Posted inSaturday Morning Cartoons

Mark Twain’s “Mysterious Stranger” — a Claymation Terror

Still in your jammies and slurping cereal in front of the tube? Then click through to this week's Saturday Morning Cartoon... "The Mysterious Stranger" was a scene in the 1985 film The Adventures of Mark Twain, in which Tom, Huck, and Becky get a visit from a very familiar character...who teaches his lesson through an apocalyptic nightmare. You can learn more about this story on Wikipedia or even read the complete (but I believe unfinished) novel on The University of Viriginia's e-text server.
November 17, 2012Posted inSaturday Morning Cartoons
Posted inSaturday Morning Cartoons

The Mystic Order of the Koo-Koo-Ma-Hatcha!

Good morning. Let's turn on the time machine and watch an original nightmare cartoon from last century's Depression-era cultural dreamscape: "Bimbo's Initiation" (1931). This classic animation from the great Max Fleischer is a surrealist haunted house story as much as it is a edgy, pre-Hays Code, Betty Boop classic. Join the Mystic Order of the Koo-Koo-Ma-Hatcha! "Bimbo's Initiation" is currently featured on the Fleischer Studios front page -- or you can catch it on YouTube If you like this kind of thing, you'll also dig Fleischer's "Swing You Sinners," which transpires in an uncanny graveyard. Both films are detailed in…
October 20, 2012Posted inSaturday Morning Cartoons1 Comment