Vintage cartoon round-up

Our friend Bibi has compiled a fantastic collection of links to some vintage animated shorts! All in the public domain, Bibi herself downloaded them from archive.org and made them available to view on Google Video. You’re awesome, Bibi! There are 27 Betty Boop cartoons, 11 Felix the Cat cartoons, and 3 Krazy Kat cartoons… Here’s one of my favourite Betty Boop cartoons as an appetizer:

  • I lOOOVE Fleisher cartoons. Especially Betty Boop and Popeye!

    I always thought Popeye cartoons kind of sucked--he ate the spinach, he kicked some ass, it was all a matter of when he was going to do it. But those really weren't the Fleisher cartoons. Once I saw a Fleisher Popeye it was like a totally different deal!

    And I love Grampy. He can do anything! He can make, like cars out of popsicle sticks, and merry go rounds out of washing machines. CHeck em out.
  • Wow! Thanks Johnny! :)

    Hey Jed, make a search for Fleischer at Internet Archive: you are going to find many videos. I'm planning to upload more of them - I alerady uploaded 3 Superman episodes but I didn't post about them. But Popeye isn't on my list - I never liked it. Yes, I'm strange.
  • THose Krazy Kat's any good? I'm speaking to the biased here--I mean, obviously you like them, you put them on your site, but do they really capture the spirit of the strip? I've never seen them, and have heard almost nothing about them, so I'm afraid they might have been buried for good reason. But that's a pretty stretchy assumption. It's more of a fear.

    Love the strip though.
  • Just a little bit of trivia on that Betty Boop and Grampy short...the song at the end "Hold that Tiger" was used in one of the new Ren and Stimpy cartoons "FireDogs 2" to equal hilarious effect.
  • Greg
    Didn't "Hold that Tiger" sound a bit like "Stop the Pigeon?"

    Mebbe it'sjust me.
  • Thanks Bibi, you are the saviour of my day!
  • Hey Bibi thanks a lot for those vids. I love retro cartoons. Tahir
  • I find it highly unlikely that these are in the public domain. As a general rule, if a film has sound, it's probably under copyright. Still, I don't care. This is a great post. Thanks. I'll be re-posting (with credit to you) at Four Color Comics.

    I LOVE KRAZY KAT!
  • BJ Barrett
    I watched Betty Boop on Saturday morning when I was a kid. Grampy was a favorite. Being so young, I never realized how risque Betty was. The Hayes code made her lengthen her skirt to hide a garter and in the very ealy cartoons, she was always being chased by lecherous dog-like men. What a hoot!
  • Keith
    These are definitely in the public domain. All the early Fleisher stuff, like Betty Boop and Popeye and those great Superman cartoons are in public domain.
    Grampy and Pudgy are my favorites. To quote Pudgy, "He pulled a knife on me!" Thanks Bibi!
  • julie
    wow. i'm almost in tears here. it's absolutely AWESOME.
  • Bob Loblaw
    Thanks for the website. I have a very old comic book that had eighty (80) stories in it; Arizona Kid, Uncle Miltie, Felix the Cat, B-Bar-B Riders, and the "Comic Book collectors" have never heard of the series?? Felix was a favourite childhood comic for me, even though I am but 50 years young. Bless you for your ideas and efforts to share with the world the wonderful humour and good feelings that these media stories bring to us.
  • Grampy really knows how to throw a party. He just always takes care of you and leaves everyone entertained. Boop boop bedoop. Great stuff. Thanks for sharing it!
  • Andrea
    The Popeye and Superman cartoons are NOT in the public domain. About one half of the Betty Boop cartoon's are unfortunally in the public domain, including this one. I bought a Betty Boop tape at the grocery store for $1 with this cartoon on it, very poor quality, that's what's sad about these wonderful cartoons being put into the public domain. Thanks for posting this though!! Great cartoon!

    -Andrea
blog comments powered by Disqus