Cartoons On Film Discussion Thread

[rdodolak]

Tommy José Stathes' Cartoons On Film deserves its own thread.

NOTE: All Cartoons On Film releases are pressed (BD-ROM) discs and NOT burned (BD-Rs).

Cartoons on Film FB page

Tommy José Stathes' web site

Releases:

1. Cartoon Roots - Dec 1, 2014 (Back in Print)
2. Cartoon Roots: The Bray Studios - Jul 28, 2016 (Back in Print)
3. Cartoon Roots: Halloween Haunts - Oct 19, 2017
4. Cartoon Roots: Bobby Bumps and Fido - May 25, 2019
5. Cartoon Roots: Otto Messmer's Feline Follies - Dec 23, 2020

Planned Releases:

1. Cartoon Roots: Dinky Doodle & Co. - OA Spring 2022 (Kickstarter Campaign - FUNDED)
2. Cartoon Roots: Back to the Inkwell - OA Summer 2022 (Kickstarter Stretch Goal - FUNDED)

Cartoon Roots: Dinky Doodle & Co. (Blu-ray/DVD combo) Kickstarter promo! - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVp...ature=youtu.be

[BluConniseur]

I feel a little guilty not buying any products from him because we've been mutual friends on social media since 2010. Hopefully soon, I can.

[WaverBoy]

Yes indeed, Tommy and his fabulous releases definitely deserve their own thread. Can’t wait for the next volume!

[JasonMichael]

Will the Bray Studios volume be coming back into print?

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by JasonMichael

Will the Bray Studios volume be coming back into print?

Hopefully Tommy can press another batch, as it’s an awesome set, obviously. At least the other three are still available. Get ‘em while you can, folks!

I thought I had done an Amazon review for the Bray volume but I guess I hadn’t. So, here’s my write up on the first volume of Cartoon Roots:

Fabulous set of vintage cartoon milestones in HD!
Cartoons On Film's Tommy Stathes and Thunderbean Animation's Steve Stanchfield have teamed up to bring you the first volume in an ongoing Blu-ray series of fascinating vintage cartoons that are both historically important and extremely entertaining. Some famous characters are included here such as Mutt & Jeff, Krazy Kat, and Felix The Cat, along with some not-so-famous characters such as KoKo The Clown, Dinky Doodle, and Toby The Pup, as well as the first original character to star in an ongoing series, Col. Heeza Liar. The extras on this first volume are excellent and fascinating. Every last variant and bit of documentation/info regarding the cartoons therein has been dug up by Tommy and his team and thoughtfully included for us hardcore nerds. All in all, a crackerjack collection of wonderful 'toons that is as educational as it is entertaining, mastered from the finest available film prints and digitally restored for your enhanced viewing pleasure.

[WaverBoy]

Question for Mr. Stathes: it seems the magic number is fifteen. Always fifteen cartoons on a volume of Cartoon Roots. How did you arrive at this particular number?

[dana martin]

have all that Tom has released, and waiting to see what he has in store next, these are amazing

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by dana martin

have all that Tom has released, and waiting to see what he has in store next, these are amazing

I believe a volume of Felix is next on the docket...

[solaris72]

Originally Posted by JasonMichael

Will the Bray Studios volume be coming back into print?

I messaged the Cartoons on Film facebook page about this in August and they said it'll be replicated again.

[JasonMichael]

Originally Posted by solaris72

I messaged the Cartoons on Film facebook page about this in August and they said it'll be replicated again.

Awesome, thanks!

[bigshot]

All of these sets are well worth getting. No reason to hesitate if you see them for sale somewhere.

[rdodolak]

Updated OP to mention the first two releases are currently OOP. However, these may get reprinted at a later date.

[cartoonsonfilm]

Originally Posted by WaverBoy

Yes indeed, Tommy and his fabulous releases definitely deserve their own thread. Can’t wait for the next volume!

Many thanks to the OP for starting this thread!

To answer your other question, Waver, I forget if I'd had some magical formula in mind when I first came up with the number 15. I'm a stickler for uniformity, and that's one reason why all of the subsequent volumes have contained 15 thereafter. This might prove difficult for certain highly focused collections in the future, but we'll see...

[phrankenstign]

Question for Mr. Stathes:

The UPC numbers for the releases are as follows:

6 40864 25477 7 - Cartoon Roots
6 47166 39869 7 - Cartoon Roots The Bray Studios
6 57472 84204 3 - Cartoon Roots Halloween Haunts
6 57472 84205 0 - Cartoon Roots Bobby Bumps and Fido

I've collected many different types of items over the years. Usually the first six numbers of the UPC are used for all of the products by a manufacturer. The next six usually uniquely identify each item that is sold separately by the manufacturer. Just out of curiosity, why are the first six numbers only the same on your last two releases. I would have expected the first six numbers to have been the same for all four releases. I find it puzzling since you state you are a stickler for uniformity.




btw Yes, I am a fan of your work. As you can surmise from my knowledge of the UPCs, I've collected all of your releases!

[cartoonsonfilm]

Originally Posted by phrankenstign

Question for Mr. Stathes:

The UPC numbers for the releases are as follows:

6 40864 25477 7 - Cartoon Roots
6 47166 39869 7 - Cartoon Roots The Bray Studios
6 57472 84204 3 - Cartoon Roots Halloween Haunts
6 57472 84205 0 - Cartoon Roots Bobby Bumps and Fido

I've collected many different types of items over the years. Usually the first six numbers of the UPC are used for all of the products by a manufacturer. The next six usually uniquely identify each item that is sold separately by the manufacturer. Just out of curiosity, why are the first six numbers only the same on your last two releases. I would have expected the first six numbers to have been the same for all four releases. I find it puzzling since you state you are a stickler for uniformity.




btw Yes, I am a fan of your work. As you can surmise from my knowledge of the UPCs, I've collected all of your releases!

I'm something of a stickler for uniformity when it comes to presentation of the films, but not things like UPC codes—they are an afterthought to me; something slapped on the product only because we have to do it for certain sales channels. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't bother with them at all...they are of no real consequence to the true importance or value of the product, which is the content contained therein. I only purchase them arbitrarily for the products as we go along, once in a blue moon, so there's no complete control over the numbering in that sense.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by phrankenstign

Question for Mr. Stathes:

The UPC numbers for the releases are as follows:

6 40864 25477 7 - Cartoon Roots
6 47166 39869 7 - Cartoon Roots The Bray Studios
6 57472 84204 3 - Cartoon Roots Halloween Haunts
6 57472 84205 0 - Cartoon Roots Bobby Bumps and Fido

I've collected many different types of items over the years. Usually the first six numbers of the UPC are used for all of the products by a manufacturer. The next six usually uniquely identify each item that is sold separately by the manufacturer. Just out of curiosity, why are the first six numbers only the same on your last two releases. I would have expected the first six numbers to have been the same for all four releases. I find it puzzling since you state you are a stickler for uniformity.

btw Yes, I am a fan of your work. As you can surmise from my knowledge of the UPCs, I've collected all of your releases!

For a small company such as Cartoons On Film it wouldn't make sense (cost prohibitive) for them to get their own unique company prefix from the GS1. Most likely, they're paying a small fee to have a UPC assigned to their product at time of replication by the company used for replication.

[cartoonsonfilm]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

For a small company such as Cartoons On Film it wouldn't make sense (cost prohibitive) for them to get their own unique company prefix from the GS1. Most likely, they're paying a small fee to have a UPC assigned to their product at time of replication by the company used for replication.

That's exactly how it's done—and there's simply no real need for me to put any further thought or effort into this particular detail. For one thing, I think graphic design can be effective and fun on certain cans of vegetables, but the specific numbers in the UPC codes don't affect the visual aesthetic of the labels much at all, and hopefully not the quality or enjoyment of the vegetables in any way. That may not be a foolproof comparison, but hopefully the point still makes sense.

Personally, I've been more interested in catalogue numbers of older products, and nevertheless I haven't felt a need to adopt any of those either with such a small product line. In an ideal world, I'd have three or four dozen entries in the series on the market, yet practical limitations have prevented that thus far...

[cartoonsonfilm]

I thought I would chime in again to offer a note to those who are relatively new to the Cartoons On Film label, as well as a general question for all the readers here.

COF is an extension of my long term goal to archive and reunite as much silent-era animation in one place as possible, in much more of a concerted effort than has ever been undertaken by pre-existing studios, some private collectors who've specialized in similar material in past decades, as well as passive collecting by institutional film archives. In a perfect world, I would have far more COF Blu-ray/DVD collections in the Cartoon Roots series on the market than I currently do; time and funds have simply been a great challenge all along.

That being said, my long term goal is also, ideally, to release collections that comprise a wide variety of characters, series, and studios from the entire silent era, with occasional forays into early sound era material. Four collections have been produced thus far—with an initial potpourri compilation, followed by specialty subjects focusing on Bray Studios, Bobby Bumps, and the Halloween holiday—and there will be a new surprise release sometime before the year is out, as well as a Kickstarter to help fund a separate new release as well.

Aside from what we've worked on so far, what are some additional silent era characters/series/studios...or specialty sets including some sound era material...that you'd like to see as part of the Cartoon Roots collections?

[Magic Dishwasher]

Is there a way to order the Bobby Bumps and Halloween Haunts sets with combined shipping? Doesn't seem like an option on Amazon.

[solaris72]

Originally Posted by cartoonsonfilm

Aside from what we've worked on so far, what are some additional silent era characters/series/studios...or specialty sets including some sound era material...that you'd like to see as part of the Cartoon Roots collections?

One niche I especially enjoy in vintage animation is the rare forays into scifi. It would be neat to have a set focusing on this. It could include the six "Technical Romances" from Bray, some Out of the Inkwell shorts like "Perpetual Motion", "The Mechanical Doll"/"The Dresden Doll", "A Trip to Mars", "Koko in 1999", Felix in "Astronomeous", Oswald in "Mars", "The Mechanical Man", "The Mechanical Cow", "The Mechanical Handy Man" and "Sky Larks", Flip the Frog in "Techno-Cracked", Scrappy in "Technoracket" and "Man of Tin", Bosko in "Ups ‘n Downs" and "Bosko’s Mechanical Man", Van Beuren "The Iron Man", "The Fable of the Mechanical Horse" (1922) from Terrytoons, Krazy Kat "The Peace Conference", and some Fleischer material like "Come Take a Trip In My Airship" (1930), Bimbo in "Up to Mars" and "The Robot", perhaps some World's Fair commissioned (or themed) shorts like "Rhapsody in Steel", "All's Fair at the Fair" or Betty Boop "Keep in Style". Perhaps Clampett's John Carter test animation also. This is way more than 15 shorts but I know some of this may be unavailable either in materials (some might be lost completely of course) or in licensing, and some of it may overlap with other releases.