The Extras - Reviewing The Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray with Thad Komorowski

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Send us Fan MailRestoration artist and animation historian Thad Komorowski joins the podcast for a deep dive review of his Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray. We discuss Blackie Sheep and Wolfie’s early screwball energy, the importance of the early Casper’s, plus provide reviews of Little Audrey, Little Lulu, Baby Huey, and more. Thad also breaks down what it takes to restore these theatrical cartoons from original elements and why smart curation and audio commentaries make this an highly recommended collection for Golden Era animation fans. Purchase FAMOUS STUDIOS CHAMPION COLLECTION Blu-ray on AmazonPurchase Aesop's Fables:The 1920s, Volume 1 Blu-rayLearn more at Classicflix Moviezyng Affiliate LinkThe Extras Facebook pageThe Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupJoin our new public Facebook Group for Warner Archive Animation Fans and get the latest update on all the releases.As an Amazon and Moviezyng Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links.  There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast.  Thanks in advance.Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers.  Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals.  [e-mail]

Hi, I'm animation historian Jerry Beck, and you're listening to The Extras. Shoot ten bucks. I've faded. Oh, nice. Oh, I still fail me. Sweet. My crying a bar. 17, 18, 19, 19, 20.

Hey. These dice is found me. Are you kidding? Sheet. With dice that's loaded. Hi, Tim Lard here, and today I'm talking with animation historian, comic book writer, and digital restoration artist Thad Hamarowski. And we're going to be discussing the famous studios champion collection, Blu-ray release.

Hi, Thad. Hey, Tim. Nice to e-meat you. Exactly. Well, we seem to roundabout through Jerry Beck and other folks, so it's good to find. finally get you on the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

Yeah, you bet. Well, I just got done watching this Blu-ray. And I don't know why I was thinking it would be a little shorter, but this is packed. 134 minutes. It's really loaded. So there's a lot of great shorts or cartoons on here. But before we kind of get into the history of famous studios, which I did want to touch on for folks, I want to discuss this clip.

that we just played from No Muntin for Nuttin. Yeah. From 1943. This is a fantastically entertaining cartoon, and I'm guessing it's probably a favorite of yours. Oh, yeah. It's the very first novel tune ever made. The very first in that series and that season. It's the earliest cartoon on the disc introduces Blacky Sheep and Wolfie.

It is one of my favorites. There's a great audio commentary as well. well by animator Bob Jakes, who used to host the Cartoon Logic podcast with me. He goes into the history of that film. It's very complicated history. It's one of the cartoons that started in Miami and got finished in New York City when Famous Studios relocated to New York. It started their new identity of famous studios after the Fletchers were ousted and Paramount

took over the studio. it was their first wholly original creation and one that wasn't off of a licensed property or something that was started by the Flechers. Well, what about it in terms of when you watch it and knowing it's the first? What did it set in motion there? Because really, we've got what, Blacky Sheep and Wolfie are the main characters. And you decided to put their whole kind of series on this. Yeah, they hold a special place in my heart, like it says on the backtack.

of the disc. It says, you know, they're 1940 screwball archetypes. And they're just a couple of my favorite characters and the whole famous output. They're a lot funnier. They're a lot more adult. You know, they have the wartime energy that, you know, the warners and MGM cartoons of the period have. One in particular sheet shape.

That was the first cartoon I restored I being my company, Sinist Restoration. in Cartoon Logic, along with Samantha Davis, that I wanted to restore once the opportunity for getting the famous studios material arose. It was like, no, I got to get sheepshed. It's the best title on the desk, I think. Obviously, because we use that for the cover, drawn by Stephen DiStefano. The Blackie and Wolfie shorts, they're just really funny, especially when Sid Raymond

takes over as Wolfie and he does it. is Bert Larr imitation. It's just a really funny character. And he showed up many years later. He would show up again without Blackie. He's in a few of the Casper's, and he's in a couple of one-shots as well. Yeah, I have to agree that SheepShap

was probably my favorite on the release. Oh, it's really funny. You know, when we unveiled and announced that we were doing the famous studios champion collection, that's what I wanted to use. And everybody was like, oh, gee, This took a little influence from Tex Avery. Yeah.

Obviously. But I think it's a really funny cartoon in its own right. Definitely goes into the same themes that Avery did in his MGM work. But it has a different spin on it, absolutely. Did you do the commentary for that one? I did not. That was another one of Bob Jake's excellent commentaries because it's a favorite of his as well. So he wanted to do that one.

Yeah, yeah. It's got that whole Lug's, bunny style where you got blacky, you know, the prey. Yeah, and it's different in that regard because he's not necessarily the prey. He's the wise guy, but he's also collecting money for the orphanage. Wolfie is not after him for sustenance. He's a very despicable character, stealing money from orphans for wine, women, and song. So, yeah, it's unique in that way.

And Jerry had some sort of theory that in 1946, every studio by law was required to do one really funny cartoon. And that release here has, of course, many funny from Warner's and MGM. But all the other studios, you know, these cartoons would have been done at the peak of World War II. So it had all that energy. And yeah, it's just a really fantastically funny, very colorful cartoon. and I'm very thrilled that we were able to get it looking this nice. Yeah, all of the blacky sheep and wolfie cartoons look fantastic. And of course, that sheep shape, you know, it never hurts to put your main character in drag.

Right. And always adds a lot of humor. But that's a fantastic. Well, it's even, it goes further than Bugs does because people were wondering, well, did he shave himself to be in disguise? but it's a body suit. You can see finally in the quality of this copy, which is off of the original negative. You can see that it's a body suit.

Yeah, yeah, really good. Well, maybe we should go back for a second. You mentioned that Famous Studios, you know, there was the whole Miami thing, and then there was the movie to up north. But maybe you could take us back even a little bit more in the history for those who aren't as familiar. Sure.

So Famous came about. In about 1941, the Fletcher's were in Miami at that point. They were deep in production on Mr. Bug Goes to Town and starting off the Superman series. And they signed a really bad deal with Paramount that effectively just took the studio away from them. And eventually by the end of the year, the Fletcher's were gone. There could be a whole podcast and a whole book, honestly, about that subject. But that is what it happened. And basically the second the flashes were gone, Paramount decided we got to have the operation back in New York City almost as soon as they were gone.

I have the paperwork and it showed that they were coming back like January, 1942. They decided, okay, we got to get it back. And they came in bits and pieces, the operation. but there's a few on this disc that are transitionary. I think it's no mutton for nutton and the henpeck rooster, and I think maybe suddenly it's spring were started in Miami. Henbeck Brewster, absolutely, because people have been commenting on the very poor quality of the soundtrack.

Jack Mercer does most of the voices, and it sounds like he was recorded in a bathroom. It's so echoy. And yeah, that's the source. I don't have the spreadsheet in front of me, but that is off of the 35 master material for the soundtrack. So it always sounded that bad. Well, then how did you kind of get involved in? I know there's your company.

And well, you can give us a little background on that too, but specifically this one, this champion collection. Sure. Well, we've been freelancing, Samantha and I for a long time. I started the company many years ago, Seneist. and it's mostly freelancing on other people's projects. And I finally, I said, oh, I got to do my own stuff. And last year I did do the EZEPS Fables, the 1920s, Volume 1, which was originally just going to be from collector's prints of those Paul Terry silent films.

But eventually the opportunity arose to work with Black Hawk films, which has a very, very substantial archive of all the printing materials for those cartoons. and less than maybe a dozen cases. They even have the camera negatives for cartoons from the 20s. And you can see the difference that makes, if you look at the release on those very, there were only two on that release from it. And there'll be even more on Volume 2, which is happening.

But as far as the famous studios champion collection, that arose because we've been working with Jane Fleischer-Reed, who with Marice Yelvarado, they started a project called Fabulous Flesher Carto Cartoons restored. Very green operation and we slowly, you know, we would not just get, you know,

the silent cartoons from various sources with Cocoa the Clown, but they made the connection with Paramount Pictures, archives, and it's just grown and grown over the years. With the Flesher Company, with Jane's Company, we've restored

in a manner of Less than four years over a 130 cartoons, mostly from the original negatives, with all the, all the material like Paramount Pictures. Well, that Fleischer, the work that you've done, is that going to be coming out on this release? It's really coming out soon enough, also via classic flicks, but also through Jane's Company. It's a cartoon logic, fabulous Flasher co-production. Flasher cartoons, Greatest Hits Volume 1. that's going to have a lot of heavy hitters on it, you know,

and it'll cover the whole Fleischer output. Well, we'll get to talk about that, hopefully, uh, when it comes out that. Sure. We won't,

we won't release too much information now. Not just yet. Yeah, because we want to focus on this release because I think it's, it's so good. And I do appreciate, I do appreciate you,

you know, having classic flicks, send me a copy so I could look it over. Yeah. Um, I really enjoyed it. And I'm not that familiar. So this was really,

great for me. And I know that one of the biggies, I think, is you have a lot of firsts on this release. Yes. Yeah, that was intentional. Yeah, for obvious reasons. But it's also unavoidable because this is the pre-1950 part of the famous output and library. And so they're all going to be, they're going to be the first appearances anyway. So this are the earliest cartoons. Stay with us. We'll be right back. you're a fan of the Warner Archive animation releases? Do you want to get the latest updates and news right away? If you're on Facebook, we have just created a brand new Facebook group called the Warner Archive Animation Fans Group. Now, we celebrate past releases, but really, we created this group because of all of the great releases that have come in this year and are anticipated in the

coming years. So there have been a lot of great releases from the Looney Tunes Collectors Vault series, there's the Tom and Jerry releases, there's all of the Hanna-Barbera releases. I mean, there's just a wealth of animation coming from the Warner Archive. So we celebrate all of it. It's a community with other people who enjoy these releases and want to talk about them and share the latest news, reviews, and updates from the Warner Archive. So if that sounds interesting to you, check out the link here in the podcast show notes, and we hope to see you soon.

There are some people who believe in ghosts, and there are some people who don't. If you're the believe in ghosts kind, then this story is about one. And if you're the don't believe in ghost kind, well, just for fun, this story is about one anyway. His name was Casper, and he was surely the most unusual ghost there ever was, or wasn't, depending on how you feel about it. Every night at the stroke of 12, his brothers and sisters scampered out joyously to frighten the folk of the neighborhood. He'd rather stay home and not frighten people, which goes to show how unusual he really was. Well, our good friend, animation historian, Jerry Beck, he's a big fan of Casper. Yes, he is.

He is. He is. And you have the very first Casper cartoon, and that's called The Friendly Ghost from 1940. Correct. Tell us a little bit about, you know, bringing the... that to this release? Well, it was a must, and it was a must to put all three of the 40s cast for cartoons on it. It's because he's the most popular of the famous characters, as Jerry aptly says in his

commentary, it's the one character that famous studios came up with, well, bought, and Jerry goes into that in his commentary, but it's their one, quote-unquote original creation that people on the streets still remember today. Even if it's not from the 40s and 50s Casper cartoons, they know who Casper is. So it was definitely very important to get those three cartoons on this. Yeah. And going back and actually seeing it and seeing it restored, it's a, it's kind of a charming, it's kind of the word for it, a story. And obviously compared to a lot of the more snarky or, you kind of cartoons that come from the Looney Tunes or even from the, you know, Blackie and Wolfie style. It's very different.

Yeah, and that's something that Famous really did do. And the point I try to get across is that they did do their Warner type of cartoons, but they also aimed at varied audiences in a way that Warner's and MGM by that point anyway didn't really do. You have the typical, you know, wise guy style things with Blackie and Wolfie and Herman the Mouse and baby Huey. But you also have ones that are very much more directed at children. You have Casper, you have Little Lulu, you have Little Audrey, and you also have the Follow the Bouncing Ball Screen songs, which were not happening at any other studio. course because Paramount had a bouncing ball that the flasheers had come up with. And did these, were these shown theatrically? Oh yeah, they were all shown theatrically.

These were all theatrical cartoons. Yeah, with the Paramount releases, I'm assuming. Yeah. When we talk about some of the others, they're made more for adults and then if kids are in the audience, were these played primarily in front of movies aimed for kids? Um, I mean, that'd be a better question for someone like Jerry or that, but. It didn't really matter. They just, they showed up where they showed up. That's what a lot of people don't get about the golden age of animation is that, like, these would show up wherever.

The famous stuff, of course, was very popular for the kiddie matinees, the cartoon festivals and things like that. I do get into that on one of the tracks of the Casper cartoons with Rob Waldman, who is the son of Myron Waldman, one of the main flisher and famous animators and de facto directors. They did reuse a lot of the same story beats and plot points and dialogue beat for beat. You kind of see that on this disc, as a matter of fact, because the second Casper, there's good booze tonight, is kind of point for point remade as a haunting we will go, just different setting, different character, different small animal character.

but as Rob said, that was really a thought that children craved repetition. And that's what they did. And a lot of people don't understand, too, is that this was not the same as today's era where you can have all these at the click of a button or on a single disc. You'd see a cartoon, whether it was Bugs or Tom and Jerry or Casper, you know, once a year maybe. like that's what you get. You never saw it again. Yeah.

You know, it's like after their weak run, that was it. You know, they would take advantage of that, some more than others. I mean, people don't really get what lightning in a bottle the Warner cartoon studio really was. And people will say, you know, well, you know, they made their repetitious series too. But they didn't make five or six Pepe Lepews or Roadrunners a year. versus where famous or, say, Terry Tunes, they would make five or six of the same cartoons year after year. Yeah.

So it can be unfair to watch these en masse, but I think I did a pretty good job curating a varied selection here, which was intentional. Would you like to swing on a star, Barry Moon Dean's Home in a Jar, and be better. of burn you on. You'd rather be a mule.

A mule is an animal with long funny ears. He kicks up at anything he hears. His back is broadly, but his brain is weak. He's just plain stupid with the stubborn streak. And by the way, if you hate to go to school. You may grow up to be a mule. There's another first which you just mentioned, but let's go into it a little bit more.

And this first is about with a trout. And that introduces Little Lulu from 1947. I thought it had a really inventive take. And of course, it has a message in there as well that kids should stay in school. It's actually one of the very last of the Lulu's. It's kind of in that period where they're figuring out that the character is not worth the money or the returns for the license. And they already had to come up with Little Audubes. at that point who appeared

in a one-off cartoon called Santa Surprise and the following year they gave her her own subseries in the novel tunes releases but yeah the bout with the trout it's probably the most beloved of the Lulu's the most remembered because of the swinging on

a star song. It was a paramount own song and just like Warner's and MGM the famous cartoons and earlier the Fleischer releases they would incorporate the Paramount Library of music all the time. For some reason, they didn't do it with the screen songs

when they revived the series at Famous. They would always do a lot of public domain hits and staples instead, but I digress. Yeah, I'm with everybody else. I love swinging on a star. That's such a fun song from that era. And then the way it's integrated into this cartoon is fantastic. Yeah, it's a very fun one, yes.

Yeah, really fun. And little Audrey ain't done, eat her lunch again. And this is Audrey. Be on the tree top. Eating candy again instead of food. Now you sit right down and eat your lunch. And no more candy. You just mentioned it, but the little Audrey won, butterscotch and soda.

Butter scotch and soda, yes. That is the sole little Audrey on this and my favorite. A lot of this disc was trying to get most of my favorites onto this. release if it was potentially a one-off. At least I got all my favorites onto it. But yes, butterscotch and soda, that is the best little Audrey. It is essentially what Defecto Director Ale Uxter said was a parody or at least inspired by The Lost Weekend.

Little Audrey essentially goes through drug withdrawal and has a nightmare. And yes, it's one of the most colorful releases. I think people will really enjoy it. You just said colorful, but it's a feast for the eyes. Yes, absolutely. You've got all of this candy. You've got the chocolate road. You've got like you've got the candy.

Like it's so fantastic and beautiful and colorful. I'm just curious when it came to the restoration. Was it a lot of work to get those colors back? You know, that's what's fun about working with camera negatives, especially at this point. It's just so good. These guys knew what they were doing by this point with color timing that it does not take a lot of work.

The colors just pop right away. It can go wrong, absolutely. But these were a joy to work with. Yes. I'm always amazed, and would there be from whatever studio, but when you can see these cartoons from the 30s or 40s or 50s, and because you can go back to the camera negative, how good they look after all of these.

years. They look like they were made much more recently. Yeah, people don't get it. You're seeing these better than they did in feeders, obviously, but that's the privilege we have with today's technology. Yeah. Well, one thing about the butterscotch and soda that I did want to mention is that at the beginning, you put up a little graphic that it has racial stereotypes. Yeah, I did do that for that one and the raggedy and suddenly it's spring. It's something you kind of have to do to cover

your bases. I understand that from like, you know, from the studio standpoint and everything too, but did that impact this butterscotch and soda from being released like it kind of did with, you know, the Warren Brothers ones with Tom Gehry? Less so

with these because they were public domain staples for so many years and they were just always on these garbage collections with no real curation. So they just dumped them. You know, we go and do Warner's, all this in Rabbit Stew is probably the most common Bugs Bunny on any on any VHS tape. So I don't think they had as withheld distribution as the Warner material.

Because of that public domain. Yeah, the public domain. Yeah, anyone, they would just put it on willy-nilly. Right. Dad, there's another fun one that I did want to ask you about, and that is Campus Capers for 1949. It's got these mice from Harvard versus... Harburg.

Harburg. Harvard, yes. Versus the asshole had from Quinceton. Quinston. Yeah, it's a predecessor to the Herman and Cat Nip series. Catnip the Cat hadn't been created yet. This is with Herman the Mouse solo, finally voiced by Arnold Stang, who was probably the best part of that character because he's really a miserable vindictive character.

Now we're near as appealing as the mice in the other studios films, but he has his charm thanks to Arnold Stang's work. But this one was directed by Bill Titla of the Disney legend. He spent most of the 40s at famous directing. And, you know, that was sort of the theory. We're going to get some of the Disney magic if we hire Bill. If there is a volume two, I'm definitely going to make it a priority to put a lot more tight on that one. Campus Capers, it holds a place where it's the first non-pop-by famous cartoon I ever saw as a kid. I think it's a very

funny one. As I get into the commentary, it was kind of Taitla making a Mighty Mouse cartoon, which he did do over at Paul Terry's studio, who was one of his first employers, and he went back after Disney's for a year with a big salary and Paul Terry decided, well, I'm going to slash the budget. And to do that, I'm going to get rid of Bill Taitla. So Bill went immediately over. I think the anecdote he ran out holding back tears and he just went right into famous studios and got a directing job right away. But this one is really funny. It's got a very hasteless gaslighting gag involving tongue meat. It's just a really funny one. I think the dynamic is a little better than catnip because knucklehead is more of a threat.

It's basically just Bluto as a cat, same voice after Jackson Beck. But it's a really funny one. It's one that a lot of us like because of, you know, the school rivalry is now a cat and mouse rivalry. So I think people have a lot of fun with this one. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. The whole school rivalry really takes me back to anything from that era. Right. Everybody just wore their pride of their schools on their sleeves.

Well, you mentioned this already, but let's talk a little bit about quackadoodle. do from 1950 with baby Huey. Yes. Tell us about that. Very first baby Huey, beautifully restored by Samantha and I. Yeah, it's just a really funny, almost a tragic story about the misbegotten hero. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like the outcast, the ugly duckling, the, you know, this element of you're too big, you're too ugly, you're too, whatever, that outcast. It's a good one. That has another great commentary track by Bob Jakes, who actually did direct Baby Huey in the 90s with the revival series and did get to work with Sid Raymond, the original voice of Baby Huey. And he talks a bit about that on the track. Well, let's talk about that for a second, and that is the audio commentaries. How many are on here and how did you go about selecting the folks?

Unintentionally, every cartoon has an audio commentary track. I hope people don't get disappointed with future cartoon logic releases because both this famous and EZOPs volume one have a commentary track on every cartoon. With EZups, that was by design, but with this one, it just happened that way. I filled in a couple on my own. Of course, I had Jerry Beck do a bunch because he is the sole main defender of famous studios in the historian world. I mentioned Bob Jakes, who is also another historian of famous, along with being a professional animator and animation director. We have animator and cartoonist Mike Gazzala on a few of the tracks with Jerry, because he's a big fan of these cartoons and their color and layout work. And there's also Will Friedwald.

Another historian defender of famous, he interviewed kind of the famous alumni in the early 80s when they were still around. owned and that's how we have as much historical knowledge as we do of famous is because Will and sometimes with Jerry interview of these guys. And we also have Rob Waldman on the cartoons that his father de facto directed, the bout with the trout matto second two caspers. Yeah, it's terrific to have that. Like you say, I kind of wanted to because commentaries become a lost and misunderstood art on these discs. It's not just so much to hear my own voice. It's just that I've said this to a few podcast your friends and have lamented, but people just don't read anymore. And they like their podcasts and they like their audio commentaries. So a lot of this is unwritten and unrecorded history.

That's why my cohort Charlie Judkins and I did a commentary on every one of the ease-ups fables on that disc because it's getting the history of Paul Terry's early days out there. And with this famous studios champion collection, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to have as many people as possible get the story of famous out. Well, I personally think it's fantastic. And you should always watch the cartoon first without the commentary because that way you can interpret it for yourself. but the nice thing about commentaries on cartoons or short films like this, I find is that when you watch the cartoon first, it feels nice and long. When you watch it or when I watch it again with audio commentary, it zips by.

Number one, you've already seen it. And number two, that commentary just is like so quick. It's only like six minutes or whatever it is the length. And you guys pack so much into that, whether it be your own. opinion or some history or a little bit of fun facts or whatever. It just goes, and I found that when I went back and I started listening to the commentaries, time just went very quickly. And I love having it there.

And yeah, it's the world we live in. People like to hear it. But commentaries are not just the same because you're watching the actual cartoon. So you're getting the two visual and audio inputs. Right. And that's something a lot of people would tell us. me and Bob Jakes about our podcast. Like, oh, I wish you had a video component.

It's like, well, pay us. But this is kind of the best of both worlds. Yeah, yeah. People are enjoying that. So, well, I'm curious about the restoration challenges on reading, writing, and arithmetic from 1948. That was technically, quote unquote, lost film for many years. It wasn't hard to get because it's been,

paramount all these years. But in that period, specifically that year in 1948, a lot of the studios had a lot of mishandling of the materials because technicolor had a huge labor shortage, and there were a lot of attempts to use other color processes. Rhythmic is in Policolor, which was Polaroid Corporation's color process. There's solution to, by passing, Technicolor. It didn't last terribly long, but it allowed them to get the cartoons out cheaper and faster. It was mostly screen songs and Popeye cartoons produced in it. But because they were using a lot of inexperienced people or disorganized people, materials would often go missing or parts would go missing. You know, as you've probably talked with George Feltonstein about some challenges with cartoons from that particular year. Even one of the Warner cartoons produced in Cinecolor went completely, it's completely missing the negative right now, a riffraffy-daffy.

So there's no exception. It has nothing to do with lack of trying with us in the modern era. It was just like that. It went missing before most of us were born. I think Jerry said this many times that when these were shown theatrically, I mean, there was no thinking of, hey, TV or the, you know, obviously. They were treated like newspapers. Yeah.

You know, like the funny papers. You know, it's like, oh, that's it. You're done. So it's amazing that as much survives as it does. I mean, telling tales out of school, but, you know, for most, it goes much earlier, but most of the early black and white Disney cartoons, the negatives don't exist for a very large percentage of them. So it's just a shame, but it's also we have to be grateful for what showed up.

But back to Rhythmatic, I think part of the issue was the cyan separation for part of the cartoon was missing. And they never bothered to make further prints because of that reason. And it was now part of the sale to television in 1955 for that reason. But we did produce, it's just a short, it's less than a minute of the cartoon. Eric Grayson and I did a very nice, but mostly Eric, who did that Herculane King of the Congo restoration, that early serial of Boris Karloff. That's been just a masterpiece of restoration work. He did a recreation of the optical that just would not look right without the cyan at all. So he basically recolored it from scratch and did, I think it looks very good.

And yeah, so that was the challenge with Rhythmic. Unfortunately, we couldn't find an actual, you know, 35 nitrate or any release print, so we had to use the separation positives for that one. And that goes into another one of the most, quote unquote, mostly lost cartoons that I featured as a bonus feature, Caddo Nine Ales. The negative survives completely, but it was a cynical release. This is what I said to Eric. I just said at 1948, Cinecolor, he's like,

up, you don't have to tell me any further. The soundtrack is completely missing. We think it went missing going back to 1948 when it came out. Cicolor probably never returned the track negative. So if it's out there, I don't know of it at any major archive. I don't know of any prints of this cartoon at any major archive. People say, well, there's a print at UCLA. It's like, no, that is the negative.

That is listed on the online day. database. And I was very fortunate to get it out. I was also very fortunate that the dialogue transcript survived in the copyright synopsis. So I was able to have subtitles for it to tell you what Buzzie and Sam the Cat are saying in this cartoon. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's part of the bonus materials. And let's just talk about some of the other stuff that you have there. You already mentioned the audio commentaries. But let's dive into this spree for all from Brief for all, yes, that is the Soul Snuffy Smith cartoon produced in the 1940s, de facto directed by Jim Tire.

It's the only Tire cartoon featured. That was not for lack of trying. I know Jim Tire is a very popular figure. He's one of my favorite animators. Just think of like the Wildest Warner cartoon and then think of that 10 times wilder and weirder. That's Jim Tire in a nutshell. Tyre mostly worked on the Popeyes at Famous, and he did a great job on them.

They're all featured on the Fantastic Warner Archive sets of the Popeye cartoons. But spreeferral, that was a casualty of the policy that King Feature Syndicate had, that the negatives and materials had to be destroyed after 10 years for their licensed properties. That's affected a lot of material. That's why the Barney Google cartoons from Columbia from the 30s, are all missing. Fortunately, the one exception to the rule was Popeye, so they do have the materials on

that one still. Yeah. But it's kind of a nothing cartoon, as Jerry and Mike say on the commentary track, kind of a hillbilly 101 gags picture, but I just thought I had access to it through my friend Jericho. He accessed the

best surviving element right now known to all of us. It's over at the BFI. It's a 35,000. It's a 35 black and white print. It's unrestored. It's raw. I didn't want to put in the manpower to clean it up if, you know, miraculously, some cinnicolor print might show up of it one day. Right. Yeah. Well, it's still, I enjoyed it, that it was on there. Yeah. You just mentioned all the work that goes into this. Tell me a little bit about that. Paramount provides the scans of the picture

negative or whatever the case may be. We get the scan of the audio track. And it's up to us to put it all together, which in the case of these color cartoons, it's combining the separation exposure negatives, grading it, doing any stabilization, doing any cleanup, doing any flicker mitigation, and then restoring the audio, which is the genius Ray Faiola's job. He's been doing all the sound work for this famous release, and he's been doing all the sound work for Jane Fleischer's project. I will say, that working with the separations is honestly at Gotson because they get pretty clean already. They're pretty stable as is because the prints were not made off of the negatives.

They were made off a generation or two later. So it has the benefit of working with the camera negatives. But there's a lot of sweat, blood and tears into this set. I think we get a fantastic job, Samantha and I and Ray and, and a few others that have worked on this. And yeah, I'm just very happy that is done. And I definitely would love for Cartoon Logic to do further famous studios releases. And I take it that's, you know, like everything, dependent on how sales go.

The sales have been very good so far. And I think a second volume is definitely in the realm of possibilities. It will not have for a while. I am not going to give any ballpark or any kind of date, but it is more likely than not. Am I correct that this title is going to be a little bit more for hardcore? It's definitely a more esoteric set, but the diehard animation fans are the main buyers of these releases,

so they're all going to buy it anyway. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think trying to watch it, widen the scope of letting people know about it. If you've been buying the, you know, the various releases from the Warner Archive, you've been buying the various classic animation releases from the other studios, even like the Woody Woodpecker, you know, a collection recently that Jerry was on the podcast to talk about.

And if you're enjoying these, you're going to enjoy these famous studios collection. Oh, yeah, I think I'm not to put anything down, but these are much better than a lot of the... the Walter Lance ones that were just featured on that Blu-Rae. Yeah, that's actually... Much more in the wheelhouse of the golden age of animation when this was full, because what a lot of people don't realize is that Fleischer and Famous were, they were expensive cartoons.

They had higher budgets than Warner's even, and you finally get to see that in these high-quality transfers and restorations, because there is a lot of prejudice. about famous, you know, that they were too repetitive, too juvenile, too violent, too tasteless, and all accurate charges. But they had a lot of talented people working on these things. And I don't think the very poor quality transfers that have circulated for years have done the many favors. Yeah. If you're a Tex-Avery fan, I think you're going to really enjoy these Blacky Sheep and Wolfie Artunes. especially. They really fit that, that mode, that golden era of the 40s. And those are, you have a lot of

those on here. So just, just those alone. But of course, all the others we've talked about, this is a terrific release. Well, hey, Thad, this has been a lot of fun. I really thoroughly enjoyed this release. I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it. I'm happy to be here. And thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, you bet. Well, just a little more information on this release. is on Blu-ray and DVD. So those of you who prefer DVD, there is an option for that. The title released April 21st. There are 18 cartoons and 134 minutes, so it's really loaded.

And the list price for the Blu-ray is $2999, and the DVD is $24.99. Both are on sale, both on Classic Flicks website and Amazon. That could change, but if you act quickly, I think you'll get that sale price. And as I mentioned earlier, if you enjoy the tech savories from the 19-19. 40s if you enjoy that golden era. There are a lot of cartoons on here that I think will appeal to you. And then of course there are all of these kind of special little Audrey, you know, Lulu and the Casper's on there that are just really terrific the restoration. So they're fun to have on there as well, plus some other one-off. So lots of great stuff. And then the extras really push it over the edge in terms of

value, I think, for the price. So I'm glad that we got to hear directly from that. So I hope you enjoyed hearing from him as he really is the one who could tell us everything we needed to know about this release. If you want more information, there are purchase links in the show notes here, as well as links to the Classic Flicks website where you can get more information and more information on that and cartoon logic as well. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed about classic animation.