Thursday 5 October 2023

Flip Arrives

The best news you will read today, cartoon fans, is Thunderbean Animation has finally completed its restoration of all 38 Flip the Frog cartoons and has released them on Blu-ray.

I have never laughed at a Flip cartoon. Not that I recall. I don’t know how many audiences in the early ‘30s laughed at them, either. But ignore that. Buy this set.

Thunderbean takes extremely meticulous care in any of its restoration projects. Everyone who worked on this loves old animation and strives to give cartoon fans the best. An incredible amount of work went into these discs—which took longer to make than the actual cartoon series. Flip could not have been in better hands.

If Thunderbean hadn’t taken on this set, nobody else would have. There simply isn’t the profit and, frankly, I doubt a large corporation would have spent the time hunting down and comparing film elements to pick and choose the best. Thunderbean, time and time again, has taken animation from B-list studios residing on poor prints in the public domain scrap-heap and made them presentable and watchable again. An example on this set: The Cuckoo Murder Case has a fine atmospheric opening that will be a treat to see fully restored.

Steve Stanchfield's team cares enough to provide bonus material as well. Commentary tracks? Yes! J.B. Kaufman liner notes? Yes, again! Or, as Flip would say, “Damn!”

My congratulations and thanks to those who took the time and care to work on this Blu-ray.

Click here for a link to the Thunderbean Shop.

Note: this is an unpaid, unsolicited endorsement. I receive nothing. I am simply a fan of old cartoons and feel this set is worth owning.

4 comments:

  1. Wow!! Thanks for the heads up, Yowp. Looking forward to seeing this restoration.

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  2. Eric O. Costello5 October 2023 at 17:47

    I agree with you down the line.

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  3. Hans Christian Brando6 October 2023 at 13:31

    Flip finally gets his due, never having had a chance to endear himself to generations of TV watchers by repeated showings of his cartoons. Talk about being cheated of your birthright.

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  4. I don't remember laughing at Ub Iwerks' cartoons. But, I like watching them. They're one of those unexplainable occurrences that must be watched and never fully understood.

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