Thank you TCM!! Rare Happy Harmonies

[rex racer]

Don't know if any of you tuned in this morning but, Cartoon Alley finally showed the early Harman-Ising episode first announced way back in July. The first three Harman Ising MGM cartooon films were screened, two of which have never appeared on home video at all. These films rarely ever appear on TV.

The Discontented Canary (1934) A "Metrocolor" Cartoon
The Old Pioneer (1934) First "Happy Harmony"
Tales of the Vienna Woods (1934) - (oldest title found on the Happy Harmonies LD set)

Discontented Canary is in sad shape folks. This may be only 35mm print still in existance, and man, it has some serious age related issues. It looks like the red and green layers are shrinking from the base film stock. Still it's good to have these in the archives and at a higher resolution than VHS. The "Old Pioneer" looked pretty good, as did "Vienna Woods". Light DVNR used I think...

Del

[J. A. Boschen]

Anyone know when this particular episode re-airs. I would like to be able to video tape this episode!!

[Vdubdavid]

I think Ben Mankiewicz showed some class when he admitted that the condition of "The Discontented Canary" wasn't in the best of shape, but they still wanted to present it. Shouldn't this cartoon have a negative somewhere though, or is it lost?

[Daff Doc]

Didn't "MetroColor" not come out till the '60s? Maybe that's why
THE DISCONTENTED CANARY didn't look so hot, it may be a re-release print in the wrong color process. For preservation purposes they should at the very least give this film a slight clean-up and include as DVD bonus material with a live-action movie, or donate it to UCLA.:bbear: :mickey: :minnie: :rabbit: :honey: :bosko:

[JDWeil]

The problem with Discontented Canary appears to have been made when the film was originally released so the only solution would be to re-photograph the original negatives (if they still exist). This is a registration problem that was made on the master prints and is probably on all the release prints.

[rex racer]

I think Ben Mankiewicz showed some class when he admitted that the condition of "The Discontented Canary" wasn't in the best of shape, but they still wanted to present it. Shouldn't this cartoon have a negative somewhere though, or is it lost?

I would think the original negs would have been destroyed in the same fire that the 1940's Tom and Jerry's were.... :(

There are 16mm prints of this film running around, it would be interesting to make the comparison!

[rex racer]

Didn't "MetroColor" not come out till the '60s? Maybe that's why
THE DISCONTENTED CANARY didn't look so hot, it may be a re-release print in the wrong color process. For preservation purposes they should at the very least give this film a slight clean-up and include as DVD bonus material with a live-action movie, or donate it to UCLA.:bbear: :mickey: :minnie: :rabbit: :honey: :bosko:

Actually the title graphics read "A Metro Color Cartoon" and are in the same style and type as the other "Happy Harmonies" that were released in 1934. This is a Cinecolor print, with Orange Red and Turquoise blue-green colorings very apparent. Parts of the film seemed OK but others obviously had red shadows or green shadows along the inklines of the animation. If it were a registration prob, wouldn't it be consistent throughout the film?

Absolutely agree that this film needs a restoration ASAP, it's extremely significant from a historical perspective. :)

[laugh4me]

Anyone know when this particular episode re-airs. I would like to be able to video tape this episode!!

It looks like it is shown again Wednesday morning 11/9 at 5:30 AM Eastern.

[Ray Pointer]

I remember being saddened when I saw the condition of THE DISCONTENTED CANARY when TNT ran it in the early 90s. The misaligned color matrice problem existed when Turner made up the new prints starting in the mid 1980s. Having seen this cartoon in black and white in the mid 1960s, I cannot speak about the misaligned matrices then, but I seem to recall that portions of it appeared out of focus. So these problems could have occurred much earlier in the process.

A similar problem exists with some of the Max Fleischer COLOR CLASSICS. Portions of PLAY SAFE and GREEDY HUMPTY DUMPTY suffer from color matrice shinkage/shifting, usually the blue image. At the same time, some prints had registration flaws originally. This was apparent in one of the MUTT AND JEFF color films I worked with a year ago. This was a Nitrate Cinecolor print from 1930, and some scenes were out of registration in the print itself, which you can see in the finished program, MUTT AND JEFF:THE ORIGINAL ANIMATED ODD COUPLE. I did my best to try to work around these flaws, but they are still there.