparkplug's Finish" [probably just a re-title (why??) of "Sparkplug"]. Nowwwww a Barney Google in full-length and in sound, then you'd really have something that I for one would darn-near kill for:D !!:bosko:


The Barney Goggle title cards are interesting since they have both the Excel name but then also down below, that of Columbia. And as mentioned of course no credits, but Mintz only had the names of Davis, Marcus and De Nat on them anyway.

The later and very rare, ORIGINAL Li'l Abners (also originally in Technicolor) were similarly hacked down and marketed for years in these home-editions (but by Columbia).

[Ray Pointer]

The unfortunate thing about the LIL ABNER series is that Columbia does not seem to have, or can't find the Technicolor matrices for these cartoons. And when they released them on VHS, they were of the bad remake variety as in the case of the black and white LOONEY TUNES, BETTY BOOP, and POPEYE caertoons, since Columbia could only locate black and white prints. One of the LIL' ABNERS I remember seeing on a color television in Montgomery Ward's in 1958 was AMOOSIN', BUT CONFOOSIN'. The animation was better in my memory than what I saw in the video release some 40 years later.:fox: :crow:

[Tom Stathes]

And the sad thing with many silent and early sound cartoons is that once commonplace on desolate T.V. in the late 40's- early 60's, many are nowhere to be found now. To think people destroyed the televised prints is beyond me. Anyhoo, people still find 16mms from TV stations lying in basements of people who used to work in the stations- many of these lost titles may still be found.

-Tom

[Sogturtle]

[reposted with an addition or three:bosko: ]

Wellllll from the realm of the lost, one of the happy things that HAS turned up in recent years is a beautiful color print:eek: (NOT REDRAWN) of the Li'l Abner toon "A Pee-Kool-Yar Sit-Chee-Ay-Shun" !!! I ran it back to back with the redrawn, and the animation and all its subtleties in the original color version was infinitely superior to the redrawn. (Not to mention that it made Sid Marcus' directing shine even brighter when compared to the work of guys like Wickersham, Swift and Geiss)...

NOW... For the most valid possible use of computer colorization then how about this scenario... Take the surviving color Li'l Abner cartoon ("A Pee-Kool-Yar Sit-Chee-Ay-Shun") and use its color palette as a guide to what the other handful of L.A. toons would have employed...!!! (Okay and where necessary also Capp's original strips).
Sony/Columbia are you listening??? :cool:

(I have a 16mm b&w TV print of one of the other Li'l Abner toons as well:) .) Now if the Barney Googles would just show up...;) Or even ONE of them in color and sound...:tweety:

[Steve Stanch]

Columbia has at least 2 of the cartoon's Technicolor negs- they showed great prints of them at the Columbus cinevent last year. As to why they had them recolored, who knows- probably bad info (or no info) from one department to another. I've seen another in 16mm from a pretty good 35 print, so at least 3 of them exsist in good condition. The original titles of course were the reissue ones- whio knows if the original titles will ever be restored...

[Pietro]

The unfortunate thing about the LIL ABNER series is that Columbia does not seem to have, or can't find the Technicolor matrices for these cartoons. And when they released them on VHS, they were of the bad remake variety as in the case of the black and white LOONEY TUNES, BETTY BOOP, and POPEYE caertoons, since Columbia could only locate black and white prints. One of the LIL' ABNERS I remember seeing on a color television in Montgomery Ward's in 1958 was AMOOSIN', BUT CONFOOSIN'. The animation was better in my memory than what I saw in the video release some 40 years later.:fox: :crow:Actually, all of the original technicolor Li'l Abner shorts (with the exception of "Kickapoo Juice") still exist in Columbia's archives. They were even restored for the "Totally Tooned In" package.

(BTW, if you REALLY want to see an interesting redrawn Columbia cartoon, you should check out "Spark Plug" with Barney Google. The 1980's soundtrack that Fred Ladd added to that short is perhaps one of the strangest things I've ever heard)

-Pietro:daffy:

[Sogturtle]

Columbia has at least 2 of the cartoon's Technicolor negs- they showed great prints of them at the Columbus cinevent last year. As to why they had them recolored, who knows- probably bad info (or no info) from one department to another. I've seen another in 16mm from a pretty good 35 print, so at least 3 of them exsist in good condition. The original titles of course were the reissue ones- whio knows if the original titles will ever be restored...

Muy bueno Steve!!!:)

(Nowwww if they just find those darn Barney Googles!!;) )