Saturday, September 06, 2008
Wonder why?
Suddenly it's Spring, a 1954 cartoon by the same studio that made Betty Boop, has just now appeared on Youtube. I'm puzzled. Clearly the company was busy making a variety of toons in that long interval since Boop's demise in 1939, but I'm dead sure I never saw a single one when I was young. Guarantee I'd remember every second of every cartoon if I had seen any; they ring the deepest and dreamiest structures of my mind.
Which cartoons were on TV in 1954? Heckle & Jeckle were new then, I think, along with Woody Woodpecker and the usual Disney and Warner Brothers productions. But no Boop, nor any other products of the UM&M company. How did they survive so long without national distribution? Maybe they were seen in big-city markets?
In any case, thank Heaven, and thank a few Youtubers, that I have the opportunity to see these timeless works of art now in my second childhood!
= = = = =
Sidenote: Nearly everything in this cartoon would be forbidden under today's totalitarian censorship. Even the basic plot (such as it is!) would be impossible: the girl is dying because the long winter has deprived her of sunlight. She needs more sun, and Raggedy Ann literally and figuratively moves heaven and earth to get some sunlight.
Today the studio would be sued by the AMA for promoting melanoma, even though we are actually learning more about the benefits of Vitamin D and the real causes of melanoma. For instance, we've known for a long time that multiple sclerosis is most common in northern latitudes. This was assumed, without much proof, to be correlated with Swedish genes, but now it appears that MS is strengthened if not caused by a lack of sunlight. ¶ 8:26 AM
Which cartoons were on TV in 1954? Heckle & Jeckle were new then, I think, along with Woody Woodpecker and the usual Disney and Warner Brothers productions. But no Boop, nor any other products of the UM&M company. How did they survive so long without national distribution? Maybe they were seen in big-city markets?
In any case, thank Heaven, and thank a few Youtubers, that I have the opportunity to see these timeless works of art now in my second childhood!
= = = = =
Sidenote: Nearly everything in this cartoon would be forbidden under today's totalitarian censorship. Even the basic plot (such as it is!) would be impossible: the girl is dying because the long winter has deprived her of sunlight. She needs more sun, and Raggedy Ann literally and figuratively moves heaven and earth to get some sunlight.
Today the studio would be sued by the AMA for promoting melanoma, even though we are actually learning more about the benefits of Vitamin D and the real causes of melanoma. For instance, we've known for a long time that multiple sclerosis is most common in northern latitudes. This was assumed, without much proof, to be correlated with Swedish genes, but now it appears that MS is strengthened if not caused by a lack of sunlight. ¶ 8:26 AM
