It’s 8 at night on a Wednesday as I write this, and I’m getting ready to run over to the Thunderbean office, after school today. I’m headed out to Los Angeles for the Lightbox Expo, with students from the College for Creative Studies where I teach. The logistics of the trip have me gone from here for five days, so I’m lining up everything I can at Thunderbean so Dave and a few freelancers can keep the ball rolling with orders and film cleanup.
Since I’m scrambling to get things done, I thought it would be a good night to post my the yearly Halloween cartoon favorites list — and please join in with yours, too. We just sent the little Thunderbean Halloween set, so rather than talk about any of the films there, here are other cartoons that I consider to be semi-essential viewing.
Add your titles in the comments too- I love going back and seeing them as I’m sure a lot of people do.
So — If I invited you over to watch a relaxed Halloween show at home, this is what it might look like:
A productive fan added some of the original sponsor tag credits to this opening and closing of ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ and a decent job with what they had to work from.
The Spook-A-Nanny Show (1964)
This version was put together for a Lantz DVD set, but I think this footage actually exists completely in color as well. This might be the closest Lantz came to Disney’s interactions with Donald Duck, except this is clearly not as involved production-wise. Seeing Lantz with that mask on always makes me smile.
Midnight Frolics (1938)
Yeah, yeah, I know that isn’t the best Halloween cartoon, but to me at least it’s entirely essential. It could be because we showed this print for decades on Halloween at my mother’s house, and she always made sure I was bringing over ‘The Flora Dora Girls’ cartoon.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since I put up What A Night (1935). I really love this Terrytoon, and I’m surprised it isn’t better known:
Something old, something new (well, 13 years old in new comparatively!):
The Mad Doctor (1933) is a cartoon I nearly always watch around this time of year. I always feel bad for Pluto, but the real danger is Mickey’s imagination since the cartoon is a dream. Here’s a pretty watchable copy, most likely from the DVD:
Ghoul Friend (2013) is one of my favorites of the new Mickey Mouse shorts. I do find it a little sad that Goofy is as dead as he is here, but heck, it’s a cartoon:
Now, While I didn’t include any Van Beuren shorts this time, you can guess that I would most likely! (And you can see that VB choice – and several other of my Halloween favorites this week on MeTV Toons Animation Antiques).
Ok – so there’s a few of mine. Your turn now to add some of your favorites as long as they don’t include the 1979 Casper Halloween Special.
Have a good week all, and I’ll write more next week after we’ve put 463 reels of 35mm films suffering from Vinegar Syndrome onto three pallets!
