Born in the wrong era?

[ThePeterNetwork]

This thread applies to all those who had not seen Golden Age Cartoons as they were originally presented.

You know how we all discovered these cartoon classics, right? Some of us had seen LT, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry, and many others in syndication on independent television stations. Some of us who had VCRs or Laserdiscs collected them for own home viewing. Now, since television can no longer provide a home for these Silver Screen Superstars of the Animation Circuit, everyone has the privelege of watching these classics again on DVD (depsite DVNR, but I don't have a problem with that as I can't detect it)

So when watching these laugh-out-loud antics of our favorite characters, has it ever occured to anyone of what they were missing when these cartoons were originally presented in movies? Sure, they give us a laugh now, but have you ever imagined what it was like to grow up in that era of movies and appreciate those cartoons as they were meant to be?

[Mr. Semaj]

All I'll say for now is that I didn't find out about the classic cartoons originally being theatricals until I was at least 12.

I did get to experience what it might've been like when watching Boat Builders (1938) during a Meet the Robinsons screening.

[Studio Toledo]

All I'll say for now is that I didn't find out about the classic cartoons originally being theatricals until I was at least 12.

I did get to experience what it might've been like when watching Boat Builders (1938) during a Meet the Robinsons screening.
I had similar experiences in my life going back some years to when the AMC Theatres once had a thing around 1990 to celebrate Bugs Bunny's birthday by running a number of LT's before their films. A short time later, Universal Pictures bothered to stick the Woody Woodpecker cartune, "Smoked Hams", before it's sequel stinker, Problem Child 2.

[Cartman]

I did get to experience what it might've been like when watching Boat Builders (1938) during a Meet the Robinsons screening.
Although originally BOAT BUILDERS would have been released on a square-sized screen as those wide screens didn't come to theaters until the 1950's.

I myself saw the Donald Duck cartoon DUDE DUCK in a theater before the Ducktales movie back in 1990.

[ThePeterNetwork]

Okay, so there may have been some rare occasions where movie studios released classic cartoons before the main feature today. Mostly it would be for family films. What I was referring to in my original post was the movie-going experience back in the 40's & 50's as opposed to the experience today. I don't think a movie studio is going to release either classic or modern cartoon shorts on a mainstream level unless there was intention to make money off of the cartoon.

I think nowadays movie studios see theatrical cartoon shorts as special treats instead of part of a regularly scheduled feature bill.

[Chow Hound]

Okay, so there may have been some rare occasions where movie studios released classic cartoons before the main feature today. Mostly it would be for family films. What I was referring to in my original post was the movie-going experience back in the 40's & 50's as opposed to the experience today. I don't think a movie studio is going to release either classic or modern cartoon shorts on a mainstream level unless there was intention to make money off of the cartoon.

I think nowadays movie studios see theatrical cartoon shorts as special treats instead of part of a regularly scheduled feature bill.Now I'm confused about your intent here. Are you asking if we would prefer the movie-going experience of the 40s-50s to that of today, OR are you asking if we would prefer to experience theatrical cartoons the way they were experienced in the 40s-50s as opposed to how we experience them today: on video tape, laserdisc, DVD, and TV?

I'll answer both:

Assuming I still attended the cinema (I don't anymore), I would prefer what I've been told the cinema experience of the 40s-50s was like over the slop we get today. I'd love to experience the cartoons, newsreels, shorts, and A and B features for one low price, entering the theater at any point in the screening and in the company of a polite, civilized, cellphone-free audience. Today's seemingly endless commercials before the picture, outrageously high ticket prices to view only one (usually bad) movie at a strictly dictated time, in the company of chair-kicking, loud-mouthed, cellphone-using audiences has completely turned me off of going to the cinema. I'll go to a drive-in about once a year and rent or buy DVDs for the few new movies I have any desire to see.

If you're asking how I prefer to view just cartoons, I actually prefer the modern way. I loved being able to turn on the TV at almost any time of day while growing up and catching at least a half-hour of classic cartoons. They were rarely edited when I was young, so I got to see nearly all the studios' output intact. I also like viewing them on DVD, but the selection is currently a bit more limited (but becoming less so all the time). Viewing cartoons on a big screen with an admiring audience may have been qualitatively better for each individual cartoon, but the downside was you had to wait weeks (or sometimes months) before you could see a new cartoon. I much prefer seeing large numbers of them in half-hour or hour blocks over having to wait so long between cartoons.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

...the company of chair-kicking, loud-mouthed, cellphone-using audiences has completely turned me off of going to the cinema...
AMEN! :mad:

[gdX]

I'd love to experience the cartoons, newsreels, shorts, and A and B features for one low price, entering the theater at any point in the screening and in the company of a polite, civilized, cellphone-free audience.Ha!... born in the wrong era indeed.

Boy, would you enjoy the classic movie series held at the Paramount in Oakland (CA).

Pre-show music on the Mighty Wurlitzer.
Epic films... in the range of Casablanca – Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Golden Age cartoon.*
Vintage newsreel.*
Door prizes – the Dec-O-Win wheel spun by a pretty lady in a shiny gown.
*Often thematically linked to the feature!

$5

Held in this palace: http://www.paramounttheatre.com/exterior1.html

Try and find that in your typical cinema mall googleplex.

:daffy:

[Chow Hound]

Ha!... born in the wrong era indeed.

Boy, would you enjoy the classic movie series held at the Paramount in Oakland (CA).

Pre-show music on the Mighty Wurlitzer.
Epic films... in the range of Casablanca – Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Golden Age cartoon.*
Vintage newsreel.*
Door prizes – the Dec-O-Win wheel spun by a pretty lady in a shiny gown.
*Often thematically linked to the feature!

$5

Held in this palace: http://www.paramounttheatre.com/exterior1.html

Try and find that in your typical cinema mall googleplex.

:daffy:You're right, I'd love it! Too bad it's on the other side of the country. If I'm ever out that way again, I'll have to check it out.

[Mark J]

I didn't grow up in the 40's (my mother did and she remembers spending a full Saturday at the movies with a newsreel, short feature or serial, cartoon, a 'b' film and an 'a' film). I do remember the 1970's, before videotapes were widely available, a lot of theatres would still run packages of older movies as double features. I remember spending 3-4 hours on a Saturday watching a double feature, usually two films which had something in common. The best I saw was Silent Movie and Young Frankenstein, probably a year after Young Frankenstein was first released. Also the Pink Panther films would be packaged that way, a 60's with a 70's etc. Before multiplexes theatres would run kids movies during the day and regular features at night - I remember some great Disney double features in the daytime, usually the summer, spending all day watching 2 or 3 Disney movies (mostly the lousy 70's films, but also some rereleased classics like Snow White and Dumbo) shown with 3-4 Disney shorts, usually at least one Mickey, my favorite at the time. I remember walking out of the theatre in boredom when they showed Fantasia - my 8 year old brain had no interest in that, and actually I still don't. Theatres were still full of loud messy kids, but there were 'matrons', women who wore white lunch lady outfits and had flashlights who walked around maintaining order and throwing out loud kids.

[Thad]

Well most movies these days are incompetently made with poor acting, so I rarely go to the theater because of that. Animation wasn't the only thing that was better in the first half of the 20th century.

[ThePeterNetwork]

Ha!... born in the wrong era indeed.

Boy, would you enjoy the classic movie series held at the Paramount in Oakland (CA).

Pre-show music on the Mighty Wurlitzer.
Epic films... in the range of Casablanca – Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Golden Age cartoon.*
Vintage newsreel.*
Door prizes – the Dec-O-Win wheel spun by a pretty lady in a shiny gown.
*Often thematically linked to the feature!

$5

Held in this palace: http://www.paramounttheatre.com/exterior1.html

Try and find that in your typical cinema mall googleplex.

:daffy:

Nothing like that exists in New York City. :(

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Los Angeles has a lot of revival movie theatres, including one that only shows silent features and shorts (aptly titled The Silent Movie Theatre). There was some commotion about it a few years ago when the proprietor, Lawrence Austin, was murdered in early 1997 in the lobby during a screening. It turned out that the projectionist had hired someone to murder his boss and make it look like a robbery gone wrong.

[The G Man]

Ha!... born in the wrong era indeed.

Boy, would you enjoy the classic movie series held at the Paramount in Oakland (CA).

Pre-show music on the Mighty Wurlitzer.
Epic films... in the range of Casablanca – Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Golden Age cartoon.*
Vintage newsreel.*
Door prizes – the Dec-O-Win wheel spun by a pretty lady in a shiny gown.
*Often thematically linked to the feature!

$5

Held in this palace: http://www.paramounttheatre.com/exterior1.html

Try and find that in your typical cinema mall googleplex.

:daffy:They have a similar thing at the Stanford Theatre (http://stanfordtheatre.com/stf/) in Palo Alto (not too far from Oakland) - they show old movies, they have one of those Wurlitzer organs, and they show a WB (or MGM) cartoon at the beginning of each 7:30 show.

[gdX]

They have a similar thing at the Stanford Theatre (http://stanfordtheatre.com/stf/) in Palo Alto (not too far from Oakland) - they show old movies, they have one of those Wurlitzer organs, and they show a WB (or MGM) cartoon at the beginning of each 7:30 show.That place is gorgeous... I'll have to make a (rare) trip down the peninsula one of these days.

The Bay Area is dotted with a few nicely-kept single screen houses... but they are an endangered species for sure.

:shame:

[Chooch]

Nothing like that exists in New York City. :(

Nothing in Oakland anymore either, as (sadly) the Paramount Movie Classics series has been discontinued. AFAIK, the "insufficient interest" mentioned in the following quote is BS. Every time I attended a showing there, the place was packed to the rafters.

A Summer 2007 Paramount Movie Classics series has not been scheduled. Based on the reduced attendance over the past few summers, there has not been sufficient interest to merit a Summer 2007 film series.

However, the Paramount Theatre is committed to continuing our Movie Classics series. Please continue to check this web site for future scheduling of Paramount Movie Classics.

Anyway, the Castro here in SF frequently showcases GAC's. And then there is always the Stanford.

[Geezil]

Another of my moviegoing memories from growing up in Rochester, NY:

While I'm just a bit too young to have experienced the **complete** theatre program of the '40s to early '50s, we still had the chance through roughly 1966 to enjoy a cartoon plus a newsreel before each feature. In those last few years, the cartoon in question would most often be a Chuck Jones Tom & Jerry or a Pink Panther entry. (IIRC, the newsreels breathed their last in the USA overall around 1968, and the Rochester market ditched all the cartoons, DePatie-Freleng shorts excepted, within a year after that. I do not recall seeing any late-period Lantz or Terrytoons releases on the big screen in our area. :( )

[Speedy Boris]

It would be really interesting to go back in time and see how audiences of the '30s-60s reacted to the theatrical shorts, especially the Warner Bros. ones. Since nothing like Daffy Duck existed before that, I'm sure the theater must've frequently been howling with laughter. :)

[Chooch]

Since nothing like Daffy Duck existed before that, I'm sure the theater must've frequently been howling with laughter. :)

Just last Sunday I saw Wise Quackers at the Roxie here in San Francisco, along with many other banned and/or non-PC LT's.

The place was packed--not 1 empty seat. In fact, the management begged the audience pre-show to please "scoot closer together" so that the folks waiting outside the theater could get a seat.

And Daffy, as Elmer's slave--and then Lincoln, still had us howling. :daffy:

[AndrewGilmore]

My dad used to tell me how when he was a kid in the '40s he could go to the movies and get a Western serial, 6 cartoons and a feature film for a quarter. Sounds like money well spent- I'd love to have a full movie program these days- to say nothing of an economy where one could afford all that entertainment on a mere quarter, but...

[Matthew Hunter]

I remember when I was really little, I saw a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon in a theater (most likely part of the afrorementioned Bugs birthday thing.) I sadly don't remember much about audience reaction, except that I loved it, and later pegged it as "Tugboat Granny".

I also saw a movie that ran the modern Disney cartoon "Runaway Brain", to little reaction.

But then, one day the summer before my freshman year in college, my dad and I went to a movie. I don't remember what movie it was, but I do remember that the audience was silent throughout, except for the cartoon before it! It was actually a preview disguised as a short.

That preview was for "Ice Age". It was a 5-minute bit starring Scrat, the Squirrel, chasing an acorn around in a frozen, mountainous landscape. To this day, I have NEVER heard an audience laugh like that. Not even at a good movie.

The "Ice Age" movie, which I never saw theatrically, never impressed me. But that short was so well-done and so funny, that I'll never forget the experience of seeing it with a theater audience as long as I live. I really hope Disney's new push at creating shorts works, because darn, I want to have that experience again!

[J. A. Boschen]

The only cartoon short I ever recall seeing a the Movie Theater was (Mickey Mouse) Runaway brain, A cartoon I found forgetful at the time, as seeing it for the first time in years on Mickey Mouse in Color Vol 2 DVD only just made me remember the film). The Drive-in was a different story. I recall seeing a few cartoons at the local drive-in when I was younger (they stopped running them some time ago). I remember they showed a Woody Woodpecker short where Woody was giving some Native americans Trouble. I also recall and know I saw others but unfortunatly thats the only one that comes to mind.

Nowadays it seems like the only theatrical cartoons or even short subjects showed in the cinema prior to the feature are Pixar's fun little animated shorts.