Our friends at TVShowsOnDVD have reported on Warner Home Video’s plans to release Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. I guess that means it’s okay for me to discuss it here.

Because I’m involved as a consultant on certain Warner DVD projects, I have to sign a non-disclosure form preventing me from talking about them before the company makes them public (That said, I wish I could tell you about the stuff coming out later this year. Consider this a hint that some of the most sought after animation the company owns is headed to DVD and blu-ray within the next year).

This Mouse Chronicles set contains 2-discs and runs 133 minutes long, includes an all-new featurette (Of Mice and Pen) and audio commentary by several historians and animators. This collection began life as one of the series of Looney Tunes Super-Stars and was designed to showcase only Chuck Jones’ Hubie and Bertie and Sniffles cartoons. While some of these have already been released on previous collections, most of this material is new to video – and beautiful restored. The DVD & Blu-Ray come out on August 28th – $18.89 on Amazon.com. Restored cartoon titles listed after the bump.
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For those of you still recovering from the overdose of eye-candy contained in TCM’s UPA: Jolly Frolics Collection here’s a additional blast of 50s design goodness you simply gotta-have. Animation archaeologist Steve Stanchfield has just released his latest DVD compilation: Mid Century Modern Animation. It’s an incredibly cool set of theatrical cartoons, industrial films and vintage commercials that embraced the modernism movement of the era. Disney fans: this set features the largest collection of those 50s Disney “Alice in Wonderland” Jello promos, stylized Tinkerbell Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercials, and the Nash and Rambler automobile spots featuring Tom Oreb’s redesigned Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket.

Other highlights on the disc include a rare reel of the Soundac TV Weatherman shorts and a Shamus Culhane commercial sample reel. I hate to admit it, but Steve located a much better copy of UPA’s Magic Fluke than the one that appears on the Jolly Frolics set (it’s from a rare 35mm Technicolor print but contains a few splices). UPA’s industrial Big Tim, from a beautiful 35mm IB tech nitrate print, and John Sutherland’s Oreb/Haboush design masterpiece Destination Earth, transferred from a mint 16mm IB, are here. There’s much much more – shorts and oddities, like Grantray Lawrence’s lost pilot Planet Patrol, a rare workprint of a Paramount Popeye cartoon, and Zagreb’s The Cow On The Moon (1959).

The quality of this material is superb, the presentation is perfect and the DVD is labeled “Vol. 1″ – indicating that Steve has more goodies up his sleeve. Check out these frame grabs below – if this is your cup of tea, I highly recommend you pick up his Mid Century Modern Animation as soon as you possibly can.

CONTEST IS CLOSED! WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON SUNDAY.

I’ve got two copies to give away of TCM’s 3-dvd UPA Jolly Frolics set. It’s loaded with visual delights guaranteed to inspire any fan of the “cartoon modern” aesthetic. Simpy leave a comment—say anything you wish—and make sure to include a real email address so I can contact you if you win. (Your email remains hidden and will not be used for any purpose other than to contact the winners.)

RULES: Contest will be closed at Saturday midnight (Eastern time). If you’ve won anything recently from us, you can’t win again. One entry per person. Multiple entries will automatically disqualify you.

I watched all the UPA theatrical shorts back when I was writing Cartoon Modern, but seeing them restored on TCM’s new 3-DVD “Jolly Frolics” set has been an eye-opening experience. If there was ever any doubt about how progressive the studio was graphically, this set will dispel such notions. Immediately after UPA, the floodgates of animation design opened—by the mid-1950s, all varieties of graphic styles were being explored in TV advertising and industrial films, and soon after, European animation studios like Zagreb Film were out-UPAing UPA. The studio’s dominance lasted but only a short period, but UPA’s influence was lasting. It played a key role in pushing animation out of its cocoon, thus allowing it to evolve into the rich and diverse art form that it is today.

The director whose reputation will benefit most from this collection is Robert ‘Bobe’ Cannon. While his stories tend to be formulaic and thematically repetitive, often times it seemed like he was the only director at UPA who knew how to put together a coherent film. (A good deal of that credit also belongs to his close collaborator T. Hee, who wrote most of Cannon’s films.)

More than the stories though, it’s the way that Cannon animated characters, which looks even more refreshing today in light of all the generic Flash and After Effects animation. In Cannon’s work, the way a character moves is never separate from its design. Discovering a visually inventive way to animate a character from point A to point B is Cannon’s greatest strength. The two most famous films in the Cannon canon are Gerald McBoing Boing and Madeline, but his later efforts, especially Fudget’s Budget, Christopher Crumpet’s Playmate and The Jaywalker—all looking better than ever on this set—display remarkable confidence as a director.

Below is some random visual eye candy from the “Jolly Frolics” shorts. We’ll be giving away a couple copies of the set this weekend so check back.

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Speaking of Cartoon Dump – from the people who brought you Chop Kick Panda and Puss In Boots: A Furry Tale comes: Tappy Toes. This new 41-minute, direct-to-dvd Happy Feet knock-off may not be entirely awful – like the previous two, it’s done in the style of a Jay Ward cartoon, by our buddy Darrell Van Citters (Renegade Animation). Here’s a peek:

(Thanks, Teddy Hose)

They’re out… and as Tony the Tiger would say: “They’re Grrrr-reat!”

I will go out on limb right now and declare TCM’s UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection the DVD of the year. This thing is loaded (full disclosure: I was involved in the process). It is beautifully and cleverly packaged and contains a 16-page booklet with brief essay by UPA historian Adam Abraham, capsule biographies of key UPA personnel, a UPA chronology chart with key events and a release chart timelime, plot synopsis and more…

The three discs themselves are packed with incredible restorations of 38 UPA cartoons. These restorations are so good, they will force many to reevaluate their opinions of these films. Cartoons I’d long dismissed as inferior – The Oompahs, The Miner’s Daughter, Baby Boogie and others – are suddenly vibrant, colorful and clear; what the filmmakers intended, and a lot better than I’d thought. Compare the frame grab of from my personal bootleg video copy of The Man On The Flying Trapeze (thumbnail below left to enlarge) with the restoration (below, center) to give you a small idea of the difference. Even if you have no interest in UPA, I think you’ll come to understand their importance through this set.

Sony went to great lengths to restore the cartoons on this collection – restoring original front and end titles (like the Fox & Crow title (below) from their first theatrical, Robin Hoodlum). Alas not every title could be restored (though most are), but what is here is from the original negs – and they are a pleasure to see anew.

I’m not even mentioning the bonus materials (Concept art, model sheets, storyboards, color styling sketches, background, publicity stills, movie poster galleries – and more, including audio commentaries and a Leonard Maltin introduction). If you’ve ordered it, it’s on the way. If you haven’t – what are you waiting for?

Adam Abraham’s important new history of UPA – When Magoo Flew – has also just been published by Wesleyan University Press. I’m not going to review it right now – but I will be giving a copy or two away in a pop-quiz contest sometime on Thursday. Adam will be in L.A. a week from Friday to sign copies of the book at LACMA, at the UPA tribute I’m hosting on March 30th. (Tickets available now – hint, hint!).

Adam has just launched a companion website for his book, When Magoo Flew.com, intended to utilize the archive of material he assembled while writing the book. More material will be added soon… but bookmark his new website now!

In ancipation of Andrew Stanton’s (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) live action debut, John Carter, this clip of Bob Clampett’s 1936 John Carter of Mars test footage has recently gone viral (thanks to Geeks of Doom, io9 and The Animation Guild, among others):

Of course, longtime readers of Cartoon Brew know this clip comes off the 1999 Beany & Cecil The Special Edition (Vol. 1) DVD, which we have championed for years. I am happy to report Volume 1 was just re-released in a newly remastered version last month. You can only get it through the official Beany & Cecil.com website, and according to the site “the remastered disc has new menus and loads faster, adds Spanish tracks for all of the cartoons (except Beanyland) and several new audio commentaries by Clampett’s kids on three cartoons. There is also a recently discovered storyboard for an unproduced Clampett autobiographgical cartoon titled Cecil’s Scrapebook. What makes it really unique and strange is that it recounts Bob Clampett’s creative and “surreal” life in the person of Cecil.”

I can’t tell you how much I personally love the work of Bob Clampett. These DVDs (Volume 1 and Volume 2) are vital for anyone interested in classic Hollywood cartoons – or anyone who simply wants to laugh. I’ll end this post with one of my favorite Beany and Cecil cartoons (many are now available on You Tube’s Beany & Cecil Channel). I’d be hard pressed to pick my favorite B&C cartoon, but this one is in the top ten – one of the funniest, cleverest and coolest TV cartoons ever, The Wildman of Wildsville:

Okay, here is an unabashed plug for a video project near and dear to my heart. Animation archeologist/film-restoration hero Steve Stanchfield is ready to unveil his latest DVD masterpiece: Noveltoons Original Classics, a special DVD collection featuring twenty restored “Hollywood” cartoons produced by Paramount from 1943-1950.

Paramount’s in-house cartoon unit, Famous Studios (actually based in New York City), was staffed by a core group of artists from the former Fleischer Studio – in fact, just about everyone minus Max and Dave was still involved. The Noveltoons series became the launching pad for many well known (and not-so-well known) characters: Little Audrey, Baby Huey, Herman the Mouse, Raggedy Ann, Blackie Sheep, Spunky Donkey and others. Unlike other collections featuring some of this material, Stanchfield’s set features these cartoons digitally restored and mastered from original 35mm and 16mm film materials. For the specific cartoon titles, see Menu’s below (click thumbnails to enlarge).

You may have seen some of these cartoons before – but you haven’t seen them look like this. Pristine, colorful, with their original Paramount movie titles. Believe me, this library has been sadly neglected for decades. Previous available copies of these cartoons are usually faded 16mm TV prints with replaced titles, film splices and dirt lines. Your jaw will drop when you see the quality Steve has managed to achieve (check the two frame grabs above, center and right; click thumbnails to enlarge).

Bonus features include commentaries from animators (Bob Jaques, Mike Kazaleh, etc.) and animation historians (including me), Still galleries featuring original model sheets, publicity materials, animation art and comic strips, plus a unique Baby Huey storyboard/final film comparison reel (image below):

Noveltoons Original Classics. Buy it now. I highly recommend it. Help support this kind of film restoration – by a dedicated animation historian, doing the work the major studios do not feel worthy of its time. And if I haven’t convinced you yet, here are a few excerpts from the disc (You Tube does not do this justice):