Cartoon Classics

I found a video in a charity shop yesterday, one of those wonderful late-eighties "find four random old cartoons, stick them on a tape, put it in a cheap cardboard cover, sell it to kids" collections. I don't imagine this one went down all that well with whoever bought it in the first place, and I'm quite pleased I bought this before some well-meaning person bought it for a small child who would doubtless be a bit perplexed by some of the contents.

It starts with "The Little Dutch Mill", a Max Fleischer Color Classic, which is nice enough and quite watchable, although as usual for the Color Classics, very bland compared to what the Fleischers could do when they weren't being forced to copy whatever Disney were doing that year. But after that we have "Hollywood Steps Out", a cartoon which I'm sure was very popular in the cinemas in 1941, but since it consists of nothing but cartoon depictions of notable American movie and radio stars of the day, it's pretty much incomprehensible in 2008 to all but the most dedicated film buffs. And that's followed by "Jungle Jitters". How any children's video company, even a cheap and uncaring one, could think that "Jungle Jitters" is a good thing to put on a cartoon collection is beyond me - again, I expect it went down well in 1938, but seventy years later the portrayal of jungle natives in it isn't really the kind of thing Warner Bros Cartoons like to acknowledge that they once made. The collection finishes with "It's A Greek Life", which isn't outdated or offensive, but, like a lot of what the Van Beuren studios churned out in the thirties, just isn't much good.

So, all in all, this video is an interesting snapshot of cartoon history, as well as a fascinating relic of the days when videos were new and cool and people could sell any old rubbish to young folk starved of good, official cartoon releases. It's always fun to find one!