Wrapping up 1943

So goeth 1943.

Columbia was low man in the quality department this year, but they were moving towards the future in the looks. And they had some interesting, effective cartoons. Next low was probably Famous; the Popeyes that are good seem good in spite of themselves, and there are some terrible cartoons at the end of the year. Then Pal; I'm not entirely convinced my putting them here doesn't have a lot to do with the quality of the transfers I have available to me; at the same time, Famous might rank a bit above the Puppetoons. Then Terry, as they had some bad cartoons, but don't let it fool you; there were plenty of great entries, especially in the Gandy and Sourpuss series. Next Lantz; no bad cartoons, but their highs weren't especially high. Then Disney; funny, easy going, they don't just belabor the point for an entire cartoon like most of the '39s. Then MGM; the Avery cartoons are largely great, the Tom and Jerrys solid but mostly unremarkable, and the rest good enough. And finally, WB; huge output, mostly very solid. The very best cartoons of the year might fall in the Avery camp (tho I would need to mull that a bit for highest individual honors), but the number of very good cartoons out of WB gives the studio the edge.

Now it's back to the future past with the Cartoons of 1935, getting into gear again in about a month. Update your Google reader subscription/RSS feed/Blogger subsubscription accordingly.

Word Cloud of 1943

A Wordle word cloud of this blog, generated on 12/8/11. Oddly cartoon modern... Odd that Clampett is as big as Bugs and Disney. I'm not sure how long back the engine checks stuff; generating one of these for 1939 clearly ignores actual posts on cartoons and is pulled from the last few meta posts.

NaNoWriMo accomplished

As mentioned previously, I was engaged in NaNoWriMo last month. I completed the numerical goal two days ago, and padded my numbers a little yesterday. They didn't have to be good words, there just had to be 50,000 of them. Some 1943 cartoons did make it into those not very good words, as did a '39 or two. All I can say is it's weird to be back. And not exactly back here; I uploaded all the principle '43 blog posts before I started NaNo; so other than maybe a filler or two celebrating the season (and maybe something providing a little closure), I'll mostly be getting back to slogging through entries for the Cartoons of 1935. Wish me luck; it's a lot more grim back there, and I won't have '43s to break up the monotony.

GAC forums ending

The Golden Age Cartoons forums are ending. This is a sad thing. Blogs are good for what they are, but they do not provide a forum for a community to rally around. It would be best if a single replacement might spring into existence, but there are currently multiple candidiates.
http://forum.bcdb.com/
http://www.animationshow.com/forums/index.php?showforum=8
http://www.intanibase.com/forum/
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.animation.warner-bros/topics
Hopefully one will gel. The creation of a community is ultimately important to something like this blog; random hits now and then don't let people know about it in the same way.
Good night and good luck.

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month. As such, I won't have much time for the blog, as I'll be typing away at a likely awful novel. Which is fine, as I finished uploading all the main entries last weekend. Hopefully I've finished the BoxOffice entries by the time you read this (and thanks again to Yowp for providing text on the issues I don't have text caches for).

I'll be sure to work in the cartoons of 1943 into the novel in some way. Perhaps you will as well. Good luck.

Directory of '42

Yowp has posted an LA (uh, City Directory; didn't they have phone books that would have made these redundant by 1942?) directory with the Schlesinger crew. These likely would have been most of the crew for '43 as well.
http://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2011/10/they-made-tunes-looney.html

Principal work for '43 Complete

Just finished writing the entry for cartoon 130, The Marry-Go-Round. Which leaves actually getting the rest of the posts posted, and all the fill in work. We'll see how I proceed on the issues of BoxOffice I don't have text caches for. At the very least I'll half ass it; but it's possible I might no-ass it!

February 1943: A Good Month For Watching At Home

I'm going to mention that February 1943 is a great candidate for anyone who wants to watch the cartoons of a given time period. Based on the current dating in this blog, there are 8 theatrical shorts, a feature, and a PSA short all available on commercial DVDs, including from such relatively hard to find on DVD store shelves cartoon makers as Paul Terry. The only cartoons not available from the month is currently not known to exist by the people who would be expected to know of a cartoon's existence, and a Puppetoon that you may not ocnsider to be a cartoon (tho I do).

You'll need the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volume 3, disc 3 and volume 1, disc 3, The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, a copy of Saludos Amigos or Walt and El Grupo, Du Barry Was A Lady, Woody Woodpecker Volume 1, disc 1 (or volume 3 of the Columbia House set), the Complete Pluto, a Fleischer Superman dvd, and Popeye Volume 3. Other than Dubarry Was A Lady (which I was fortunate enough to find for a couple of bucks at Big Lots), these are all solid additions to your animation collection.

The rundown on the cartoons is:
02/02/43 W Pigs in a Polka LTGCv3d3
02/05/43 T He Dood It Again (TNAMM)
02/06/43 D Saludos Amigos wide release (not a short)
02/13/43 M Bah Wilderness (Du Barry Was A Lady DVD)
02/15/43 L The Screwball WWv1d1/WWCE3
02/19/43 D Pluto and the Armadillo Pl
02/19/43 F Seein' Red, White 'n' Blue Pv3
02/19/43 F The Mummy Strikes (superman)
02/20/43 W Tortoise Wins by a Hare LTGCv1d3
02/26/43 C -There's Something About A Soldier (not currently known to exist)
02/26/43 P Bravo Mr Strauss (not on commercial DVD; many sources wrongly state that this is on the DVD of the Puppetoon movie; unless there is more than one version of The Puppetoon Movie)
02/xx/43 WB - Point Rationing of Foods Chuck Jones 02-XX 1943 LTGC Volume 3, Disc 3 non-theatrical

Enjoy!