Rainy Day Sunshine Fun-Time Sunday Low-Res Cartoon Show #14

I couldn't find a host like I can when I play old records and I thought I could do the same with old cartoons as well. The rights are even more complicated here so I've gotten around it by only embedding things that have already been posted by someone else, absolving me altogether.

I take no responsibility for anything removed by the rightholders, watermarks from previous second-generation sources, editing, cropping, or other ways links that have been broken by parties other than me. Once in a while you'll come across offensive racial stereotypes. Remember the cartoon is about the story and not about them.

SH-H-H-H-H-H
Walter Lantz Productions, 1955
dir: Tex Avery ALONG CAME DAFFY
Warner Brothers Pictures, 1947
dir: Isadore Freleng MAXI CAT
Zagreb Film (YUG), 1971-1973
dir: Zlatko Grgic Heckle and Jeckle: TEN PIN TERRORS
Terrytoons, 1953
dir: Connie Rasinski Tooter Turtle: OLIMPING CHAMPION
Total Television, 1960 SNAFUPERMAN
U. S. Army/Warner Brothers Studios, 1943
dir: Isadore Freleng The Inspector: LE BALL AND CHAIN GANG
Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng Productions, 1968
dir: Gerry Chiniquy Dick Tracy: THE ONION RING
United Productions of America, 1960
dir: Clyde Geronimi Aesop's Fables: COLLEGE CAPERS
Van Beuren Studios, 1931
dirs: John Foster & Harry Bailey Woody Woodpecker: THE BEACH NUT
Walter Lantz Productions, 1944
dir: James Culhane The Captain and the Kids: THE CAPTAIN'S PUP
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1938
dir: Robert Allen
THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA
Vitagraph Film Corporation, 1918
dir: Winsor McCay WINKY THE WATCHMAN
Tennessee Department of Public Health, 1945
dir: Hugh Harman Multiplication Rock: ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR
ABC-TV/Phil Kimmelman and Associates, 1973
LIFE IN A TIN
Bruno Bozzetto Productions (Italy), 1967
dir: Bruno Bozzetto Mickey Mouse: THE PLOWBOY
Walt Disney Productions, 1929
dir: Ub Iwerks The Atom: INVASION OF THE BEETLE MEN
Filmation, 1967
Betty Boop: ROMANTIC MELODIES
Fleischer Studios
dir: Dave Fleischer

Dick Tracy #67

Harvey Comics would compile Dick Tracy, at one time one of the most popular comic strips in the country. You can tell these were the daily strips by the extra space every few panels. This was issue #67 from September 1953.

Comics: No American Home Complete Without Them

That is the name of this chapter of Comic Art in America, the 1959 book by Stephen Becker I've been reprinting the comics from every Thursday.

The captions underneath all these strips read:

Joe Jinks, when VIC FORSYTHE had taken over the strip. Cars and boxing were Joe's first loves; then came fishing.

Joe Palooka, with virtue, as always, triumphant.

“True Love”: Joe Palooka and Ann Howe in a tender postwar scene. They were married later.

One of America's most famous couples before their marriage—Blondie and Dagwood, here shown with Bumstead père.

The Bumsteads five years later.CHIC YOUNG's expose of the American husband.

A daily Blondie of 1957. Dagwood and Dithers, though usually at war, are obviously bound by a strong personal tie.

Here are a few samples of Li'l Abner. The book doesn't get into it, but also in the media at one time is the feud Capp had with Ham Fisher, creator of the Joe Palooka strip seen above. Fisher was an assistant who became disgruntled and attempted to frame Capp as a pornographer, and the feud ended with Fisher's suicide.

Continuing with the captions:

The long-delayed, oft-postponed wedding of Daisy Mae and Li'l Abner Yokum. A social note of the first magnitude.

AL CAPP's hillbillies in trouble. The villain is named “Soft-Hearted John”.

AL CAPP's view of one aspect of higher education. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

A Sunday page of Li'l Abner, when our hero and heroine had been married for five years.

Not remembered now, but at the time Li'l Abner was the most popular strip at the time rivaling that of Peanuts (or right now, SpongeBob Squarepants). There were animated shorts, Broadway musical, movies, merchandising, and advertising.

Capp was also known in later years for his right-wing politics. That and his showmanship resulted in him giving college lectures, and with that came the inevitable sexual harassment lawsuits.



Moving on...

CHESTER GOULD's Dick Tracy in his first years. The original cops-and-robbers strip.

Dick Tracy in mid-1932, with Pat Patton and Chief Brandon to the rescue.

Dick Tracy in 1940, when Gould and Tracy had risen to the top of the heap.

A gallery of grotesques from Dick Tracy. Any resemblance to actual persons, Living or dead...

Dick Tracy was almost as big as Li'l Abner. It resulted in parodies including Capp's Fearless Fosdick. Gould was also a public figure with many eccentricities, such as having a graveyard for characters he killed off. He too had a conservative streak. There's even still a museum in honor of the strip.

An early Dickie Dare, as drawn by MILTON CANIFF.

A Terry and the Pirates of 1942, when its hero was pretty well grown up. So was Rouge.

CANIFF's Thanksgiving celebration: a covey of quail from Terry, served up on November 25, 1945.

Probably the most famous single Sunday page: Colonel Corkin and Lieutenant Lee.

Again, sorry for not being able to be able to print these strips in color. Don't blame the messenger.

When Caniff switched syndicates, he wasn't able to keep the rights to Terry and the Pirates, so he created the similar Steve Canyon strip.

Nuts! #4, 1 of 2

Continuing my showcasing humor comics inspired by Mad, from cartoonists who didn't know how to do humor, this is the fourth issue of Nuts! by Premiere Magazines in September 1954. There were four issues which makes this one of the longest-running of the Mad competitors. It was no relation to the Nuts edited by Harvey Kurtzman in the 80s.

I don't have much to say about it, so I'll let it speak for itself.

This is by Hy Fleishman. By John Belcastro a/k/a Johnny Bell. The rest of this issue will be posted next Thursday.