Step back into the 30s with these great, surreal cartoons from the Van Beuren Studio (Popeye, Betty Boop). The sound Aesop Fables, while almost forgotten today, produced some of the strangest cartoons during the Depression with dream-like backgrounds, surreal imagery and some of the best cartoon scores. This collection contains 16 cartoons from the original series, many remastered from original 35mm nitrate prints.
R**R
Just what I've been looking for
To set this in perspective I'm now 70 + years old. Back when I was a child in the 1940s I was introduced to Van Beuren cartoons by having them shown (on 16mm) at one of my birthday parties. Later in the 1950s these film became a staple of local (Philadelphia) children's television programming. Years later I purchased a 16mm rental library because it had a number of these films in it. Alas time has made these film too fragile to screen any longer. This DVD solves that problem.Steve Stanchfield, and his Thunderbean Animation, have done a great job rescuing these examples of early animation. They are presented in chronological order by release date and have some restoration done to them. While a few specks show up now and then the visual are sharp and display a good grey scale. The audio is amazing considering the age of these films. But Stanchfield has included a treasure chest of bonus features in this set spanning character development art, marketing materials, and even several audio examples of the recorded (early 78 rpm releases) work of the company's musical director at that time Gene Rodemich.Yes the humor on these cartoons will probably not amuse the children of today but these films are a kind of time capsule allow those of us living in the 21st century to see what was funny in the early days of the 20th century. This set is a must have for anyone who has an interest in the development of animation and the output of a pioneer studio.
H**R
These are amazing! I love old cartoons and I'm enjoying this ...
These are amazing! I love old cartoons and I'm enjoying this so much. There's alot of good ones that I haven't seen before. The quality is okay for them being as old as they are.
T**Y
Gift
Gift
C**K
wish there were more, great fun for all
love the oldies, well worth the price wish more were available from the 30s and 40s, better animation, flat out enjoyable
M**T
Five Stars
I absolutely loved these cartoons. I had so much fun watching them
P**L
Historical cartoons for the collector
Quality so/so but cartoons are priceless, more than enough to recommend.
M**N
Five Stars
Excellent as described. Like it very much !
K**E
Five Stars
Bought for husband he loves watching the older cartoon
Trustpilot
5 days ago
3 weeks ago