Sunday, April 02, 2006

This Is Entertainment...

from the old school.

Imagine it's Saturday afternoon, 1940. You're a young kid, and you have a small thin dime clutched in your hand because you're going to see the movies with all your pals from the neighborhood. That ten cents will get you a box of popcorn, a newsreel, a serial, a short subject, a feature and this... pure entertainment come to life.






You don't get this kind of entertainment at the box office anymore...

and they wonder why people stay at home.

8 comments:

Aric Blue said...

Nice! That's pretty cool(and actually, the animation seems better than that new Ultimate Avengers cartoon that came out)

You ever read Action Comics #1 though? It's funny to see just how different Supes is from what he is now. In his first appearance he acted a lot more like Batman than the Superman of today.

Kelly J. Crawford said...

Bill, thank you so much for that. I have never, ever seen an episode of the original Superman animated serial. How wonderful!

KJC (who still remembers when paying $4 for a movie theatre ticket was considered a little excessive)

Cunningham said...

The short cartoons are great and were state-of-the-art for their time (for any time actually).

I first saw the cartoons on the theatrical screen as part of the Fantastic Animation Festival feature film. Brilliant!

I'm glad you enjoyed this. Look for other embedded goodness coming your way.

Christopher Sharpe said...

The Fleisher cartoons are awesome. And they do make you realize how bad that Ultimate Avengers thing really was. Also, I love how they are really tightly constructed little stories. They really work on all levels. pure entertainment.

DecoderRing said...

Beautiful! And I couldn't agree more that this kind of value-added is a big part of what's missing about going to the theatre to see a film. These days if you're lucky, they show you some commercials and a couple of trailers (which are also commercials). Anybody who figures out how to bring the "event" back into going to the movies (not just big releases- any movie) stands to clean up.
Of course, I love the holdovers from the radio show that made it into these cartoons - the whole opening sequence, the "up, up and away (which wasn't used in this one)... even Bud Collyer in the voice in some of them. Notice how Supes has one line, and Clark Kent has only two? It's all action.
And three cheers for whomever labeled that superpowerful electro-magnet with two settings "Forward" and "Reverse". Love it!

Scott the Reader said...

That was great, thanks.

Now someone just has to tell Lois that when burning comet fragments are smashing into the city, you really don't need to stop in a collapsing building and call someone about it...

Roger Alford said...

My favorite is the episode on the runaway train (Billion Dollar Limited) where Lois picks up a tommy gun and starts blasting away at the gangsters. They just don't make Superman like that anymore.

mernitman said...

Bill, this was great! I happened to land here first thing Sunday morning, so it was just like being time-machined back to my own private weekend matinee at the local Rialto. Truly super. Thank you!