vintage-related stories
Posted Feb 10th 2009 7:11PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free
CBS is connected to the pulse of America, people. They're at the top of the ratings race,
The Mentalist is the hot new procedural this season and life is looking good for TPTB over at CBS.
I'm also wondering if CBS realizes how sick and tired most viewers are getting of the same old types of shows. With the lack of originality in new programming, I know I'm not the only one turning to my old favorites on DVD. I love reliving
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I'm now discovering
Supernatural for the first time.
I swear I didn't tell CBS about my longing for all things retro, but they have bugged my house or tapped into my TV set or something, because their latest venture is
streaming vintage TV shows on their site -- CBS's "TV Classics" player.
Continue reading CBS streams vintage shows online
Posted Jul 21st 2007 9:02AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Video, Animation, Commercials, Web
I was sitting around thinking, because I really had nothing better to do, and I wondered why you don't see cartoon characters acting as pitchmen for different products much anymore. If you're nostalgic for the days when 'toons weren't afraid to put their names behind different products, you might enjoy the following videos.
Continue reading Toons pushin' products - VIDEO
Posted Nov 22nd 2006 8:04AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Animation, Web, Children
Oldies 1510 WRNJ in Hackettstown, New Jersey broadcasts a show called "Time Travel," hosted by Dan Hollis and Jeff O'Boyle. The program focuses on pop culture of the past, television included. If you're like me and don't live in "Joyzee" you can now download and listen to some of the interviews from the show's archives through a new Web site that could really use a redesign.
The archives include interviews with a bunch of folks associated with the golden age of animation, not to mention other great TV from the past, including voice actress June Foray, Noel Blanc (son of Mel), Joan Benny (daughter of Jack), Lee Mendelson and Marty Krofft. If you dig all that old timey stuff, this is definitely worth checking out. As you can see from the archives, many of the greats from the past have long since gone on to that great TV in the sky, but hearing their own children talk about them is the next best thing.
[via Cartoon Brew]
Posted Oct 19th 2006 2:03PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Cable, Industry
Turner Classic Movies recently purchased the copyrights of six films made by the legendary RKO Pictures studio and featuring such legendary actors as Ginger Rogers and Lionel Barrymore. Some of these films haven't been seen since their original theatrical release, and all of them have been kept in different film archives, largely unpreserved. Two of the films,
Rafter Romance and
Stingaree, were properly preserved. The rest, which include
Double Harness,
One Man's Journey,
Living on Love and
A Man to Remember are being re-mastered by Turner Classic Movies along with the Library of Congress and the BYU film archive. They will air on the channel sometime in 2007. The only copy of
A Man to Remember is an English-language print with Dutch subtitles. None of the original negatives of these movies have been found.
Posted Jul 8th 2006 8:05AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Web
I alluded to the fact that YouTube was throwing the baby out with the bathwater in
this recent post, but the information I had was coming from unknown commenters on
John K's blog, so I decided to do the unthinkable and not take their word as gospel. However, a lot of people who actually work in the industry, such as
Amid Amidi, have also echoed those same sentiments, and it seems that, yes, YouTube, in its quest to protect copyright holders, has also been deleting cartoons that entered the public domain many years ago and should be freely distributed to the masses by any means people see fit. I first began to suspect many of those old Warner Bros. shorts were public domain when someone mentioned "Yankee Doodle Daffy" had been taken off the site, a cartoon I bought as a "public domain" video almost a decade ago. Amid has a great post about this over on
Cartoon Brew, with links to other great articles on the subject. I think whether or not YouTube should be showing copyrighted material is up for debate, but to also deny fans access to perfectly legitimate classic cartoons is not going to bode well for the site. People are angry, and rightfully so.
Posted Apr 24th 2006 6:01PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Animation, Podcasting
I've mentioned Frederator's very awesome animation podcast a
couple of times, but hold onto your socks, animation lovers, because the company recently launched another animation
podcast, this one dedicated entirely to "old timey" cartoons. This week the podcast will focus on cartoons
based on comic strips, kicking off with Ub Iwerks interpretation of "Reg'lar Fellas," a comic strip from the
twenties and thirties. Later this week you'll also be able to catch animated shorts with Popeye and Little Lulu.
Check the archives for some great Warner Bros. shorts, as well as an old Mighty Mouse cartoon. I've already got this
podcast queued up in iTunes, so I'm guaranteed never to get any actual work done.
Another great podcast for old cartoons is Vintage
Tooncast, which shows many cartoons from the same era, including a lot of the "Superman" shorts from
Fleischer Studios, which, by the way, are also coming out on
DVD.
The Prisoner -- An early look
Sesame Street's 40th: Five funniest characters
Sesame Street's 40th: Five biggest controversies
