How To Spot Directors On Fleischer/Famous Studios Cartoons

You may have noticed while watching Fleischer's cartoons that all of the cartoons with a directors credit list Dave Fleischer, or Izzy Sparber/Seymour Kneitel on most Famous Studios cartoons. While they may be listed as directors, in actuality the real director is the top animator credited. The people listed as directors were more like production supervisors than directors. The top animator listed usually had much more to do with the making of the cartoon than the credited director. To show you this we'll look at two different Popeye cartoons. One from Fleischer's, and one from Famous Studios.

So for instance 1935's "Choose Your "Weppins"" Dave Tendlar is really the director.

1953's "Shaving Muggs" it's Tom Johnson. Tom Johnson directed many of the Famous Studios shorts from this period until the end of the series in 1957.

That's about it really just a tip, and fun fact for those who didn't know, and love these golden age cartoons like I do.

Popeye Rundown #1 "How Green is My Spinach"

Welcome to what might become a regular appearance around here. Where I take a look at one cartoon in particular and analyze it. Looking at the animation, gags, story, and etc.

Today i'll be looking at a pretty good Popeye that came out when the series was taking a sharp nose dive down in quality.

Voices: Jack Mercer (Popeye) Jackson Beck (Bluto, Narrator, Newscaster) Cecil Roy (Live Action Boy)

Direction: Seymour Knietel

Animation: Tom Johnson, William Henning

Story: I Klein

Scenics: Lloyd Hallock Jr.

Music: Winston Sharples

"How Green is My Spinach" came out in 1950 not a very good year for the Popeye cartoons. The year started out with two good cartoons this one and "Gym Jam" but soon  things got stinky "Beach Peach" is just another Popeye vs Bluto love triangle cartoon. "Jitterbug Jive" is essentially the same love triangle sort of thing but with hip slang to appeal to the youth. "Popeye Makes a Movie" is another of the loose story wrapped around old footage cartoons with the nephews and isn't particularly funny. "Baby Wants Spinach" brings back Swee'Pea with a completely different design but doesn't do much. "Quick On the Vigor" is another love triangle cartoon and similar in some respects to "All's Fair at the Fair" released only a few years earlier in 1947. "Riot in Rhythm" is a poor remake of "Me Musical Nephews" a cartoon I really love. Basically take "Me Musical Nephews", and suck all the energy out of it. "The Farmer and the Belle" is another love triangle cartoon. Yep only two cartoons that are actually any good. I guess I should get to actually talking about the cartoon. 

The cartoon starts off with Popeye getting beat up by Bluto he then takes out his spinach and defeats Bluto. He does so again similarly in two fake cartoons then after wards Bluto then begins to lament how in every cartoon he gets beat up by Popeye after Popeye eats his spinach. Featuring some great perspective on his fist coming towards the screen.

(Idk Why Bluto Sports a Green Outfit)

Bluto then makes the observation that if Popeye didn't have his spinach it could be the end of Popeye.

 Bluto then proceeds to create a formula to spray over all of the spinach in the world to destroy it.

He then proceeds to destroy all of the worlds spinach. It then cuts to Popeye who helps put a spare tire on a spinach truck. Bluto then speeds by on his plane and sprays the spinach in the truck causing it to be sucked up by the cloud of spray from his formula. A shocked Popeye then hears a TV newscast about how the worlds spinach crop is being ruined. This pleases some children watching the TV. Popeye pulls out his can of spinach which Bluto promptly sprays. Which ruins it. Popeye then confronts Bluto about it to which Bluto slams Popeye to the ground with his chest. Popeye then runs into the store right beside him, and out of desperation tries broccoli in place of his spinach. The broccoli doesn't work and Bluto shows off his big muscle.

Popeye desperately tries other vegetables and produce. He attempts to punch Bluto on the chin but fails. Bluto then proceeds to pummel Popeye. A narrator then describes the beating Popeye is receiving. Popeye even gets the kitchen sink.

The narrator (Jackson Beck) then laments that it could be the end of Popeye. It then cuts to a live action crowd in a theater watching the cartoon. Then focusing on a young boy holding a bag.

 The narrator asks if there's possibly a can of spinach in the room. The boy pulls out a can of spinach from his bag and tosses it towards the screen.

Popeye grabs the can and defeats Bluto.

Sending him to a field where Popeye uses him to start planting seeds to grow spinach.

That's where the cartoon ends.

Overall I have to say this cartoon is quite a surprise. By this period Famous Studios had mostly ran out of steam and a lot of the inventiveness was gone. The fact that they did the live action bit or came up with a pretty original idea and story stands out in an era where most of the Popeye cartoons were formulaic and stale. The animation is good that's not really too surprising Famous Studios had pretty good animation up until the late 50's when they started making those UPA inspired cartoons and had a huge budget slash. It'll be great when this gets restored and released on disc. You can watch it on the Boomerang app though.

Next rundown will be "Rocket To Mars" or whatever I decide.

Noveltoons Original Classics Review

  "Noveltoons Original Classics" is a DVD released in 2012 by Thunderbean Animation. Featuring 20 restored and or remastered cartoons from the Noveltoons series of theatrical cartoons. Produced by Famous Studios from 1942 to 1967 and released by Paramount Pictures. The series introduced many characters some of which got their own series later on such as Baby Huey, Casper The Friendly Ghost, Herman The Mouse, Little Audrey, and Katnip.

The cartoons presented here are all in the public domain with the bonus of being remastered and restored. Making this a much nicer option than the cheap public domain DVDs.

   It even has a slew of great bonus features. Commentaries on the cartoons by animation historians like Jerry Beck and Thad Komorowski. Storyboards, Comics, Posters and even a short video on the TV titles given to the cartoons when distributed to TV. 

                                                            The cartoons included are

"Cilly Goose" (1944)

"Suddenly It's Spring" (1944)

"Yankee Doodle Donkey" (1944)

"Scrappily Married" (1945)

"A Lamb in a Jam" (1945)

"Cheese Burglar" (1946)

"Sudden Fried Chicken" (1946)

"Stupidstitious Cat" (1947)

"The Enchanted Square" (1947)

"Much Ado About Mutton" (1947)

"The Wee Men" (1947)

"Naughty But Mice" (1947)

"Flip Flap" (1948)

"The Bored Cuckoo" (1948)

"Leprechaun's Gold" (1949)

"Quack-a Doodle-Doo" (1950)

"Teacher's Pest" (1950)

"Ups an' Downs Derby" (1950)

"Pleased to Eat You" (1950)

"Saved By the Bell" (1950)

It's a pretty good sample of what the Noveltoons series is like. It's not all the public domain Noveltoons but Thunderbean had to work with what they could find with 16 and 35 mm film materials. Keep in mind this isn't an official set. While Paramount currently holds the rights to these cartoons they have no interest in releasing them in any form. The quality though is excellent. Thunderbean did an amazing job on restoring these cartoons. "The Enchanted Square" is a pretty striking example.

 These cartoons really are works of art. Even the opening titles are appealing.

 Be warned of non PC moments.

The colors really stand out. Famous Studios had great use of color in their cartoons. Something you probably didn't even know if you watched the cruddy public domain prints on VHS and DVD.

The left picture is your typical public domain copy. The right is the wonderfully remastered original title. The copyright on the left image was blacked out because it's an NTA TV print. NTA was the company that owned the TV rights to the pre October 1950 Noveltoons.

 The company was required to block out all Paramount references in the cartoons. Because in the 50s TV was considered the enemy of the movie business so many studios when putting their films on TV would try and erase all mention of their name. This set features the original titles or reasonable recreations of on all the cartoons. Although "Cilly Goose" features re-release titles dubbed "A Paramount Champion." It's the same as the regular Noveltoons titles just with the "Paramount Champion" title on the jack in the box instead of the regular Paramount mountain.

The DVDs bonus features are great. I briefly mentioned them before but I'll go into more depth here. There's commentaries on a few of the cartoons by people like animation historian Jerry Beck. Thad Komorowski, Bob Jaques & Mike Kazaleh also provide commentaries on the DVD. They talk about the specific animators on scenes and the history of the cartoons in general. Which gives great insight on these cartoons that usually get passed by in the history books of animation. There's a few readable comics included in the bonus features. Taken from the short lived comic series based off the Famous characters.  One Herman and Henry & One Blackie The Sheep comic are included. Featuring some pretty nice drawings of the characters. A whole slew of pictures are included showing off  model sheets, Posters and more. There's a short video featuring Jerry Beck talking about the TV titles. Talking about the U.M.&M and NTA TV titles.

Bringing up the history of how these things came about and how the cartoons were distributed on to television. As well as a storyboard comparison of "Quack-a Doodle-Doo." Showing the storyboard next to the finished product.
Overall Noveltoons Original Classics is a great DVD worth owning if you love old cartoons. What's here is entertaining and is a good showing of one of the lesser studios in the golden age of animation.