ComiColor Cartoons
| ComiColor | |
|---|---|
 The title card of "Jack Frost" (1934), featuring the series logo. | |
| Directed by | Ub Iwerks Shamus Culhane Al Eugster Grim Natwick Berny Wolf |
| Produced by | Ub Iwerks Pat Powers |
| Music by | Carl Stalling Art Turkisher |
| Color process | Cinecolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Celebrity Productions |
Running time | 6–7 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
ComiColor Cartoons is a series of twenty-five animated short subjects produced by Ub Iwerks from 1933 to 1936. This cartoon series was the last produced by Iwerks' studio, Animated Pictures, under the studio's main financial backer who handled distribution rights of the films, Celebrity Pictures. The cartoons were all photographed exclusively in Cinecolor.
Most of the ComiColor entries were based upon popular fairy tales and other familiar stories, including Jack and the Beanstalk, Old Mother Hubbard, The Bremen Town Musicians, and The Headless Horseman.
Production
[edit]Animated Pictures, the studio run by ex-Disney director and Mickey Mouse co-creator Ub Iwerks, had been producing black-and-white Flip the Frog cartoons for a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since 1930 with extensive financial backing from Pat Powers, who was also formerly associated with Disney, through Powers' own company, Celebrity Productions.[1] As early as June 1934, Iwerks' studio announced plans for two new series: one a black-and-white series of cartoons featuring Willie Whopper, as an extension with their MGM deal, and the other an all-color series of ComiColor cartoons.[2]
Walt Disney had an exclusive contract with Technicolor for use of their three-strip process for his studio's short cartoons, so other studios had to opt for different color processes, which particularly used only two strips of color and resulted in more limited palettes.[3] The ComiColor cartoons were shot with the cheaper Cinecolor process, a process which used two red-orange and green-blue strips of film for color.[3] As a result of extensive financial backing from Pat Powers, the cartoons' soundtracks were recorded with Powers' Cinephone system.[2] A number of the shorts were filmed using Iwerks' early attempt at a multiplane camera, which he built himself from the remains of a Chevrolet automobile.[4] Several shorts also utilized the technique of rotoscoping, a process where animation is drawn over live-action footage. Circus performer Wellington Mack served as a live-action reference for such sequences.[5]
Staff was enlarged and Iwerks' Beverly Hills studio expanded to accommodate the increased production.[2] In the beginning, Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster, animators hired from Fleischer Studios, were appointed as the series' lead animators and directors, while Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf, two other ex-Fleischer animators, directed most entries in the Willie Whopper series.[6] Culhane and Eugster fulfilled the role for at least four credited ComiColor films. Iwerks' deal with MGM ended on the Willie cartoons in 1934, with Culhane leaving for a directorial job offer at The Van Beuren Corporation soon after. With the ComiColor cartoons as Iwerks' remaining series, Grim Natwick was subsequently credited as lead animator in two cartoons, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp and The Valiant Tailor, and he contributed to the series until he resigned from the studio later that year, taking up a job offer to animate for Walt Disney on his first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.[7]
With no distribution deals from larger studios like MGM for the ComiColor series, distribution duties of the cartoons were primarily negotiated by Pat Powers' Celebrity Productions.[8] Distribution rights for the series were sold to multiple smaller production companies based on state and location,[8][3] organizations including Allied Pictures Corporation in Los Angeles and San Francisco,[9] Gold Medal Film Company in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,[10] and Principal Film Exchange in New York City,[8] among many others.[11]
Aftermath
[edit]Pat Powers continued distributing these cartoons even after financially backing out of Iwerks' studio. In the 1940s, the ComiColor cartoons received home-movie distribution of 16 mm Cinecolor prints through Castle Films. Blackhawk Films continued releasing them for home film use in the 1970s, but this time using conventional Eastmancolor film stock.[12]
Copyrights were not renewed on all of the ComiColor cartoons, so they fell into the public domain in the United States.[citation needed] As a result, they are widely available on a variety of physical and digital media. All of the ComiColor cartoons are now available in the 2004 Region 2 ComiColor DVD set released by Mk2/Lobster in France. Many are available in Region 1, in particular on the Cartoons That Time Forgot series. Steve Stanchfield of Thunderbean plans on releasing the restored versions of the shorts across two Blu-ray sets called ComiColor Cartoons Collection V.1 & 2.[13]
Filmography
[edit]| No. | Title | Release date | Film | Original work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jack and the Beanstalk[14] | November 25, 1933 | "Jack and the Beanstalk", an English fairy tale | |
| 2 | The Little Red Hen[14] | February 17, 1934 | "The Little Red Hen", an American fable | |
| 3 | The Brave Tin Soldier[14] | April 7, 1934 | "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", by Hans Christian Andersen, 2 October 1838 | |
| 4 | Puss in Boots[14] | May 19, 1934 | "Puss in Boots", a French fairy tale | |
| 5 | The Queen of Hearts[14] | June 22, 1934 | "The Queen of Hearts", an English poem and nursery rhyme | |
| 6 | Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp[14] | August 10, 1934 | "Aladdin", a Middle-Eastern folk tale | |
| 7 | The Headless Horseman[14] | September 29, 1934 | "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving, 1820 | |
| 8 | The Valiant Tailor[14] | October 27, 1934 | "The Brave Little Tailor" by the Brothers Grimm, 1812 | |
| 9 | Don Quixote[14] | November 24, 1934 | Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, 1605–1615 | |
| 10 | Jack Frost[14] | December 22, 1934 | Jack Frost and Old Man Winter, the latter from ancient Greek mythology and Old World pagan beliefs | |
| 11 | Little Black Sambo[14] | February 2, 1935 | The Story of Little Black Sambo, a children's book by Helen Bannerman, 1899 | |
| 12 | The Bremen Town Musicians[14] | March 2, 1935 | "Town Musicians of Bremen", a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm | |
| 13 | Old Mother Hubbard[14] | March 30, 1935 | "Old Mother Hubbard", an English nursery rhyme | |
| 14 | Mary's Little Lamb[14] | April 27, 1935 | "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1830 | |
| 15 | Summertime[14] | June 15, 1935 | N/A | |
| 16 | Sinbad the Sailor[14] | July 26, 1935 | Sinbad the Sailor, Middle Eastern origin, 8th and 9th centuries A.D. | |
| 17 | The Three Bears[14] | August 30, 1935 | “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, an English fairy tale | |
| 18 | Balloon Land[14] | September 30, 1935 | N/A | |
| 19 | Simple Simon[14] | November 15, 1935 | "Simple Simon", an English-language children's song | |
| 20 | Humpty Dumpty[14] | December 27, 1935 | "Humpty Dumpty", an English nursery rhyme | |
| 21 | Ali Baba[14] | January 31, 1936 | "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", Arabic folk tale | |
| 22 | Tom Thumb[14] | March 27, 1936 | "Tom Thumb", English folklore | |
| 23 | Dick Whittington's Cat[14] | May 29, 1936 | "Dick Whittington and His Cat", English folklore | |
| 24 | Little Boy Blue[14] | July 31, 1936 | "Little Boy Blue", English nursery rhyme | |
| 25 | Happy Days[14] | September 25, 1936 | Reg'lar Fellers, a newspaper comic strip by Gene Byrnes, 1917 | |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Barrier, 1999, p. 165
- 1 2 3 "Ub Iwerks to Produce 2 New Cartoon Series". Film Daily. LXII (72): 1, 3. June 24, 1933 – via Media History Digital Library.
- 1 2 3 Barrier, 1999, p. 167
- ↑ Pat Williams and Jim Denney (2004). How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life. HCI. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-7573-0231-2.
- ↑ "Will Creates Dances for Cartoons". Film Daily. LXVI (15): 2. July 19, 1934 – via Media History Digital Library.
- ↑ Culhane, 1986, p. 80
- ↑ Barrier, 1999, p. 192
- 1 2 3 "Celebrity Closes Deals". Film Daily. LXVI (15): 2. July 19, 1934 – via Media History Digital Library.
- ↑ "New Iwerks Color Cartoon". Film Daily. LXIV (70): 2. December 23, 1933 – via Library of Congress.
- ↑ "Second ComiColor Finished". Philadelphia Exhibitor. 16 (2): 30. January 15, 1934 – via Media History Digital Library.
- ↑ "Berman Joins Standard". Motion Picture Daily. 36 (34): 2. August 10, 1934 – via Media History Digital Library.
- ↑ "Little Boy Blue: Using a Cinecolor Print for Color Reference |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
- ↑ ""Jack Frost" (1934) from the Original Camera Negs |".
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Penguin Books, 1987)
Sources
[edit]- Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516729-0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - Culhane, Shamus (1986). Talking Animals and Other People (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-78473-2.
- Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney Editions, 2001) and documentary of the same name (DVD, 1999)
- Jeff Lenburg, The Great Cartoon Directors (Da Capo Press, 1993)