Two weeks ago I did a plug for Arnold Leibovit’s latest restoration of his classic compilation – The Puppetoon Movie. I had an open spot on the blog today and coincidentally Arnie emailed me a bunch of comparison frame grabs (below) and in the physical mail I actually received the actual blu ray of the new restoration and collection.

I haven’t had time to watch and rewatch the whole thing – give yourself at least three or four hours to do that… as this baby is loaded. I did as much skimming I could in an hour, so this isn’t a formal review. But I can tell you one thing: This is a MUST-HAVE.

This is the ultimate version of Arnie’s one-man effort to restore and revive Pal’s Puppetoon series – and that’s a cause I can get behind. If it wasn’t clear from my last plug, this is much much more than the feature “spruced up” – its a “director’s cut” slightly with a revised order, with an additional Puppetoon (“Wilbur The Lion”), and fully restored Paramount opening and closing’s. And they look fantastic.

Not only that – the bonus materials, the extras, are incredible. The centerpiece is The Puppetoon Movie: A Legacy Revisited – a brand new 50 minute tribute to pal and the Puppetoons with Joe Dante, Floyd Norman, Phil Tippett, Bob Kurtz, Dennis Murren – a dozen other – and somehow he included me!

After that there is an extra special ten minutes with Aardman’a Peter Lord as a stand-alone tribute to Pal stop-mo greatness. After that – almost a dozen Pal Puppertoon odds and ends, including a second Mounds candy commercial, I hadn’t seen before; the best version of the Tashlin/Sutherland “Daffy Ditty” – The Lady Says No; cel animation from the 1930s; Industrial films for Shell, Phillips, and other clients – amazing rareties.

And if that weren’t enough, a full color 28-page booklet that is the Puppetoon story, all in Arnie’s words (and rare color photos), literally everything you need to know. A masterclass in Pal puppetry on film.

This disc set is available NOW – Arnie is selling it now on his own site. It’s now available on Puppetoon.net. My advice, get it now while you are able.

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One more plug for the first of series of in-person screenings Arnie is planning. Puppetoons and Sci-Fi classics on the big screen – as they were meant to be seen. With Arnie and special guests in person.

Here is info on his very next screening in Southern California :

Saturday, April 18, 2026
The Frida Cinema – Santa Ana
305 E 4th Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701
https://thefridacinema.org/movies/the-day-the-earth-stood-still/
We’re celebrating the 75th Anniversary of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL with the following unique presentation:

• A theatrical screening of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
• 8-Foot-Tall Gort Robot — Live-on-Stage
• Two restored George Pal Puppetoons
• Plus a Bonus Pre-Screening Premiere of The Puppetoon Movie – A Legacy Revisited

Arnie will be hosting as he was a friend of director Robert Wise and George Pal.

Tickets $20 – Get Tickets Soon As We Expect A Sell Out
: https://thefridacinema.org/purchase/1377240/
Schedule:
4:00 PM – Doors Open
5:00 PM – The Puppetoon Movie – A Legacy Revisited
7:00 PM – Two George Pal Puppetoons + The Day the Earth Stood Still

This event is being presented only once, and seating is limited.

Have you ever wondered about how Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was brought to Germany?

After all, the film is based on a German fairy tale, and it was released on the cusp of World War II. Surely, there would have been a German version. Well, it turns out there was a German dub that was intended to release in Germany in 1939. Unbeknownst to many, including the good folks at Disney, the cast they hired for the German dub had consisted entirely of Jewish exiles living in Amsterdam. Not only that, but these actors had been some of the biggest names in the German film industry before the rise of the Nazis.

After Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered in the United States in 1937, Disney quickly moved to create 12 international versions of the film. It wasn’t difficult to secure distribution deals in most countries, but Germany proved to be a tough nut to crack. By 1938, all of the American owned studios had pulled up stakes and left the country due to rising political tensions. American movies could still be released in Germany, but they had to go through UFA, which was the German state-owned film distributor.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who directly controlled the movie industry in Germany, worked with Disney through UFA to try and secure a deal for Snow White. Hitler was a big fan of Disney, and Snow White was based on a German fairy tale, so he knew they had to show the movie in Germany. To Hitler, having the great Walt Disney adapt a German fairy tale as a feature length animated film was a great national honor. For Disney, going through the government of Germany took a lot more time than negotiating a deal with a traditional, privately owned studio. While they worked out a deal, Roy Disney flew to Amsterdam to oversee the production of the Dutch version of Snow White.

In Amsterdam, Roy Disney worked with local Dutch producer Max Tak, who hired director, actor, and comedian Kurt Gerron to direct the Dutch dub of Snow White. Since Gerron was fluent in German, he was asked if he could also direct a German dub of the film. Gerron was more than happy to take the job offer, as he was part of a community of German speaking actors who had recently moved to Amsterdam. There was one little detail that likely went unnoticed, however. Gerron and his community of actors were Jews from Germany who had fled to Amsterdam after Jews were banned from working in the German film industry.

From May 1938 to July 1938, Gerron directed both the Dutch and German dubs of the film. Featured in the cast for the German version were Dora Gerson as the Queen, Otto Wallburg as Doc, Kurt Lillien as Grumpy and Sneezy, Siegfried Arno as Happy, and Gerron himself played the Magic Mirror and Bashful. Each of these actors had been prominent in both film and live performances.

Dora Gerson was a German-Jewish actress who appeared in films alongside Bela Lugosi during the silent era. She had been married to film director Veit Harlan briefly in the 1920s, he would later go on to direct the antisemitic propaganda film Jud Süss in 1940. Gerson fled Germany for the Netherlands in 1936, and would eventually be caught and sent to Auschwitz with her husband and two children. The family was murdered at Auschwitz on February 14th, 1943.

Otto Wallburg was a prominent comedian and actor who performed in dozens of movies in the 1920s and 1930s. He appeared alongside Kurt Gerron in the 1931 comedy Bombs on Monte Carlo, also in 1931 he appeared in The Congress Dances, which was an international sensation. He escaped Germany for Austria in 1933, where he continued working in film until fleeing to France, and then finally the Netherlands. After the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, Wallburg was arrested and sent to the Westerbork transit camp, before he was killed at Auschwitz on October 29th, 1944.

Kurt Lilien was an actor who was most active between 1927 and 1933. During this time he appeared in a number of films, including Two Hearts Beat as One starring Lilian Harvey. Lilien also performed in the 1927 silent film The Most Beautiful Legs of Berlin alongside Kurt Gerron. He was killed at the Sobibor Concentration Camp in Poland on May 28th, 1943.

Of those who performed in Snow White, there is no one more historically significant than Kurt Gerron, himself. Unbeknownst to Disney at the time, Gerron had a reputation with the regime. To international audiences, Gerron was Marlene Dietrich’s manager in The Blue Angel, an UFA produced film about a professor who falls in love with a burlesque dancer. To the Nazis, Gerron represented the personification of Jewish excess. In his films, Gerron commonly played the part of the Jewish banker, lawyer, or any sort of greedy businessman. His appearance inspired many of the anti-semitic cartoons published in right-wing newspapers of the 1930s, and in 1940 his image would be used disparagingly in the propaganda film The Eternal Jew. Gerron was the image most German people had in their heads of what a Jew looked like.

The final film directed by Kurt Gerron, long after his work on Snow White was behind him, was a propaganda film “praising” the conditions of the concentration camps. The film was called Thereseinstadt, and it was finished but never released. The Reich had intended to use his international fame to show the world that Jews weren’t being mistreated in concentration camps. Gerron believed producing the film would save him and his wife, but after the film was finished, the two were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered on October 28th, 1944.

In late 1938, German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl made a now-infamous trip to Hollywood to promote her documentary Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Riefenstahl was notorious for producing propaganda films for the Nazi party, so you could imagine her presence in Hollywood was about as welcome as a joke in an article about the Holocaust. Walt Disney was the only person in town willing to see her. He even gave her a tour of the Disney studios, showing her concept art and production materials from Fantasia, which was in production at the time. Riefenstahl had hoped to show Disney Olympia, but Disney’s projectionist had refused to screen it, as the projectionist union had taken a vocal stance against Riefenstahl.

It must be noted that Disney only welcomed her as part of negotiations for Snow White, and not because he had any positive feelings toward the Nazi regime. This didn’t matter to the rest of Hollywood, who decided that Walt Disney was an antisemite as a result. Whatever beliefs Disney privately held, this incident was purely business. Germany had the second biggest film market in the world at the time, so when you’re gambling your fortune on a film project, you want to make sure it gets seen in Germany.

This was the absolute last chance Walt Disney had to sell Snow White to the Germans, but after Riefenstahl returned to Germany having felt slighted by Hollywood, the German government banned American films entirely. Goebbels was willing to make an exception for Snow White, but unfortunately, Kristallnacht, a nationwide pogrom against Jewish people, had occurred at the same time as Riefenstahl’s trip. Disney felt it better to abandon the sale altogether. Tensions in Europe were at a boiling point, and it just wasn’t worth the trouble.

While the German dub of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves wouldn’t see release in Germany, it would premiere in Switzerland in December 1938, as well as Hungary. It wouldn’t be shown publicly anywhere else until after the war, but when the Soviets raided the Reich’s film archive, they found four copies of Snow White. The English version was present, along with the French and Dutch versions, but curiously enough, they also had the German version. It’s been said that Hitler was a fan of the movie, even if they couldn’t show it in Germany, he certainly enjoyed watching it privately. There is no evidence that Hitler knew who starred in the German version, but as Hitler and Goebbels were both avid movie buffs, it wouldn’t be hard for them to pick out Gerron’s voice specifically.

After the war, the film would premiere in Austria in 1948, and finally make its way to Germany in 1950. Through the 1950s and 1960s, German audiences would become familiar with the 1938 version of Snow White, however, in 1966 Disney decided to create a new dub for Germany. This dub would then be replaced by another one in 1992 for the film’s home video release. Both the 1938 and 1966 versions would be sealed away in the Disney vault, not for any reason other than practicality. The latest dub in each language is typically the default version, and there’s no point in giving attention to earlier versions, unless there’s substantial fan outcry to see them.

Disney isn’t necessarily hiding some dark secret, in all likelihood they probably weren’t aware at the time. Had Roy Disney realized the cast he hired was made up of Jews, he most likely would have pulled the plug on the project. Not due to any antisemitism on his part, but because he was trying to sell this movie directly to Hitler. It’s not likely the Disney company were even aware of who dubbed the film in the years following the war when it started to be screened publicly. It was a one and done job where a group of actors were plucked off the streets and paid for a few days’ work.

So, how do we know who starred in the German dub? German-Jewish journalist Paul Marcus, otherwise known as PEM, had fled Germany early on in the 1930s and had started a personal newsletter reporting on Jewish actors and entertainers living in exile. One of these newsletters from 1938 detailed the production of both the Dutch and German dubs of Snow White. This newsletter is backed up by articles from local Amsterdam-based newspapers. It’s because of the underground resistance movement that we have this information today.

Sources

• “Walt Disney’s European Tour in 1935: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.” The German Way, 4 May 2020, www.german-way.com/walt-disneys-european-tour-in-1935-germany-austria-and-switzerland.
• Giesen, Rolf, and J. P. Storm. Animation Under the Swastika. Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland, 2012.
• Prisoner of Paradise. Directed by Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender. Menemsha Entertainment, 2002.
• “De Nederlandsche Versie van Walt Disney’s Sneeuwwitje.” Nieuwsblad van Het Noorden, 7 May 1938. ·“Hollands Sneeuwwitje Vóór de Zomer Klaar.” Zaans Volksbad, 19 May 1938, p. 14.
• Snow White Archive. “1938 German Dub of Snow White.” Filmic Light, 19 Nov. 2017, filmic-light.blogspot.com/2017/11/1938-german-dub-of-snow-white.html.
• Doherty, Thomas. “When Leni Riefenstahl Came to Hollywood.” The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Aug. 2021, www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/leni-riefenstahl-hollywood-1235001606.

I recently encountered Jerry Beck at Film Forum here in New York City; on the day we met, he was presenting a program of Fleischer studio oddities, a program that was a good deal of fun, and had a few pleasant surprises in it.

In the course of our pre-show conversation, he invited me to watch and review a recent Blu-Ray release, “Famous Studios Champion Collection,” put out by Cartoon Logic.

This was of great interest to me, since I grew up in coastal Connecticut, in an area where picking up the Boston and New York televisions station that habitually broadcast Classic-era cartoons was tricky, especially in those pre-CATV days. My limited experience with Famous Studios’ cartoons thus came largely from public domain VHS tapes and DVDs, and those familiar with those kinds of collections can only imagine the visual quality of what was on offer.

So as not to bury the lede too much, I will come out and say this: the “Champion Collection” is warmly recommended as something animation buffs should have, either to fill in gaps in cartoons not previously seen, or to re-watch cartoons in a fashion much closer to how they would have been presented in theaters, originally.

Counting bonus cartoons (on which more, later), there are 20 cartoons on one disc in the collection, together with commentary tracks for all of the cartoons, as well as some miscellaneous audio and graphic production items. The cartoons themselves cover a roughly seven-year period, with cartoons bearing release dates from late 1943 to early 1950.

The collection thus covers the formative years of Famous Studios, the successor to the Fleischer studio, which had been based in Miami at the time Paramount Pictures assumed control over the Fleischer studio in early 1942. Barrier notes that by the first quarter of 1943, Famous was in the process of moving back to New York City, where the Fleischer studio had been founded, and where it had operated until moving to Florida in the late 1930s. Thus, the first cartoon in the collection, No Mutton Fer Nuttin’, represents some of the first work completed at the studio in its changed location.

This was a time period when the studio not only had to meet the challenge of the Walt Disney studio, but had to meet the challenge of the cartoon studio at MGM and that at Schlesinger/Warner Bros., both of which had emerged as trend-setters in animation, and in story-writing, from the early 1940s on. In particular, Famous had to meet the challenge thrown down by other studios with the creation of continuing characters, such as Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and so forth.

Famous’ attempt to meet these challenges forms the heart of the Champion Collection. We get a mix of the different sub-series that Famous offered, mostly under the “Noveltoons” rubric, which comprise:

• Blackie the lamb and Wolfie, in No Mutton Fer Nuttin’, A Lamb in a Jam, Sheep Shape and Much Ado About Mutton
• Casper the Friendly Ghost, in The Friendly Ghost, There’s Good Boos To-Night, and A Haunting We Will Go
• Herman the Mouse and Henry, in The Henpecked Rooster and Sudden Fried Chicken
• Little Lulu, in Bargain Counter Attack and A Bout With a Trout
• Little Audrey, in Butterscotch and Soda
• Baby Huey, in Quack-a-Doodle Doo
• The revived Screen Songs sub-series, with Readin’, ‘Ritin’ and Rhythmetic and Our Funny Finny Friends
• Raggedy Ann, in Suddenly, It’s Spring!
• Herman the Mouse alone in Campus Capers
• Buzzy the Funny Crow in Cat O’ Nine Ails (in a print without a soundtrack, but with storyboard and script material interpolated)
• A miscellaneous cartoon in Hep Cat Symphony, and lastly
• Spree for All, in the only known (black and white) print of a Snuffy Smith cartoon Famous produced

As you can see, there’s quite a mix of sub-series on offer, and the collection was evidently put together with an eye toward presenting a good-cross section of the non-Popeye, Noveltoons shorts made by Famous in this time period.

The value in this collection lies primarily in the quality of the prints presented. Original negative materials have been used where possible, though in a few cases, such materials were not available, and sources such as a 35mm nitrate print had to be used. The end result is eye-opening, especially for those familiar with the discolored, washed-out or butchered prints of these cartoons that had been available in public domain collections.

In particular, as can be seen in a number of segments in Suddenly, It’s Spring! or in the credits sequence to The Friendly Ghost, the beauty of the background artwork comes out, with some very appealing and soft colors. In addition, using the original negative materials, or otherwise high-quality materials, allows the animation to be seen clearly, and much better appreciated. A Lamb in a Jam, in my view, is a cartoon that benefits greatly from this treatment. Cartoons that heavily rely on characters being cute and appealing, such as There’s Good Boos To-Night or A Haunting We Will Go now can show these cute characters to full effect, most notably with Ferdie the Fox in the first-named cartoon. The dream sequence in Butterscotch and Soda, where Little Audrey is stuck in a nightmarish candy-land, pops now that one can see it as originally intended.

The fact that original materials were used also helps with certain of the cartoons that use music heavily, such as A Bout With a Trout or, again, Suddenly, It’s Spring! One thing that did strike me, in listening to the music on this collection, is the surprising fact that even though Famous had access to a significant musical library, musical underlying of gags, in the Carl Stalling/Scott Bradley sense, was rarely if ever used. The only instance that struck me (and which was not mentioned in the commentary) was the use of “Dream Lover,” which had originally been written for the 1929 Paramount musical The Love Parade, and which does work in Stalling fashion – if you happen to recognize the song.

The secondary value to this collection comprises the commentary tracks; there’s one for each short, and in general, I thought the comments were intelligent and fair. It does help that the son of animator Myron Waldman is one of the commenters, bringing a personal angle to the exercise. Mike Kazeleh, Will Friedwald, Jerry Beck, Bob Jaques and Thad Komorowski all provide worthwhile background information regarding the operation of the studio, inclusive of the fact that the death of executive Sam Buchwald in the early 1950s may have had a negative effect on the quality of the cartoons.

Is there a negative to the set? Well, the commenters don’t shy away from the fact that Famous did have a tendency to re-use plot ideas (as all of the Hollywood cartoon studios did). There’s also the fact that in some cases, the timing of the gags means they don’t land with the same force as a similar idea might have in the units of Avery, Jones or Freleng. Hep Cat Symphony has some interesting animation, and in a few spots some quite appealing jazzy music (a feature also of Much Ado About Mutton), but the same script in the hands of an Avery, Jones or Freleng could have had much sharper impact.

The two Screen Songs cartoons do look attractive, but are somewhat forgettable in the gags, which is a flaw the entire sub-series had. In particular, it struck me that Our Funny Finny Friends was nearly a decade behind Tex Avery’s Fresh Fish, done during his Warner Bros. days. Campus Capers is also something of a weak entry. The Blackie/Wolfie cartoons do attempt, at various times, to capture the same sort of energy as the Bugs Bunny cartoons at Warner Bros., as well as the Wolf/Red cartoons at MGM (especially in Sheep Shape), and while they are pretty good cartoons, and certainly far ahead of the product that, say, Screen Gems was putting out for Columbia at this time, nevertheless, there is a derivative air that’s noticeable.

I’ve known a few cartoon fans to grind their teeth (metaphorically, and possibly literally) when confronted by Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons, but There’s Good Boos To-Night, with its well-known and simultaneously macabre and heart-tugging ending, is probably rescued by the fact that it can now be seen in pristine condition, the quality of the animation being that good. You need to see a cute character to appreciate it. Frank Gallop’s narration is also pleasant to hear.

Spree for All, the Snuffy Smith cartoon, is probably the biggest misfire on the set. As the commentary notes with commendable honesty, a large chunk of the gags are simply generic hillbilly gags (again, a decade behind Avery, who had done A Feud There Was years before), and outside of the usage of a few of Snuffy’s stock phrases, Billy DeBeck’s creation really doesn’t come through.

But by no means let any of these story or gag failings deter you. One now has a chance to encounter these cartoons on a much fairer level than before, and (as noted with other historical cartoon sets), welcoming these cartoons encourages the future release of even more cartoon sets like this one.

The producers (and Paramount) should be commended for giving these cartoons fresh life.

The most well-known nephews in the Disney canon are Donald Duck’s: Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The trio first made their debut in comic form on October 17, 1937. The following year, in 1938, the trio made their animated debut in the aptly titled Donald’s Nephews. Pretty cut and dry for some of Disney’s most iconic and long-lasting characters. Yet, the characters they were created to counterpart — Mickey’s two nephews — have a more intricate debut history. Morty and Ferdie are not defined by a single debut, but by a prolonged process of instability across media, where character is constructed, obfuscated, and re-established.

The duo first appeared on the September 18, 1932 Mickey Mouse Sunday strip. In their initial comic appearance, they are presented as children of a Mrs. Fieldmouse—then not explicitly identified as Mickey’s sister. Their initial appearance does not explicitly identify them as relatives of Mickey, yet this quickly becomes implied the following week on September 25 when they refer to Mickey as “Unca Mickey”. What this first Sunday page provides is a critical foundation exemplifying their core characteristics: mischief and havoc.

(above) The first strip featuring Mickey’s nephews, and (below) a panel from the September 25 panel with the first “Unca Mickey” reference.

Their havoc manifests metatextually as their antics overwhelm finer details of characterization, resulting in neither child being named until the October 30, 1932 Sunday page. This month-long interregnum sans naming reflects the instability of the duo’s early characterization. This is further emphasized within the comic panels as only one nephew is given a name—Mortimer Fieldmouse—leaving the other nephew unnamed.

Within the finer details of Disney lore, this name—Mortimer—is often associated with an earlier naming suggestion for Mickey himself. The suggestion came from Walt Disney’s wife, Lillian, at the same time that Walt was navigating the loss of his rights to Oswald and uncertainty over his own future. Metatextually, the presence of a Mickey relative named Mortimer reinforces the instability of character, and reminds readers that these stories exist within the early days of Mickey’s own rapidly defining world.

However, this page also gives some definition as it is the first instance of Mickey definitively referring to the duo as his nephews.

Despite the comic strip clearing away initial ambiguity, more would implant itself into the Disney ecosphere with the 1933 cartoon short Giantland. The comics’ examples of a nephew duo are quite clear, but Mickey’s role as an uncle to mouse children would become more ambiguous.

This short opens with a large Mouse nibling group listening to Mickey read a bedtime story. The niblings call Mickey “Uncle Mickey,” but the short adds in further ambiguity by not identifying any of the children explicitly, thus making it unclear which are the two nephews present in the comics—or whether none of them are, and if Mickey might only be the niblings’ honorary uncle.

Interestingly, the Giantland cartoon would be adapted into a Sunday storyline that ran from March 11, 1934 until April 29, 1934. As a result of deriving elements from the pre-existing short, this comic strip storyline too has the ambiguous nature of which child is whom. Each Sunday would begin with Mickey telling his niblings about another part of the adventure against Rumplewatt the Giant. However these children—like in the cartoon—are never distinctively identified. Through background actions the audience can see more mischief being wrecked upon Mickey’s home, thus indicating that this quality befalls the numerous Mickey niblings.

Concurrent with Giantland’s release, the publisher David McKay introduced even more ambiguity when it published the “Mickey Mouse Story Book,” a repackaging of material from the 1931 book “Mickey Mouse Movie Stories,” consisting of images from 1930 and 1931 cartoons with alternative prose describing the plots. The cover exhibits Mickey—alongside a sleepy Pluto—reading a book to two unidentified mouse children.

The cover draws a connection to Giantland as it implies that the contents of the actual book—the aforementioned cartoon reuse—is what is being read to the children: a storytelling session similar to that in the Giantland cartoon. Since the interior of the physical book is repeated from 1931, however, it contains no framing devices, mentions, or references to the 1933 cover’s children audience. Thus this cover leads audiences to identify the duo as either Mickey’s nephews or two of the Giantland niblings, or both, making their relationship to Mickey somewhat vague once again.

(It must be noted that the “Mickey Mouse Story Book” bears only a 1931 copyright date, leading many in the past to presume the book was actually released in 1931—with its cover illustration thus representing the first appearance of mouse nephews anywhere. But as period newspapers and bookstore advertisements show, the “Story Book” was not actually released until late 1933; its 1931 copyright date refers only to the book’s interior contents, reprinted as they were from 1931.)

On June 16, 1934, Mickey’s nephews—presumed to be Morty and Ferdie, although never referred to by name—make a decisive return in the animated cartoon Mickey’s Steam Roller. This would be the duo’s first distinctive animated appearance as a duo sans any other unnamed mice children. Carrying over the common traits from the comics, the duo play and cause mischief throughout the short. The year 1934 also saw the instance of the original Orphan’s Benefit—remade in color in 1941—wherein Mickey and friends perform for many mice children. Though, based on the title, it can’t be assumed that these children are all Mickey’s relatives. However, it does continue to lean into the grey area of Mickey Mouse caring for or entertaining quantities of identical children.

The nephew duo would return to the Sunday strip again on March 31, 1935. Here, Mickey refers to them as “my nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse!”, thus—for the first time—giving both boys distinctive names. In this newest appearance, they continue to delight in mischief, but they also foreshadow their more famous counterparts when interacting with Donald Duck.

The duo would serve as the prototypes for what would eventually become Donald’s nephews—both in messing with him and in how they caused disruption. On the Sunday page from April 7, 1935, the duo bait Donald into impressing them. Donald ends up overexerting himself, thus losing control and crashing a croquet ball into Mickey’s house. This encounter feels reminiscent of The Hockey Champ, wherein Donald’s hubris becomes his downfall as he attempts to one-up his nephews with his skills.

Before the year was up, the duo would return again on December 15, 1935. Within these appearances, the duo reinforce the role that they came to inhabit within the strip. As Disney historian David Gerstein puts it:

“By 1935 a satisfying middle ground was achieved, with Mickey portrayed less as a parent, more as a big brother.”

From this point on, the duo would appear at various intervals within the comics. However, when the duo appeared outside of the newspaper realm, these appearances continued to be more ambiguous, less defined, and lean into the larger nibling groups.

In one 1937 book entitled “Mickey Mouse and His Friends” a trio of mice niblings appear in a single image before a text adaptation of Mickey’s Elephant. Entire crowds of niblings—often, as before, identified as orphans—make further animated appearances in Gulliver Mickey (1934), Orphans’ Picnic, Mickey’s Circus (1936) and Pluto’s Party (1952). Morty and Ferdie themseves make another animated appearance in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in 1938’s Boat Builders; when a crowd assembles to watch the launch of Mickey’s, Donald’s, and Goofy’s boat, the duo can be seen climbing up a dock piling at the left of the shot..

Mickey’s nephews might not have stuck around as prominently as other recurring characters, but their early appearances were hugely influential. Their exact roles and status took time to become explicit, and the two would often fade out into ambiguous crowds of many mice children. Yet they helped to establish Mickey as an authority figure and companion to kids within his universe. Morty and Ferdie also acted as the prototype testing ground in small ways for their more popular counterparts: Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Since the 1980s, the duo have made newer appearances in animation including as role players in 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol, with Morty as Tiny Tim, and in 2017’s The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular. The nephews have also remained recurring characters in comics from the 1930s up to the present day, logging hundreds of appearances annually around the world. Now as Mickey’s earliest stories come into the public domain each year , fans and readers alike have the opportunity to better understand Morty and Ferdie’s origin: not to see them as only static figures lost in the Disney vault, but for the influential voice that they are. The public domain also allows the creators to give the duo new creative expressions that were overlooked at their original inception. Plus, some enterprising person might even feign to name each and every nibling.

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NOTES: As of 2026, all published Mickey Mouse cartoons and printed material from 1930 and before are in the public domain. In the course of researching this piece, I discovered that the Mickey Comics from 1931 through October 1935 were not renewed. The earliest renewal for the strip that I could locate was for the week dated November 18, 1935. These weekly renewals continued on from this date. The mentioned cartoons from 1932-1941 as well as the 1937 Donald Duck comic are still copyrighted until the end of the 95th year following their publication.

SOURCES:
Mickey Sundays; Original copyright and its renewal for 1937 Mickey Mouse and His Friends © 1 May 1937, code AA231977; renewal is © 28 May 1964, code R338799.

SPECIAL THANKS to David Gerstein and his input to this piece.

The 1948-49 Season of cartoon short subjects from Columbia Pictures consisted of just eight new cartoons. Among them some of the worst the Screen Gems studio ever produced. But also among the eight were a few real gems, the first offerings from the game changing UPA studio. This was the transitional year. Columbia had closed their Screen Gems studio (formerly Charles Mintz’s studio) in November 1946, after years of operating in the red.

Luckily, Columbia had over two years of cartoons in the backlog – enabling the studio to release a steady stream through their 1946-47 and 1947-48 season. Color cartoons were still in high demand in movie theaters throughout the 1940s and 1950s – especially as television invaded the media landscape – and the movie studios and exhibitors teamed up to fight off the new technology. Columbia still needed cartoons – but perhaps produced at a lower cost. Enter UPA.

Columbia made a deal with UPA for four cartoons to test the waters – three Fox & Crow and one “whatever they wanted”, a miscellaneous cartoon for a new series to be called “Jolly Frolics”. Combined with the last five Screen Gems shorts, those first three from UPA gave Columbia a respectable eight subjects. (If you think that was a small release slate – just check Walter Lantz’ output for United Artists that same season (48-49): a measly five Woody Woodpecker/Andy Panda subjects).

For Columbia, this season became a win-win. Three Fox and Crow – including one of the best ever, an Oscar nominee, The Magic Fluke – and another that was a real hit with the public: Ragtime Bear, featuring the first appearance of Mr. Magoo.

What a mixed bag. Those last Screen Gems films – despite the crew of cast-off Warner Bros/Lantz/Disney personnel, including an uncredited Bob Clampett – were poor by any measure. Let’s take a look at that season – in the order of their release – the year that introduced UPA to the general public and changed animation forever.

PICKLED PUSS (September)

What’s funnier than a drunken cat? Nothing – certainly nothing in this cartoon – not even a drunken cat (or a “pickled puss”). The final Columbia cartoon from ex-Disney animator Howard Swift – who went on to create an independent shop that did everything from animating Superman (in the Columbia serials) to pioneering TV commercials. I’m sure this looked hilarious in the story boards; the animation is sufficient – it has the “look” of an average Hollywood cartoon of the era – but it’s just plain unfunny.

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LO, THE POOR BUFFAL (November)

Buffalo Billingsly (cross Yosemite Sam with Foghorn Leghorn) hunts a forlorn Buffalo and a Native American. Alex Lovy was a capable director – but it takes team to make a cartoon, and the team at Columbia just didn’t have the incentive – or sense of humor. Sometimes I watch these late Columbia cartoons, squint my eyes, and try to figure out what they thought was going to get laughs here… They don’t have a vocal talent like Mel Blanc, they don’t have the music of Carl Stalling or Scott Bradley (or Winston Sharples, for that matter). Weak.

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ROBIN HOODLUM (December)

The first UPA entertainment theatrical short… and what a beauty it is. They threw out the Fox & Crow playbook (if there ever was one) and just have them play Robin Hood. There’s a story that animators from Chuck Jones unit did scenes when the production fell behind. All and all a vast improvement over Screen Gems shorts.

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COO-COO BIRD DOG (February)

Have I mentioned how much I do not like the voice work of Cal Howard and Jack Mather in these later Screen Gems cartoons? Here’s a cartoon that has “should be directed by Art Davis” written all over it… but it was directed by his old partner Sid Marcus. This may be the best of the Screen Gems bunch here today… but that’s not saying much.

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All of these cartoons are now telecast regularly on MeTV Toons – please watch the channel and spread the word.

Here’s the first Magoo… and by now there was no turning back. Columbia would have the hottest cartoons of the decade – and with this, the rest is history.

RAGTIME BEAR (September)

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These last five Screen Gems cartoons do not portend or predict what could have been if the Screen Gems studio were to continue. It was somewhat a lost cause. Their ending allowed UPA to flourish and animation became a better place.

CAT-TASTROPHY (June)

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…and this might be one of the worst Fox & Crow shorts ever. I can’t get past the Fox’s stupid voice.

GRAPE NUTTY (April)

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MAGIC FLUKE (March)

Back to UPA and this one is quite perfect. Might be my second most favorite John Hubley UPA short (after Rooty Toot Toot).

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This post is the “flip-side” of an article I posted here a few weeks ago (The Last Five Screen Gems Cartoons 4/14/26) where I looked at transition of the outgoing Columbia’s Screen Gems releases and the incoming UPA cartoons. A real changing of the guard.

Roughly ten years later, the guard changed again. Things weren’t going well for UPA in the second half of the decade. Their satellite studios in New York and London closed; the Magoo feature was a troubled project; The Boing Boing Show was bombing; the Columbia contract for theatrical shorts had an expiration date: 1959.

The last of the 1958-59 season, released in July 1959, was Terror Faces Magoo. Produced in New York during the production crunch in Burbank on 1001 Arabian Nights, the Magoo feature.

By the end of the year UPA founder/producer Stephen Bousustow found a new financial “partner” to bail the studio out – Henry G. Saperstein – who essentially bought the studio and ultimately inched Bosustow out the door. Beginning in November, Columbia began releasing Hanna Barbera’s TV-styled Loopy DeLoop shorts as theatrical subjects (an arrangement that lasted through June 1965)!

Mr. Magoo was still extremely popular, if only as a short subjects star – and Bosustow knew that. Bosustow decided to keep making “UPA shorts” for theatrical release, and from this point on UPA itself would release them. Four new shorts were put into production.

The first one, Magoo Meets Boing Boing (The Noise Making Boy), directed by Abe Levitow, was given an Oscar qualifying release in late 1959. This cartoon was certainly a perfect idea to start with a ‘Bang-Bang’. I love how in the ‘UPA-niverse’, Magoo is on a short list of babysitters in the McCloy household. Magoo mistakes Gerald for his dog (and vice-versa) and “rescues” Gerald from a fire (actually just Gerald’s sound effects voice). The animation is no worse than the last few Columbia Magoo films – but far from the heights of greatness both characters had previously attained just a few short years earlier. Note that the theatrical title for this film was Magoo Meets Boing Boing (The Noise-Making Boy), the TV version is retitled Magoo Meets McBoing Boing.

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The second Magoo cartoon, released in 1960, was likewise submitted for Academy Award consideration – I Was A Teenage Magoo – this time directed by Clyde Geronimi. It’s an odd one. The most UPA aspect of it is the background designs by Tom Yakutis, which are very cool. The animation is up the theatrical standards of the last Columbia Magoo’s – but that’s not saying too much. Told in flashback, the plot has teenage (but still nearsighted) red-headed Magoo picks up his date “Melba” (a kangaroo) from her home (in a circus) and go on a picnic. Sort of a prequel of sorts to Magoo’s Young Manhood (1958). Bosustow’s attempt to self-distribute was a huge failure. This cartoon was ultimately released as part of the TV package – albeit cut by two minutes and shown under the title Teenage Magoo.

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The third short produced by Bosustow for theatrical release was Bric’s Stew – directed by Harvey Toombs – which featured a pair of new characters “Bric n’ Brac”. The negative was discovered a few years ago among film elements acquired by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – within unclaimed inventory from the defunct DuArt Laboratory in New York City. Why it was abandoned and forgotten no one knows. Why there is a UA-TV logo at the end – no one knows. Asifa-Hollywood funded a preservation and I wrote about it in a post about this find in January 2019. I’m happy to present the entire cartoon, for the first time, below.

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A fourth Magoo short intended for theaters – Magoo Meets Frankenstein – joined the other two in the Mr. Magoo TV package (130 new cartoons made-for-TV). Below is the first half of the rare theatrical version:

Bosustow finally sold his interest in UPA in June 1960. This wasn’t the end of Magoo – he would live on in his Christmas Carol TV special (a classic), a 26 episode series of Famous Adventures, as Uncle Sam, a GE light bulb salesman, in a Saturday morning DePatie Freleng series – and a live action movie (released by Disney)!

Despite a bittersweet fade-out, UPA was a historic game changer for animation during the 1950s. It was a studio – like Walt Disney’s – that is worth exploring with deeper dives.

For more information on UPA – I highly recommend Adam Abraham’s outstanding UPA history, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA.

SPECIAL THANKS to Al Warner and Denis-Carl Robidoux for permission to share their transfers of the first two UPA Magoo theatricals – and to ASIFA-Hollywood for letting us debut the complete “Bric’s Stew”.

Animation Historian Kurtis Findlay is putting together his dream project – it’s mine and yours as well – and he needs our help.

Frank Tashlin’s well-known career in live action and animated film has been well documented over the years, but one area that hasn’t seen any focus is his print cartoon career. All of that is about to change this fall when Findlay (Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was) publishes the first ever collection of Frank Tashlin’s Van Boring: He Never Says a Word newspaper comics!

Produced in cooperation with the Tashlin estate, this new book will collect the entire series which ran from January 1934 to June 1936, newly remastered in two 9″x7″ softcovers volumes and one complete hardcover volume. Loaded with extras and essays, this book will be for the ultimate Frank Tashlin collector, every Looney Tunes fan, and anyone who enjoys a good laugh.

CALLING ALL COLLECTORS! Tashlin produced hundreds of gag cartoons in the early 30s for humor magazines such as Hooey, Slapstick, and Ballyhoo, among others. Kurtis would like to include as many of these cartoons as possible in this Van Boring book, but he needs your help! Do you have any humor magazines published between 1931 and 1935? Check to see if any of them have cartoons signed “Tish Tash”. Unfortunately, there is no documentation on which magazines contain these cartoons. Our best option is to look through every page.

If you find any Tashlin cartoons and can provide a hi-res scan, please email vanboring.comics@gmail.com.

Here are a few samples Findley has allowed us to post as a preview:

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