Better than a salmonella outbreak

I couldn’t do it. There was a vintage Terrytoons Thanksgiving cartoon that was pretty funny if you excised all the Native American “gags,” and there was a “vintage” (I guess it’s vintage if it’s 29 years old) Garfield cartoon that wasn’t funny even if you excised all the “Jon is a predatory loser” gags. I couldn’t post either one, even though the latter had a theme song by Lou Rawls.

I guess I have to post the one good part of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, the part where Snoopy is preparing the best Thanksgiving feast ever. Watch it four times and you’ll get a normal-length cartoon. Happy Thanksgiving and stuff.

Black rainbow

Today’s cartoon is really screaming for a color restoration, but it’s still pretty great. Also watch for the proto-Flaming Lips bubble act. I know Parliament-Funkadelic is supposed to be the inspiration for Wayne Coyne’s bubble walking, but I have a feeling the girl here made an early imprint as well.

Square dance

Since this reel was culled from animations made for Times Square light-up billboards, you’re going to have to provide your own soundtrack. Or zone out on the subtle rhythm you can hear if you turn it up. I like how this has voluntary pixelation at certain points. 8-bit cult prognostication.

Ribcagey

I’m not sure why I never posted this ’20s Mickey Mouse cartoon before. It might have to do with the annoying throwaway Al Jolson blackface joke early on – sometimes I post these cartoons with caveats about ignorance of the time and how we shouldn’t erase history and pretend we weren’t ignorant, and sometimes I’m just too annoyed that these dumb ignorant jokes taint the otherwise lovely cartoon. This one isn’t a mean-spirited joke, and it’s about two seconds long, but I need to point it out.

Other than that, this one is pretty enjoyable if just for the fact that there seems to have been either a time crunch or lesser-skilled animators working on certain segments of the cartoon. Notice the weird solid black in between the ribs. At first I thought “oh, this is how they drew skeletons back then,” but then there is the marimba skeleton who has a more realistic looking ribcage, with no solid black parts. What was happening here? Was this incompetence? Or just a time-saving measure?

Just say no to infantiphagia

I like this cartoon because it reminds me of a little girl I used to babysit who went through a Hansel and Gretel phase. At the age of three, she wanted to watch the Humperdinck opera every morning, had the damn thing memorized, and wanted to be an ugly old witch for Halloween until her older sister intervened and convinced her to be a cat or something.

This cartoon is basically Hansel and Gretel, except there are no desperate parents, no breadcrumbs, no intention of child-eating, no oven, and it seems to be set in the Netherlands instead of Germany. Also there is a lot of pie throwing.

Booping for apples

I never noticed this before, but Betty Boop’s house seems to have an awful lot of pig portraits in it. And I’m absolutely fine with that. Maybe this is just a seasonal thing with her. I’ll have to do further research.

If you aren’t yet in the Halloween mood, this should help. Now get out that witch paint!

Formed from clay and back to it

There was so much other news today that the passing of Claymation’s Will Vinton was all but overlooked. I think enough time has passed that we can all forgive him for the California Raisins. Rest in peace, Will.

The above snippet from  is sort of dark, and I know some of you come here with the kids, so here’s an alternative in case you need something a little lighter.

Skeeter feeder

I hear that the thing that causes a mosquito bite to itch is not the bite itself but the saliva that the bloodsucker deposits into the wound. Blech. Here’s hoping this animation makes you a little more sanguine about everything.

Corny callings

This isn’t the Chudesnitsa featuring witches performing milking rituals and young girls talking to cows. This is the Chudesnitsa featuring dancing corn and authoritative wheat and cow fights. I don’t want you being confused.

Unstable solution

Someone posted this to “The Psychedelic Solution!” Facebook page, so I guess I can’t quit Facebook quite yet. Google Translate says this cartoon is entitled either “Massage Concert” or “Container For Auto.” Not sure if I can quit Google Translate yet.