I know many of you think like I do: when the rare stuff shows up, even if it’s not top stuff, it’s still really great to see. The long hard-to-see Jerky Journeys cartoons are golden-age oddities that have, up to this point, half shown up. There are four in total in the series. Two of those are available, thanks to collectors Leonard Maltin and Mark Kausler.

Both The Two Minnies (1949) and Bungle in the Jungle (1949) are really interesting in their strangeness – their flavor is familiar and enjoyable to anyone that knows Classic Radio Shows and Warner Brothers cartoons.

Historian-of-great-note Tralfraz did a nice article about these little films and some of their creators a little while back.

As part of that article post, there’s a column from Associated Press (February 1949). Producer Leonard Louie Levinson, a former writer for Lum n’ Abner, Fibber McGee and other shows, is featured, the writer and producer of these films. Here’s a small piece of that article describing the animation process:

“They’re just breaking even,” Levinson says. “I decided to find excuses for not using animation.” An Impossible eight-minute cartoon requires about 400 sketches against 30,000 for a comparable Disney. Romantic Rumbolia, one of four completed “Jerky Journeys”, shows a Latin seaport at the siesta hour. With everybody asleep, no animation is required. The camera mopes into the capitol building and traces the country’s history on the murals. In Bungle In the Jungle, an animated lion swallows the camera, blacking out the screen. The story goes on in still pictures supposedly made with a box camera—more animation saved.

In Bungle in the Jungle, the travelogue and radio influence is clear. Frank Nelson’s gleeful narration keeps things lively, and the rendered art in this particular picture is appealing and funny, even in a black and white print (it was produced in Trucolor originally). Art Heinemann is given credit as the designer.

Of course, these two shorts are full of the sort of stuff you’d expect from the time, especially as they’re focusing on making films that are a lot more raucous than either radio or cartoons were at that time. I’m sure the audiences enjoyed them, even though they look incredible cheap compared to any other theatrical cartoons from that time.

Film history hero Leonard Maltin, who needs no introduction, was very kind to lend his rare print for scanning a few years back. We cleaned it up and included it on Eric Grayson’s excellent blu-ray/DVD compilation set Cinema Gems. The set features all sorts of oddities, including the Monsters of the Moon short, Marx Brothers Stop-Motion pilot and other oddities. It’s been available for a bit, but if you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s available here or on Amazon.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this short— let’s hope the other two shorts from the series show up sometime soon too.

Have a good week everyone!