The Little Theater Screen

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OK, this is for Saturday morning. But pipe down when you watch it---Dad's still sleeping!



I think this is one of Fleischer Studios' best and most diabolical cartoons ever. I can't think of another with so much nonstop visual invention. The only breaks in the action are there to inject suspense or move the anti-plot in a new direction. And the surreal thread that these scenes are strung upon writhes like something that the coroner might have tweezed out of Edgar Allen Poe's brain through a nostril. Except for the appearance of our special canine guest star and the awesome, fetishistic Radio City Music Hall finale.

Yes, they really did show these cartoons on TV in the 1950s, when there was a scarcity of made-for-TV animation. As I've mentioned before, though, Fleischer cartoons were not produced for Depression-era tots... at least not until Hollywood set up the Hayes censorship office and they put a dumpy housefrock on Betty Boop.

As a point of semi-interest, this short was released to theaters 80 years ago last Sunday (24 July).

Bimbo's Initiation, Dave Fleischer, Director (1931, A Fleischer Studios Talkartoon; Grim Natwick, Animator), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

"The Little Theater Screen" was invented by Frazier Thomas.