New Blu-ray/DVD: Cartoon Roots (1907-1932)

[Tommy Stathes]

I'm proud to announce the availability of my new Blu-Ray/DVD combo collection: Cartoon Roots!
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Roots-Blu ... 00O5TOD0K/" target="_blank

Roots is a great introduction to the world of early animation, particularly silent cartoons, and represent many of the prominent characters, series, studios and directors of the period. Quite a few of the films are rarities and obscurities, and they're culled from my personal 16mm and 35mm archive as well as from the Library of Congress. Most of the silent cartoons feature new scores by Robert Israel and Ben Model, and have undergone extensive restoration work by Steve Stanchfield who is best known for his acclaimed Thunderbean Animation DVD and Blu-ray collections. Needless to say, it's a fantastic set with many extras (and a booklet!) and I'm really proud to have it out there and available for everyone to enjoy. I hope it's the first of many such releases...a "gateway collection."

To read more about what's included, check out my piece for the Cartoon Research blog:
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/my-cartoon-roots/" target="_blank

Happy Holidays!
TJS

[Jim Roots]

For a minute there, I thought somebody was hatin' on me...

Jim

[Daniel Eagan]

Congratulations, looks like a great collection.

One question (and I'm not trying to start anything): do you know if this will play on a Macintosh? (Because the Warner burn-on-demand DVDs won't.)

[Paul Penna]

One question (and I'm not trying to start anything): do you know if this will play on a Macintosh? (Because the Warner burn-on-demand DVDs won't.)

DVD-Rs play fine on my iMac, including those from Warner Archive, so it's not a Macintosh-wide problem, in case others are wondering about that.

[Tommy Stathes]

It should--both the Blu-ray and DVD discs are professionally replicated, so no -Rs here.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Haven't yet ordered it, but I'm really looking forward to this! I've got the Thunderbean Blu-ray releases of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS/Fleischer shorts and the fun cartoon anthology TECHNICOLOR DREAMS AND BLACK & WHITE NIGHTMARES. It's great to have such rare material made available, and especially in such nice-looking copies in high definition, not to mention the printed program notes. Truly a labor of love. Hope there will be many more Blu-ray releases to come!

[Tommy Stathes]

Thanks kindly, Christopher. Definitely looking forward to your thoughts once you do get it and watch it!

[Tommy Stathes]

Matt Hinrichs has just posted a very positive review at DVDTalk. Take a look!
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/66835/cartoon-roots/" target="_blank

[s.w.a.c.]

Will you by any chance be at Cinefest with copies of Cartoon Roots in hand, Tommy?

If so, put me down for one!

[avance]

No international shipping?

[Tommy Stathes]

No international shipping?

Whoops! Amazon newbie here and didn't realize the international option was disabled by default on my account. Fixed now, so int'l buyers should have the option to buy now. Thanks!

[avance]

No international shipping?

Whoops! Amazon newbie here and didn't realize the international option was disabled by default on my account. Fixed now, so int'l buyers should have the option to buy now. Thanks!

Thanks, but still doesn't work for me.

Amran

[Tommy Stathes]

Hmmm. I checked again just now and as per the changes I made last night, "international" appears available from within my account. Does anyone else outside the US see an international shipping option?

[Rick Lanham]

No international shipping?

Whoops! Amazon newbie here and didn't realize the international option was disabled by default on my account. Fixed now, so int'l buyers should have the option to buy now. Thanks!

Thanks, but still doesn't work for me.

Amran

Perhaps the page has not really reloaded.

1. Try refreshing the page.
2. Try clearing the browser's history, or if you don't want to do that...
3. Try another browser.

Rick

[avance]

Perhaps the page has not really reloaded.

1. Try refreshing the page.
2. Try clearing the browser's history, or if you don't want to do that...
3. Try another browser.

Rick

Thanks. Refreshed and changed browsers but still not possible to use a UK postal address.

Amran

[EddieLarkin]

Same here Tom, this still appears as Domestic only to International buyers, and does not allow one to proceed past the address page.

[Silla]

Check item again, only available from re-seller, not available directly from Amazon. Seller doesn't ship international. Check with other sellers to see if item is available. Amazon may get more in stock but right now they have none.

[Tommy Stathes]

Check item again, only available from re-seller, not available directly from Amazon. Seller doesn't ship international. Check with other sellers to see if item is available. Amazon may get more in stock but right now they have none.

Right--it's only available directly from me, Amazon is not doing fulfillment. This is strange because on the back end, I now have it set to offer international shipping. If people overseas are still having this problem today, I'll email Amazon about it.

[Tommy Stathes]

I think it's fixed now!

Thanks,
T

[EddieLarkin]

Yup, it's fixed. Thanks!

[Silla]

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/fi ... d-blu-ray/" target="_blank

More cartoons on the way!

[s.w.a.c.]

Hooray, finally The Sunshine Makers in HD! I'm sure that Steve will finally no longer have to hear people (like me) pestering him about when we'll get a better version of it.

[Tommy Stathes]

InterGlyph reviews Cartoon Roots:

http://interglyph.com/cartoon-roots-blu ... w/#more-83" target="_blank

Reviews like this, while mostly positive and great, still amuse me to an extent. The first short (1907) is really the only one I can agree is not a great print. Same with Bomb Idea, though no comment made about that one. Cartoons On Tour and Bobby Bumps Starts to School are very nice prints and not many generations away from 35mm, so the comments about those are surprising to me. Either way, try finding other prints of most of these films!

[silentfilm]

Reviews like this bring out the grammar Nazi in me, just to cite a few...

These stereotypes are a common site in early animation, and as this cartoon is over 100 years old.

Site gags abound but unfortunately this film copy is extremely grainy compared to others I have seen.

[Christopher Jacobs]

My copy arrived in Monday's mail and I watched it Monday night. CARTOON ROOTS is a delightful collection of some really obscure films showcasing different approaches to animation and often much more integration with live-action footage than I was expecting. The 15 shorts run approximately 98 minutes in total. The 1907 Vitagraph LIGHTNING SKETCHES is a live-action film of J. Stuart Blackton drawing quick pictures, which come to life with some brief animation. The 1915 Edison film CARTOONS ON TOUR is really a live-action comedy short interrupted by periodic animated cartoons whenever one of the characters reads a comic book. Others actually try incorporation of the animation with live-action scenes. Every film is interesting to see. Picture quality varies somewhat but is mostly good to extremely good from both 16mm and 35mm sources. The difference in sharpness is probably less noticeable on the DVD version (if at all), but I watched only the Blu-ray, which was basically like watching them on film except for the opening and closing video titles. Some are quite sharp, others slightly soft. A couple of the softish prints seem to jump in and out of focus at spots, possibly an artifact of the original reduction from 35mm to 16mm (so nothing could be done about it at this point). There are a few films that might be considered more curiosities than anything else but there are others that are hugely entertaining almost 80 to 100 years later. My favorite is easily the COL. HEEZA LIAR: DETECTIVE, with its clever, unexpected, and highly amusing blend of a cartoon character in a live-action world, not to mention the inventive backwards-filming used for the bizarre climax! I still need to go through the various bonus features beyond the very welcome pamphlet of program notes.

The only minor complaint is in the authoring software that does not return to the menu after a movie is done when choosing a title individually, but instead continues on to the next title in the same order as if having clicked the "play all" option (in effect treating each cartoon as a "chapter" in a longer feature instead of as an independent title). On the other hand, the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes Blu-rays do the same thing, and there are some Blu-rays from Universal and Fox/MGM-UA that don't even have a menu at all.

Overall, great work, and I look forward to many more of these anthologies of rarities on Blu-ray!

[Tommy Stathes]

So glad you've enjoyed it! Col. Heeza Liar, Detective is indeed one of the strongest films on the set with that one bit of unusual shock value for the period. Jolly Rounders is another favorite of mine for its outlandishness.

Back to the subject of quality, any of the few flaws still present in these films were from the physical prints themselves or preprint material, not a result of poor transferring by any means. I know you and many here already know this, but the last reviewer I referenced here might not understand so well.

It all depends on your physical print as a starting point, and if you're doing a true HD transfer (these are a mixture of 1080p and 2K transfers) then visible flaws are almost always present in the physical print (as opposed to shoddy transferring) or, even if that print is in mint condition, the problem(s) originate with whatever flawed material that physical print was copied from, 40 or 90 years ago. Much digital restoration was done but certain problems virtually cannot be improved upon, and sometimes money and time puts a limit on fixes as well. Needless to say, I'm very proud of how everything looks and yes, there's an occasional reminder of just how old these films are.

As for the Blu-ray build, that's a valid point. From what I'm told by my tech, it's a limitation of the available software and it sounds like some of the big studios either run into the same problems or are skimping on major interface features altogether.

[bigshot]

When Steve Stanchfield brought a check disk by to a meeting of Animation Resources and screened it for us, the audience got a huge kick out of Jolly Rounders. What a funny film!

[Thad Komorowski]

Honestly, for this kind of film, anything over 2K is overkill. Unless you want to make new 35mm prints. (And in most cases why would you want to?) I'm sorry to read about the pirating of your release, Tom. This really isn't terribly common in this niche, so I think you were very directly and insidiously targeted.

[Tommy Stathes]

Stu Shostak of Stu's Show and foremost animation historian Jerry Beck, as special guest, will discuss Cartoon Roots today.
4pm PT/ 7PM EST.

http://www.stusshow.com" target="_blank

[Tommy Stathes]

For any of you here who are interested in the Blu-ray but have not already ordered--today there is a special 15% off sale running on the Cartoons On Film Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cartoons ... 5372850548" target="_blank

If you don't have Facebook, all you need to do is enter code V9XAWHVR during checkout when purchasing on Amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Roots-Blu ... B00O5TOD0K" target="_blank

Many thanks,
TJS