Thunderbean Classic Animation Blu-rays

[Steve Stanchfield]

From reel 4 of this print.

[Harpo Marxist]

Very interesting what you were saying about the Alice material Steve (it's the TB project I'm most looking forward to). And great to see the recent images.
Does the Thunderbean restoration have - or will have - access to use the best quality MOMA elements that you mention?

[Steve Stanchfield]

The long and the short is yes, and if it was a relationship I'd say the status was 'complicated'.... !!

Just had a lovely chat with Amy, Lou's daughter about the next things happening. Had a chat with other folks today too related to the materials in the set. It's starting to be top of mind along with one other project here as Rainbow land gets wrapped entirely. Really love how good that set is looking...

[Harpo Marxist]

Thanks Steve for your reply - it is much appreciated.
That's marvellous news about the MOMA elements! And that means the finished restoration by yourself and your excellent team will be pretty much as good as it possibly can be - what a treat this will be for all us lovers of vintage animation. It'll be so nice to see this stop-motion classic in decent condition.
Thanks a million for all your efforts and fantastic results (I have most of your dvd/blu ray official releases and about 20 or more of the special sets).

[Steve Stanchfield]

It's been an interesting day here with lots of phone calls and coordination- and at some point I have to stop doing these crazy long days, but I've really been trying to compress time, get Rainbow out the door and get these other projects either done or lots closer as the time off from the school winds down. Did some color correction stuff and lots of emails, but the best thing of all was getting the stack of SSD drives organized and actually making sense. This part is making me really happy since things had gotten to the point on the SSD that it was hard to find space to do each film (the restoration takes up terabytes as you go). In addition it was slowing down all kinds of things as I went to look for this or that. Now things are together for the most part, and I love being able to find things! Some days here have been just digital restoration, other days are like this one.

Back to the pixel tonight, working on a Black and White Van Beuren from a 35mm nitrate print. Looks great and is one of my favorites.

So, even though this just looks like a mess of drives and a messy area underneath my monitor, it's a huge improvement and making me pretty happy. I'm starting to see the light of day with Rainbows taking a nice stride into being finished.

[Paul Penna]

I see that US “Alice” print misspells actress Joyce Grenfell as “Gronfell.”

[Steve Stanchfield]

That's something I didn't notice!

Now that I'm really concentrating on the Alice project I'm making good headway on it-- and just not happy with what I've scanned so far and what has been available. When you work on stuff like this you really want there to be a great improvement, and I'm feeling pretty good about it since we'll have the complete range of material that exists from the US/English release.

I'm through three of the four reels of this 1951 print of Alice. Another print is on its way here. More and more material. Having a wide range of material to pull from is nice- and I'm looking forward to seeing the other materials I haven't seen yet.

There are only two reels of original camera material in the archive, and because of some deterioration, that material wasn't used when a new print of the film was made in 1992. There is a complete US/ English nitrate print at MoMA that was used as the main material for the 1992 negative. My guess is that Bunin used that particular material to make his prints from thereafter since that seems to be the only complete first generation print (there could have been more at some point that deteriorated).

Ansco is a reversal stock, so each print is a reversal off of a positive, as Kodachrome is. The Ansco process seems to have a different composition in terms of layer order over the years, and chemically some of it has mottled, faded or otherwise degraded. So far, across the board, this particular print looks best in terms of even color. We'll know more once we've scanned this and the other new material and can compare.

Oddly enough, this project, with its challenges, is easier than most others!. Cleanup on what we've done has been light comparitively, but when you have color mottling it really throws a wrench in the works. I really thought we were set with what we were having scanned-- and had it looked great throughout I would have been happy to finish from that material. Having to scan more does present new challenges, but we're ready for them and will continue to work on getting the best version together.

[Steve Stanchfield]

One of those days where there just wasn't a break-- one thing to the next, with no time to get some of the stuff I wanted to. But from about 8 on I've been able to work on the Rainbow Parade timeline. I've been trying to hit the goal of having this timeline all done this week, and I think I'll make it after a snag that I thought might require a lot of rework, but fortunately the piece was fine after troubleshooting and figuring it out. Color tweaks looking great and things are balancing out beautifully.

[Steve Stanchfield]

Version 1 exporting on Rainbow Parades, Volume 2. Running this by the brain trust this week and starting the building of the blu-ray this weekend. It's close now- really just waiting for lots of opinions and authoring.

[Cartoon Junkie]

I'm watching Mid-Century Vol 3. What a great selection

Can somebody tell me what year 'The Santa Visit' was made ?

I hate to mention it but the booklet with the set contains quite a few errors/typos. Any way that this could get fixed before an eventual re-issue ?

[Steve Stanchfield]

The later copies have a booklet revision, and when we send the revision discs we'll send the newer booklet to everyone. Photoshop has this issue with not showing all text sometimes, even if the file seemed fine. They had trouble printing from our PDF, and the PSD wasn't correct in the first batch. Sorry about that all.

Finishing the menus for the Rainbow 2 set- started a little while back (these are work in progress, not finished) matching the look of the first set-- debating what characters to have in each.

[AndresTootill]

For the first menu, please replace Van Winkle with Molly, since most of the cartoons featured there are from Molly. The second menu should remain unchanged, as it already includes both Felix cartoons as well as Bold King Cole. For the final menu, you should add the Trolley instead of the dog. If you want to keep it unchanged that’s fine, there are just my opinions.

[Steve Stanchfield]

Thanks Andres! Those were really good suggestions, and good food for thought on the organization of the menus. I've thought about all the films on each menu, and shifted things a little. Here's the current versions:

[Strumm]

The lineup per page is absolutely improved. I would also add a duck from ITS A GREEK LIFE to the last page. I would consider to do ink and color on the pieces to make them stand out more, and perhaps change the Art Deco like BG to something closer to the title piece. While it matches the first volume, it doesn’t sit right with what the cartoons are to me

[Steve Stanchfield]

Will debate on a duck in the menu. Ducks are generally good .

Today was the last day of freedom before classes- or rather it must have been yesterday. Ended up at the school late tonight to check to see the order of the classrooms-- and there was a ton to clean there! No real complaints though since ultimately if people don't clean things up it's my responsibility there. Sigh.

So, as summer away from classes ends and as summer sort of with classes continues, I'm still working to get these three titles done first, along with prepping all sorts of other things. A new business deal means we can move faster through a lot of things soon.

I've heard the Toby the Pup Blu-ray by another producer is no longer available now. It's been some years since it was first released now. I really like the Toby cartoons, and they've been high on my holy grail list to find, with some luck over these years as you folks know.

The Rainbow Parades 2 set is the first Thundebean release to be cleaned up entirely in 4k (from the true 4k scan files). The Flip set had material scanned in 2 and 4k for the most part, with a majority scanned in 4k. The final was reduced to UHD and the final color correction done at that size. I took a few minutes in the auditorium to look at the 4k file while I was over at the school. The set really sparkles. I have my head around all the bonus materials that I have already, and had a majority already prepped. There's some more things that some other folks have said they'll send my way-- and I hope it's soon. My thought it to put together the working set over this week and get it out to the brain trust and some other people to take a look at before replication. The Halloween set will likely be following close behind, followed by Bunin's Alice and Cartoons for Victory. Alice and Victory both are waiting for things I consider key to their completion.

Quick status update on the official sets that are closest to completion. I'm working on two other projects as well, and those are coming along very well, with one near completion.The crew will be increasingly concentrating on getting these projects done:

Rainbow Parades, Volume 2- nearing completion
Lou Bunin’s Magic Puppet animation, featuring ‘Alice in Wonderland’
-feature still in cleanup and waiting for one other key thing
A Spooky Cartoony Halloween! - has all films and cleanup continues. Hoping we can replicate this month if able.
Cultoons- about half of this big set is cleaned up. Love this project!
Harman/Ising set- most of the things we have already are cleaned up- more on their way as soon as other projects are done
Cartoons for Victory- All but seven films are cleaned up now. Waiting on five key films to be scanned from two different places.
1929- Rounding corners with a majority scanned now, with some clean up.
Ub Iwerks’ Comi-Color V1
 – Official Set- many films scanned and cleaned up, not quite to the halfway point.

[Steve Stanchfield]

Working on authoring on this disc now that I'm a little less exhausted from the week; there's only so many hours, and I'm trying hard to use them all wisely.

As the corner turns on the authoring of this first of three nearly-done projects, something I've had in a works for a bit is starting to be top-of-mind. More on that later today or tomorrow...

[Steve Stanchfield]

The T-shirts are in printing- and will be sent this month. Rainbow Parades is getting closer and closer. So cool to be wrapping it finally. So that's all good news.

Good news, part 2: Now, we can finally announce:

The Toby the Club fan club members only package!



Includes:

*Official Membership card with your name on it
*Official Toby the Pup Button, proclaiming your membership!
*Special fanclub-only Toby the Pup poster and postcard
*SNEAK preview disc (blu-ray) with the so-far completed Toby the Pup cartoons for the upcoming Blu-ray collection
*Official 8x10” facsimile form from the US trademark office (with redacted filer) rejecting the claim for exclusive use of Toby for Home Video
.. and more!

You will also receive a copy of the finished Toby the Pup Blu-ray, once completed!

The fan club package is available for a limited time only, and limited to 130 copies. It’s $22.95, plus $4 postage and handling (postage is more for out of country) and will be sent this month (September 2025)

Available at the Thunderbean Shop.

[Strumm]

Steve I am laughing and coughing as I check this out. So glad to be apart of the fan club! Easiest the release I've hoped for the most and so glad that its closer!

[Leviathan]

I'm confused.

Is this an actual preorder for a disc, or is this snark pointed in someone's direction?

[Thad Komorowski]

Toby done right! I can’t wait! Sorry that the “lead” on one of the films from a while back turned out to be a dead end, Steve, but I’m pretty sure it was someone from the “special” crowd posing. May there be no more stolen drives and fake diseases plaguing Toby either.