Here’s another spooky cartoon from the Fleischer Studios… The Inkwell Imps in Koko’s Haunted House (alternate title: “KoKo Goes Ghosting”).
I had forgotten about the Big Cartoon Database, but it is an excellent resource for finding information on old cartoons. Here is the info they have on this one.
Here’s the fantastic fourth Disney Silly Symphony, with spookies galore… directed by, that’s right, you guessed it, Ub Iwerks.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, since this was posted, this cartoon appears to have become unavailable.
Another spooky skeleton cartoon from 1929, again presumably directed by Ub Iwerks.
The spooky cartoon search continues. I had no idea this existed. A 1937 color cartoon called Skeleton Frolic by Ub Iwerks rehashing the themes of the Skeleton Dance (and rehashing gags from both that and the Flip the Frog Spooks cartoon, along with a lot of new gags). It is quite fun… enjoy.
I have other spooky cartoons I’ve found that I’ll be showcasing here, but please let me know any you know of in the comments!
Here’s Ub Iwerks’ Disney Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance… the first of the Disney Silly Symphonies series. According to Wikipedia, it was the first cartoon to have non-post-sync sound.
My two-year old daughter likes old cartoons as much as I do, I think… we don’t watch much teevee, but we watch about an hour of online cartoons a week. She has different standards for them than I do, though. Usually she asks for Betty Boop or Gumby cartoons (she has good taste), but her other favorite request (since Halloween) is for cartoons with “spookies.”* I know you’re thinking, yeah, sure, obviously the guy with the goofy skull at the top of his website has a daughter who likes creepy cartoons… but she came up with this all on her own, as far as I can tell. So we’ve been watching lots of cartoons with ghosts, skeletons & other spooks… Ub Iwerks’ Disney Silly Symphony Skeleton Dance (which I’ll post after this) and the Fleischer Brothers’ Snow White, Minnie the Moocher, Swing You Sinners and Bimbo’s Initiation were obvious choices… here is a fun Iwerks obscurity featuring the unjustly forgotten Ub Iwerks’ character Flip the Frog. Flip has my favorite cartoon intro sequence of all time (tied with Betty Boop).
Have any favorite cartoons with spookies in them? Are they online? Help! I need more for the kid! Please let me hear about them in the comments.
*We’ve also been devouring John Stanley Little Lulu comics thanks to Dark Horse Comics wonderful cheap reprint books, for which she also requests “let’s read a spooky one!” every time. In this case, a “spooky” one generally is qualified by either having Witch Hazel in it, having ghosts in it, or simply having a pitch dark panel in it with two eyes in the dark.
Here is an excerpt from the fabulous, surreal Ladislaw Starewicz stop-motion animation short “The Mascot” from 1933… there is a lot more to this cartoon that is not shown, but unfortunately, this is the longest clip of it I’ve seen on the internet. Anyone out there know of a full version somewhere?
UPDATE: I have posted the full version here.
In any case, you can see the full version along with a lot of other amazing Starewicz cartoons on the The Cameraman’s Revenge and Other Fantastic Tales DVD. Starewicz was one of the earliest stop-motion animators.
Here’s a GREAT surreal Japanese cartoon by Ikuo Oishi from 1933… the more I watch it the more I like it. If the Fleischer Brothers had been Japanese this is what they might have made. Parts of this remind me of Jim Woodring as well. It really makes me want to see more early Japanese animation. Don’t miss this one!
Meet the Peanut Vendor. It is credited to “Len Lye” on youtube (although in the comments, someone claims it is actually by Dave Fleischer). Judging from the other Len Lye films on youtube, it seems unlikely it is by him, as none of the others feature any character animation that I saw… and the character animation in this gem is quite good, and would appear to be by someone with experience. Anyone know the answer to this?
Wow.
Update: It is directed by Dave Fleischer all right. No wonder it’s so great.
Update 2: Or not… Tyler in the comments points us to lenlye.com, which credits it to Len Lye here. Tyler says:
Hi – I can assure you that this film is by Len Lye – see my comment on YouTube. The monkey happens to be owned by the New Zealand Film Archive, actually. Lye made one other stop-motion animated film – The Birth of the Robot. Anyway, glad you liked the film.
Thanks Tyler! Lenlye.com says:
Experimental Animation (also “Peanut Vendor”) (1934)
3 min, 35mm, b&w, sound
Music: “Peanut Vendor” by Red Nichols and his Five Pennies
The protagonist of this film is a marionette monkey built by the film-maker himself. Lye presented this film as a prototype in the hope of finding partners for a series of puppet films, but without success.
So, presumably, the Internet Movie Database is wrong, which credits the film to Dave Fleischer (item 301) and makes no mention of it under Len Lye’s filmography. Or it’s right and the Len Lye site is wrong, but I’m leaning towards Len Lye at this point, since I have seen no credible attributon to Fleischer. I have no idea who did it, but it’s a great cartoon! Now I want to see The Birth of the Robot…
The Old Man of the Mountain is the last of the Betty Boop/Cab Calloway trilogy (I posted the other two previously). It’s my least favorite of the bunch, but is still excellent… it doesn’t have the same level of creepiness that the other two have.
I wonder if this is the cartoon that inspired the way Don Martin drew toes.