Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Sunday, September 28, 2014

From Funnypapers To Film ...


Mutt and Jeff Are Playing With Fire in 1926 Cartoon

By what accounts I consulted, there were 300 Mutt and Jeff cartoons, of which eleven survive. Pretty pathetic, and the more distressing in light of fact M&J were a very big noise in their day, even in silent cartoons where they toplined on and off from the mid-teens to late twenties. Pioneer participant of the series Dick Huemer compared them with Peanuts of later vintage, and yes, the pair seem eternal for short/fat, tall/thin guys still referred to generically as "Mutt and Jeff." Such basic concept made creator Bud Fisher rich beyond Midas, a millionaire off his strip when a million could be made and kept. Once Mutt and Jeff came to movies, they'd not be idle. One company would do shorts a while and fold up, another in wings to take over, Fisher the broker who'd hire artists, then leave them to toil while he cashed checks.


Playing With Fire might be a cleanest sample of the Mutt/Jeff lot. Done at tail-end 1926, it fairly cries for sound still a couple years off for cartoons, and in fact, might have been kitted out with a track for later distribution, as were several other Mutt/Jeffs (animator Huemer, who worked on these, would call sound "the great savior of the animated cartoon"). Playing With Fire happily turned up at Ebay on clean-as-whistle 35mm nitrate, was grabbed by a collector, who displayed his bounty at You Tube, the treasure lovingly taken from its can and placed on a Steenbeck editor for playback. Digitally cleaned rendition is part of Thunderbean's lately released Blu-Ray, Technicolor Dreams and Black & White Nightmares, Playing With Fire a highlight for crystal clarity seldom had from 20's animation tending to survive, if at all, on raggedy terms. Great to see lost films recovered from online auction, spiffed up digitally, then made available for home playback via Blu-Ray. Thunderbean and its collector contacts are once again to be applauded for rescue of rarities and sharing them with fans. Archives could take a lesson from such fast tracking of treasures to outlying enthusiasts who can enjoy them most.

4 Comments:

Blogger Scott MacGillivray said...

A quick search of YouTube will find some Mutt and Jeff silents "in color" -- in 1936 three of them were traced, colored, rephotographed, scored by a swing band, and released in the short-lived Kromo-Color process. Others were recolored and scored for television in 1973. No dialogue in any of them, but the visual humor is intact.

5:07 PM  
Blogger rnigma said...

I vaguely recall "Mutt and Jeff vs. Bugoff," a strange attempt at re-editing the recolored cartoons into a makeshift mini-feature.

Yes, Bud Fisher preferred partying to drawing (Al Smith did much of the work from about the early 30s on), and his shipboard fling with Countess Aedita DeBeaumont led to her eventually owning "Mutt & Jeff" after Fisher's death.

5:41 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Donald Benson considers advances made from early cartoons:


Interesting thing: The earliest animated cartoons were stiff and crude in their movement, but the drawings were often surprisingly detailed. As animation improved, there was a push towards simpler, rounder designs that lent themselves to distortion and exaggeration, not to mention the necessary mass production. Felix, Oswald and Mickey were largely black blobs, and few of their costars were much more complex. It was a few years into the sound era, when animators developed their skills and studios hit their stride, that they brought back detailing like Jeff's suit and whiskers -- rendered with improved draftsmanship in the bargain.

12:32 PM  
Blogger tomservo56954 said...

"Mutt & Jeff comics are NOT funny...they're GAY, I get it!"


Paul Duca

3:57 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024