Kansas City Kitty

This is the other Kansas City Kitty — NOT the Betty Boop one you’ll find all over the internet when you google it. It was difficult to track down. It’s proper name is “We, the Animals-Squeak!”, but when you watch it you’ll see why I could only remember it for a wordless song (well, “na na na na na”) a kidnapping plot involving unintelligible words spoken by mobster mice, and, well, the Kansas City Kitty. It’s a kidnapping cat-mouse story, thinly veiled as a Porky Pig cartoon.

There’s just so many great things in this cartoon I don’t know where to begin. It starts off with a nod to imbibing with a character named Tom Collins — with an actual cocktail in the cartoon, which leads to a birth, slyly implying that her baby was the product of a few too many cocktails. A out-of-wedlock birth follows. Then we’re hit up with a Hitler reference doodled on the blueprint during the kiddnapping scene, and many references to killing, including a hand-across-neck gesture, a mock strangulation scene, and a mouse screaming out “why, that’s MURDER!!” at the top of his lungs. The animation is crude and the lipsync is abysmal, but this actually adds to the charm. Of course the song is cute, but my favorite part is the hushed kidnapping plan made largely out of unintelligible words.

The mice in this cartoon are clearly precursors to the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (watch this scene from the movie to see the similarities) especially the voices, but of course these mice were probably based on cliche mobster types from the Hollywood pictures of the day.

Enjoy the cartoon!

[Via Tiny Cartridge]

1. There’s a Hard Rock theme park.

2. In said theme park is a section called Banana Splitsville.

Sadly there’s not much info or photos of it on the web yet, but apparently the Splits themselves perform there several times a day. Can anyone help me out?

3. The Ben & Jerry’s Banana Split ice cream changed their logo to something that does not infringe on the Splits. Hopefully photos will be coming soon. (thanks Humu for the tip!).

And perhaps a little less cool:

4. The Banana Splits have updated their website, and recorded new videos and songs, which are on sale on iTunes, if you’re so inclined!. Sadly, they sound nothing like their old selves.

Check out JYC’s other Banana Splits posts:

Ben & Jerry’s Steals Banana Split’s Logo
Rare Banana Splits Stuff

I am a huge fan of coming up with a funny-yet-completely-impractical idea and then actually doing it, especially when it snowballs into excruciating absurdity. Which is why I burst into laughter many times while reading the painfully exhaustive 5500 word technical analysis of Bugs Bunny’s legendary baseball game against the Gashouse Gorillas. Here’s a snip:

What can modern baseball analysis tell us about the talent of Bugs Bunny? Unfortunately, we are faced with several problems:

* This game provides us with an extremely limited sample. Bunny plays for only five innings.
* The level of competition is never established.

As the first can’t be overcome, let’s deal with the second. From the level of fan interest, it is fair to assume that the players involved are good enough to be a major draw: a semi-pro game of local celebrities would not (and still does not) draw a sufficient crowd to pack in fifty thousand fans who cheer wildly at events (for one example, see the attendance at MLB All-Star Celebrity Softball games). The best-fit explanation is that the Teahouse Totallers are a collection of former greats of baseball, playing against a team of current pro and semi-pro players drawn from the New York region.

Check out the full article here.

And here’s the cartoon itself:

[via Cartoon Brew]

[via Laughing Squid]

They don’t make cartoons like they used to.

By my friend Graham Annable. Check out all his inspired animation on the Grickle Channel.

Think the voice actor was doing it in multiple takes? Think he was reading the lyrics from from a cheat sheet? Think again!

*OMG I Got the title of the Charlie Brown special wrong. GREAT PUMPKIN WILL YOU FORGIVE ME? … I’m doomed …

Grade-A use of duct tape

I was a little disappointed to see Bart & Milhouse flanking the Kwik-E-Mart logo, it kind of took away from any authenticity, but it’s a silly quibble, really. They did a better and more thorough job than I was expecting. One nice touch is that a bunch of paper signs have been hung up all over the store using scraps of duct tape. I have no idea if the haphazard appearance was intentional, I prefer to think it was not.

Another nice touch — pink frosted donuts with sprinkles, watched over by Chief Wiggum:

Sprinklicious!

And of course, Comic Book Guy at the porn stand:

Ralph at the popsicle case:

My dongue ith thtuckh.

Blue Woo Hoo Squishee

There was no shortage of Buzz Cola, Krusty-Os or Squishees, but sadly Duff Beer was nowhere to be found (nor the German import, Düff).

There are a number of other strange Simpson products as part of the tie-in, including a Turkish Bathhouse Homer Simpson doll, and a Homer Simpson cookie that was baked in China and looks utterly inedible. I’ll try to add pics of those later.

Buz Cola 2.99

Fancy!

This soda fountain was extra fancy — each spigot had an option to add a dollop of cherry, vanilla or lemon flavoring to the soda. Snazzy!

Apu says “Please loiter again soon!”

You can see the complete photo tour at Humuhumu’s Life in Photos.

This is a short film, by Eric Faden, illustrating how copyright and fair use work (and more importantly, how they don’t work). What makes it exceptionally clever is that it is completely composed of short snippets of Disney animated films. Not only is Disney notoriously thorough in their defense of their intellectual property (as is their right), they have thrown immense lobbying dollars and efforts into getting the term of copyright extended (which kinda stinks).

It’s interesting to note that the music used in this piece is not from Disney, and has been used with permission. After you’ve viewed this clip, you’ll understand why — the music does not play a role in parody, or in teaching, and would not have fallen under fair use. If the subject of the clip was the fair use specifically of music, then the use of music as illustration could possibly have been supported.

I have this come up all the time, when my website clients ask about using music on their websites. This clip does a better job of explaining it all than I have done in the past (and I learned a bit about fair use while watching it, too). I’m so glad I can now point my clients to this to answer some of their questions about copyright and fair use.

[Via Boing Boing]

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on the left; Album from the 1960s band Banana Splits on the right

Here’s a closeup of both logos:

Since Ben & Jerry’s are (A) known for exploiting the nostalgia of the 60s to sell ice cream, and (B) unforgiving in their endless barrage of shameless product tie-ins, I wouldn’t put it past them to license the classic bubble-gum band to shill for them. I’m sure the Splits would do it.

I picked up the carton and scanned the entire package to see if there was any credit or trademark assignment to Hanna-Barbera, who signed the Banana Splits supergroup to their label and gave them a show back in the 1970s. I did find a copyright notice for the cow illustration that appears on the back of the carton, but I found nothing to indicate that Ben and Jerry’s had licensed the Banana Splits logo.

Is is possible that Ben & Jerry’s is the most recent company to pull a Todd Goldman and appropriate someone else’s art to pass off as their own? I contacted Ben & Jerry’s to find out more, but I have not heard back from them yet. So I decided to go straight to the source and talk to the Banana Splits themselves.

Not The First Time

I got in touch Bingo, the enigmatic second-banana of the Banana Splits (although most music scholars agree he was the “John Lennon” of the group), for his comments. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was unaware of the situation. Like most bands from the 70s, the Splits signed over all of their rights to their record label in exchange for fame and fortune, and lost control of their image.

“We have no say any more, and Hanna-Barbera doesn’t really care about us. They cater to your every whim if you can make them some coin, but once the money stops coming in, they forget about you! It’s like you’re off the bus” Bingo commented. “And so they just let golden opportunities like this slip past them. This is not the first time it has happened. We’ve been trying for years to get royalties from Bob Marley’s estate, who lifted the chorus melody of Buffalo Soldier directly from our theme song. But Hanna-Barbera just hasn’t bothered. They don’t realize the gold mine they’re sitting on” Bingo lamented. He then hit me in the face with a pie.

So what’s the verdict? Well, the jury is still out on this one, so stick with us here at JYC for full scoop (har har) as this story unfolds. If I see that Ben & Jerry’s is planning a Sour Grape flavor, you will be the first to know.

Note: All images in this post were lifted from various places on the Internet without permission or credit

And Fat Albert has one of the rockin’est Junkyard bands ever. The groovy kids record blog Way Out Junk has gifted the Internet with not one, but TWO rips of classic Fat Albert and the Junk Yard Band albums: Creativity and Rock N’ Roll Disco.

The famous junk yard band is organized when the kids are unable to afford musical instruments

Listening to these records will convince you that real-life junkyard instruments can sound just like the smooth sounds of studio musicians! Actually, while the pictures of the Junkyard band are pretty sweet, there’s not much in the way of classic Fat Albert music on either of these albums. The Rock N’ Roll Disco in particular is pretty bad. Hmmm. Now I’m wondering why I even bothered bringing it up. Here, watch the opening of the Fat Albert Show instead.

The Rankin/Bass Historian has posted some excellent art from Here Comes Peter Cottontail. First we have the character sheet by Paul Coker Jr, who did a lot of art and design work for Rankin/Bass specials. Also on the blog is a high-resolution black and white still of Sassafrass and his cart, it’s got some incredible detail to it. Make sure you check out the link to see the whole thing. Happy Easter everyone!

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

I haven’t seen “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” since I was a kid. I don’t remember it very well, but it’s probably the better of the two, and I’m really eager to see it again. It’s available on DVD, and I’m going to try to get it before Easter.

Watch out: there’s an utterly despicable 2005 sequel called “Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie.” About 20 minutes into trying to watch it, I developed Tourette’s. If you’ve seen the 2001 sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, “Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys,” then you have an idea of how bad the Peter Cottontail sequel is. If you haven’t heard of either of them, just do whatever you can to steer clear of them.

The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town

“The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town” is a whole ‘nother egg hunt… and it’s actually just a re-tread of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” Just as the Santa Claus in that special bears little resemblance to the Santa seen in the Rudolph special, this tale has nothing in common with the Peter Cottontail special — the protaganist here is Sunny the Bunny.

In both “Comin’ to Town”s: the narrator is a postman played by Fred Astaire; the holiday icon (Sunny in “Easter Bunny”, Kris Kringle in “Santa Claus”) lives in one town, and wants to deliver their holiday gifts to children in another town; delivery of the gifts is thwarted by the authority figure in the town, and sneaky ways to get the gifts delivered in the dark of night are developed; and along the way, today’s well-known traditions are spawned. Oh — and both figures also have trouble getting over a mountain between the two towns, because of a big scary monster type of obstruction that by the end of the special has learned to be good. It’s like they just took one script and filled it in Mad Libs-style to get two specials out of it.

Despite the strange deja vu feeling of watching “Easter Bunny,” it’s not half bad. The thing that bugs me is that the jelly beans look more like jelly noodles. It’s kind of weird.

These are just some of the lovely vintage plaster wall fish that have been posted on the new blog, Bowling Trophy. There’s no name attached to the blog, but if it is who I think it is, then his one-two punch of excellent photography skills matched with uncanny thrifting ability should combine into a really swell blog.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

I think these fish are great; they often have really great shaded paint jobs that make them look almost like sugar candy or marzipan. Their happy and alluring demeanor always reminds me of the underwater sequence in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Fishing for a Compliment, by Dale Sizer

My friend Dale Sizer did this cool painting of plaster wall fish on a slice of a log a few years ago.

The great Disney blog 2719 Hyperion has a wonderful post about one of my favorite overlooked Disney characters J. Audubon Woodlore, the park ranger. I fell in love with him as a kid when I saw the classic “In The Bag”, where he makes up a little song and dance to convince the bears to clean up the park. Apparently In The Bag was such a hit that it inspired a record called the “Humphrey Hop.”

The short is available on a Disney DVD called Disney Rarities. Check out 2719 Hyperion’s overview of this great oft-forgotten Disney character.
UPDATE: I need to remember to search Youtube before making any post. In The Bag is on Youtube right now. I’m not sure how long it will be on there, but for now, enjoy!

Here’s Neato Coolville’s Window Clings of Fleegle and Bingo:

Banana Splits Window Clings

And here’s something really wild that I’ve never seen before. The Banana Splits done up as the band KISS. I have no idea who made it or where it came from. This was on an ebay auction that another (at-the-moment-defunct) blog found.

Banana Splits dressed as the supergroup KISS.

This is the very first commercial for Lucky Charms. This was done by Bill Melendez — before he started his own studio to produce the Peanuts specials, he did a lot of work on animated commercials. This commercial is from about 1964.

I love this one because it reminds me of Kites Are Fun, by the Free Design:

The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold

The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold is — and I say this as a massive Rankin/Bass fan — a disappointment. First off, why on earth didn’t Rankin/Bass make this as a St. Patrick’s Day special? Heck, even Groundhog Day got a Rankin/Bass special, but instead they chose to further glut their already overloaded Christmas special catalog with this. Leprechauns belong to St. Patrick’s Day, period. Rankin/Bass had a bad history of cross-polluting their holidays (see: Rudolph & Frosty’s Christmas in July, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year). But this is just a straight out omission. Okay, okay, it’s got the song “Christmas in Kilarney,” which nearly sells me on the concept… but really it’s a stretch.

Despite that, with all its over-the-top stereotypical Irish-like goodness, it’s Rankin/Bass’ sort-of St. Patrick’s Day special. If you squint. And turn the volume down. [and drink! -Hanford] It stars Art Carney as the leprechaun Blarney Kilakilarney, whose clan lives on a remote, fog-cloaked island uninhabited by humans. They share the island with a competing leprechaun clan, including his ex-wife. Along comes a boy looking for a Christmas tree, he takes the one on the island, which was really a trap for the banshee, who’s now on the loose, and wants the leprechauns’ gold, blah blah blah, she’s after me pot o’ gold!, blah blah blah, the end. Unless you’re a Rankin/Bass diehard, go watch Darby O’Gill and the Little People instead.

But, all this talk of “you’re just after me pot o’ gold!” gives me an excuse to post a link to this. Which only makes sense if you have your speakers on. And even then, not really. It just makes me giggle.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

The image on the left is from a rare stop-motion puppet of Jerry Lewis that was built by the Rankin/Bass animation studio for some specials. While I’m not a huge Jerry Lewis fan, I can’t get over how cool it would have been if Rankin/Bass (creators of all the great stop-motion Christmas specials) had gone through and produced these cartoons. The puppet has a look to it that you just don’t see in modern animation. Check out the all the photos of the Jerry Lewis Puppet.

According to the Rankin/Bass Historian, it turns out that Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass were huge Jerry Lewis fans and were working on two projects to being Jerry Lewis to stop-motion world. One was “Punch and Judy” and the other was “The Bellboy”. They never went into full production but there was some work done on them. A song was written called “Hey Bellhop!”, which has been locked away in the Rankin/Bass vaults all these years. A demo recording of the song will be included in the soon-to-be-released soundtrack to the The Daydreamer, a special I’ve never seen. Seeing the image of the Jerry Lewis puppet fills my mind with thoughts of what this might have been.

This Harveytoon cartoon isn’t really outstanding in any particular way, but it’s one I remembered as a kid I’ve wanted to see again for probably the last 20 years. I’ve searched for it several times before, and while it’s mentioned in several places in the web, I’ve only come across an actual video of it very recently! It’s beloved by many, but probably totally unknown to most. Here’s the description from IMDB’s entry for it, see if it shakes loose any memories:

A French shopkeeper’s life is disrupted by a daily parade. The parade consists of “ze king, ze premier, all ze lords and ministers, army, navy, department sanitaire.” When the “department sanitaire” hits a pothole, all the garbage gets dumped onto the street in front of his store.

UPDATE: According to the Classic Cartoon blog, the The Harveytoons DVD Collection features Le Petite Parade on Disc 4! Check it out on Amazon.com!