ClassicFlix

[Stefan Andersson]

Laurel & Hardy features 1931-40 restored from ClassicFlix:
https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2025/0 ... g-and-more

[captveg]

First of the L&H releases announced - Laurel and Hardy: The Restored Features, Vol. 1 - for 12/9/25. It includes Pardon Us and Pack Up Your Troubles.

https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2025/0 ... s-december

[hearthesilence]

Laurel & Hardy features 1931-40 restored from ClassicFlix:
https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2025/0 ... g-and-more

Totally missed this. Welcome news given how bad the current Blu-rays look with the grain completely wiped away in a waxy finish. (The UCLA restorations reportedly do not look that way, so it was clearly something applied by the licensor.)

[AfterTheRain]

The recent ClassicFlix newsletter confirmed a Famous Studios Collection release from Cartoon Logic next year, with Sheep Shape (1946) confirmed as one of the titles.

After looking at the brief clip of the restoration of the cartoon, my reaction was the same as Wolfie: it's eye-popping and leagues better than the numerous, cruddy PD prints circulating right now. I'm eagerly awaiting more details on what will be included in the set.

[Finch]

direct preorder link

Synopsis

In cooperation with Paramount Pictures Archives, and newly restored from 4K scans of original studio materials, Cartoon Logic is proud to present the Famous Studios Champion Collection—a selection of the very best and most requested cartoons from the animation house’s neglected creators.

When Paramount Pictures reorganized its animated shorts operation as Famous Studios, so began a search for a new identity. Throughout the 1940s, the Famous talent began experimenting with new series’ and concepts aimed at varied audiences and created an array of beloved characters and hilarity still fondly remembered to this day.

Defined by funny animals waging war, fantasies coming to life, snappy music, and gorgeous candy-like Technicolor®, the Famous Studios Champion Collection features 18 cartoons in all including: comics’ leading lady Little Lulu in two of her finest and funniest cartoons; the complete misadventures of 1940s screwball archetypes Blackie Sheep and Wolfie; and the earliest appearances of Famous superstars Little Audrey, Baby Huey, Herman the Mouse and Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Included are:
No Mutton Fer Nuttin’ (1943)
The Henpecked Rooster (1944)
Suddenly It’s Spring! (1944)
A Lamb in a Jam (1945)
The Friendly Ghost (1945)
Bargain Counter Attack (1946)
Sheep Shape (1946)
Sudden Fried Chicken (1946)
Much Ado About Mutton (1947)
A Bout with a Trout (1947)
There’s Good Boos To-Night (1948)
Butterscotch And Soda (1948)
Readin’, ‘Ritin’, And Rhythmetic (1948)
Hep Cat Symphony (1949)
A Haunting We Will Go (1949)
Campus Capers (1949)
Our Funny Finny Friends (1949)
Quack-a Doodle-Doo (1950)

BONUS FEATURES:
Optional audio commentary by Famous Studios experts Jerry Beck, Will Friedwald, Bob Jaques, Mike Kazaleh, Thad Komorowski and Rob Waldman
Two “Mostly Lost” Cinecolor Noveltoons: Snuffy Smith in Spree for All (1946, black-and-white) and Buzzy the Crow in Cat O’ Nine Ails (1948, picture only as audio is non-extant)
Production artwork galleries

[Finch]

Classic Flix's cartoon sublabel has a Fleischer Classic Cartoons collection up for May 26:

Beautifully restored in 4K, largely from original studio negatives, come 20 cartoons from legendary animation pioneer Max Fleischer in Fleischer Cartoons – Greatest Hits, Volume 1.

For over two decades, Fleischer Studios was unsurpassed in the realm of ingenious animated entertainment. Now, Volume 1 presents many of the studio’s best and funniest cartoons with a depth and clarity likely not seen since their original theatrical releases, and showcases their entire ensemble: Koko the Clown™, Bimbo™, Popeye the Sailor Man™, Superman™, and, of course, Miss Betty Boop™.

Relive the Fleischers’ art and inventions like never before, from the silent era, to the dawn of sound, to their glorious Technicolor spectacles in this carefully curated collection. Each silent short also has musical accompaniment composed and performed by Ben Model, Kevin MacLeod and Joel Pierson.

Surrealism is always on tap with Fleischer, but this is not a dream–these classics are yours to watch forever!

INCLUDES:
Barnacle Bill (1930)
Betty Boop and Grampy (1935)
Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions (1933)
Betty in Blunderland (1934)
Cartoon Factory (1924)
Christmas Comes But Once a Year (1936)
Dinah (1933)
Dizzy Dishes (1930)
The Fortune Teller (1923)
Hot Dog (1930)
Ko-Ko at the Circus (1926)
Ko-Ko’s Earth Control (1928)
Ko-Ko’s Haunted House (1928)
A Language All My Own (1935)
The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
Mysterious Mose (1930)
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves (1937)
Small Fry (1939)
Somewhere In Dreamland (1936)
Swing You Sinners! (1930)

[swo17]

Is this the first appearance of Swing You Sinners on disc?

[Red Screamer]

Wow, bring it on. The Fleischers are my cartoon auteurs of choice, so the “Volume 1” in the title is tantalizing. They will at least have to get to Bimbo’s Initiation and Snow-White!

[andyli]

A very promising selection! Some of these titles were screened last year at Ritrovato, among others like Bimbo's Initiation and Snow-White. I hope it's successful enough to warrant a Volume 2.

[therewillbeblus]

Swing You Sinners! is an all-time favorite, and after sampling Barnacle Bill, this is a thrilling announcement if the rest of the shorts are like this - absolutely surreal and built with a stream-of-consciousness that defies a consistent internal logic. I loved it

[bad future]

As far as I can remember I've also only seen Swing You Sinners plus one other, but that one (Somewhere In Dreamland) was quietly jaw-dropping I thought, visually "ahead of its time" for a medium that ended up coalescing around different aesthetics, so it just feels today suggestive of a future that never really came. Very excited for this release, and the possibility of future volumes!

[knives]

Swing You Sinners! is an all-time favorite, and after sampling Barnacle Bill, this is a thrilling announcement if the rest of the shorts are like this - absolutely surreal and built with a stream-of-consciousness that defies a consistent internal logic. I loved it

They all have some of those qualities though it depends a lot on who the animation director. Swing is done by Seamus Culhane for instance who was the most experimental and mature director at Fleischer.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Swing You Sinners! is an all-time favorite, and after sampling Barnacle Bill, this is a thrilling announcement if the rest of the shorts are like this - absolutely surreal and built with a stream-of-consciousness that defies a consistent internal logic. I loved it

I just saw Koko’s Earth Control and it’s a delightfully anarchic film built with a ton of surreal imagery that feels radically experimental in its attempts to convey the film’s literally apocalyptic scale while also being consistently funny throughout. Really recommend that one of you haven’t already seen it!

[senseabove]

It's now up for pre-order on the ClassicFlix site (and I instantly did so).

[bad future]

Thanks for the heads up; I've ordered as well.

[domino harvey]

My write up from the 30s list

Swing You Sinners! (Dave Fleischer 1930)
Betty Boop’s pal Bimbo tries to steal a chicken and the entire world (and underworld) contorts itself to serve as punishment in this fascinating animated short. I am drawn to these kind of movies in which injustice is punished by non-corporeal entities who manipulate all known natural laws to enact vengeance (the Girl in a Swing, Triangle), and the pleasure beyond the aesthetics of the fun and fluid animation is in the disproportionate response of the dead and undead to a relatively common and here unsuccessful “sin.” And it makes sense: If we remove judgment from a trusted entity and put it in the hands of the world, why do we assume the world would be just or fair?

Are the other titles more like this one or more of the free associative Bimbo’s Initiation variety?

[TechnicolorAcid]

My write up from the 30s list

Swing You Sinners! (Dave Fleischer 1930)
Betty Boop’s pal Bimbo tries to steal a chicken and the entire world (and underworld) contorts itself to serve as punishment in this fascinating animated short. I am drawn to these kind of movies in which injustice is punished by non-corporeal entities who manipulate all known natural laws to enact vengeance (the Girl in a Swing, Triangle), and the pleasure beyond the aesthetics of the fun and fluid animation is in the disproportionate response of the dead and undead to a relatively common and here unsuccessful “sin.” And it makes sense: If we remove judgment from a trusted entity and put it in the hands of the world, why do we assume the world would be just or fair?

Are the other titles more like this one or more of the free associative Bimbo’s Initiation variety?

Again I’ll recommend Koko’s Earth Control which I actually liked slightly more than Swing You Sinners! and is similarly very imaginative (at points verging on experimental in its form)

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Are the other titles more like this one or more of the free associative Bimbo’s Initiation variety?

So much of the Fleischer films of the 30s can be described as free associative where inanimate objects come to life and a song is essentially the narrative thrust to give us gags and visual delights. UCLA has a beautiful restoration of Hold It (1938) on YouTube that's the perfect example of this. A sob story of cats being kicked out of their homes turns into a musical that then becomes cats tormenting a non-threatening dog for no reason other than the joy of it and culminates in some of the greatest single stills in a Hollywood cartoons of the studio era.

[knives]

My write up from the 30s list

Swing You Sinners! (Dave Fleischer 1930)
Betty Boop’s pal Bimbo tries to steal a chicken and the entire world (and underworld) contorts itself to serve as punishment in this fascinating animated short. I am drawn to these kind of movies in which injustice is punished by non-corporeal entities who manipulate all known natural laws to enact vengeance (the Girl in a Swing, Triangle), and the pleasure beyond the aesthetics of the fun and fluid animation is in the disproportionate response of the dead and undead to a relatively common and here unsuccessful “sin.” And it makes sense: If we remove judgment from a trusted entity and put it in the hands of the world, why do we assume the world would be just or fair?

Are the other titles more like this one or more of the free associative Bimbo’s Initiation variety?

There’s some even less free associative. In fact the two you mention are probably further along the line and stuff like Minnie the Moocher are more typical.

[therewillbeblus]

The set is up on OrbitDVD now as well

[Finch]

For some reason, it wouldn't save the second line of the address on the ClassicFlix site so I ordered through Orbit at the slightly higher price.

[therewillbeblus]

It's cheaper on Orbit if you pair it for free shipping

[Finch]

There were no other titles I wanted to pair it with that I hadn't already pre-ordered unfortunately.

[domino harvey]

ClassicFlix will be raising the MSRP of “top tier titles” like Our Town and Meet John Doe from 29.99 to 34.99. Most are currently on sale from them for very little with the old price still reflected

[hearthesilence]

I didn't realize the owner was active on hometheaterforum, but he posts regularly there about their releases, FWIW.