A little bit of history here this week about a little company you may have heard of… called Thunderbean!
First, in brief Thunderbean news, we’re reissuing / repressing the ‘Mid Century Modern 2’ and ‘Noveltoons’ Blu-rays. If you missed them, they’re available at the Thunderbean Shop, and will ship in February, along with a special bonus disc for each.
I’ve been writing in this space for a while, and, as I’m reflecting on the things that Thunderbean has done and I think about the current projects, I really have to smile. There’s been so many little triumphs in running the tiny Thunderbean business, and I’m so incredibly grateful that I’ve been so lucky to get to do all the things we’ve done and continue to do. I thought I’d do an article that works almost like a conversation about a bunch of things related to the last 22 years running Thunderbean, with some of the highlights along the way and some of the things I’m really enjoying working on right now. To me, the what’s to come is super exciting, and I always wish I could get there so much faster than we manage to. Still, there’s so many things happening that there are days where I don’t know what to tackle first.
My full time job, teaching animation at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, is lovely, and working with a new generation of artists is a nice balance to all this old cartoon stuff. It’s definitely related though. Here’s a little video we did some years back at the college as we were working on the Flip the Frog set:
The Thunderbean office is located in Saline, Michigan, not too far from my house. It’s a small space that functions as the packing and shipping, as well as dubbing the titles that are BDR and DVD-R. It’s a space that has a good amount of the toys from my childhood on shelves along with stuff we’ve collected over the years. Small, like all the other stuff in the business, but somehow appropriate I think.
I can’t go over there without having the super 8 prints of cartoons I first had go through my mind. The black and white Niles film print of ‘Felix and the Goose that Layed the Golden Egg’. Les Brooks’ Canterberry Films print of ‘Small Fry’, the Reel Images print of ‘Popeye Meets Sindbad’, and so many more. I bought most of them used from the Big Reel and Movie Collector’s World. Those early experiences, along with watching so many cartoons on UHF stations in the early 70s, have everything to do with what Thunderbean is doing.
Thunderbean, as a company, started in 1998 as a small animation studio. We started doing DVDs of classic cartoons in 2004 as a sort of resurrection of a little company I ran from 1988 through 1993 called ’Snappy Video’. Snappy stopped when I started my career working in animation. The return to doing sets in 2004 gave me the opportunity to do a lot of things I never thought I’d be able to. Many of the early DVD sets were made from the scans I did in the late 80s and early 90s, on 3/4” Umatic tapes. One of the very last things Snappy Video did was a set of Cubby Bear cartoons. Being able to revive that set, first on DVD, then on Blu-ray, was the first
Over these years, we’ve been doing two types of sets: ‘Official’ sets, with cartoons restored from the best possible elements, and ‘Special sets’. The Official sets of course take most of our time,but I’ve really enjoyed doing the special sets over these years a lot. They’ve given us a great excuse to scan a lot of things we always wanted to. There’s a whole bunch that are still waiting to get finished, and this year we’re attacking that project to see if we can finish all of the outstanding ones.
High definition really pulled things forward in great directions. At the Columbus Convent in 2013, my friend, artist Stewart McKissick, along with John McElwee of Greenbriar Picture Shows, convinced me to try and make a Blu-ray version of Gulliver’s Travels. I was obsessed with the idea of getting a good version of Gulliver available, something I always wanted. I had scanned a 35mm print, and it looked so much better than anything available, so from that day on Blu-rays and higher definition copies really took over what we do. McKissick would eventually illustrate the cover. By the way, Greenbriar Picture Shows is a lovely blog-type site, with great pictures and writing posted all the time, If you scroll back to January 5th, you’ll see the catalog for United Artists Cartoons, available in 16mm, Illustrated by Leslie Cabarga. Also note that this, as well as so many other things in the cartoon stratosphere, has a direct tie back to our favorite cartoon hero, Jerry Beck (he put this catalog together while working for UA16 at the time). It’s a small circle of people!
NEW YORK – SEPT 8: Robert Osborne hosts Turner Classic Movies with guest Steve Stanchfield at HBO Studios in New York, New York on September 8, 2014. (photo by David S. Holloway/ TCM)
That same year, having a chance to produce a program for TCM was a lovely surprise. Tommy Stathes of Cartoons on Film was pivotal in making this happen, and I’m happy to say we still work together on projects all these years later.
Meeting George Willeman, and subsequently working with the Library of Congress has been another great highlight. Being able to see Ted Eshbaugh’s “The Snowman’ in color and make a good scan of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was a huge dream. Now if only Goofy Goat would rear his head and hoofs in color….
Over these years I’ve really enjoyed working with so many cool people on these sets, from collectors to artists to people that have helped restore the films, including a lot of former students from the art college. Mark Kaulser, Jerry Beck, Dave Gerstein, Tommy Stathes, Jeff Missinne and Collin Kellogg have been long-time friends and colleagues.Thad Komorowski and his company, Cineste, is largely responsible for the great Fleischer restorations happening, and I’m happy to say he got his start in restoration working on things for Thunderbean.
Other friends like Milton Knight and Mike Kazaleh have provided art for covers and commentaries. Early on, the group commentaries we did for the Cultoons sets are some of my favorites. They’re pretty out of control, but so much fun, like going to a cartoon party.
Over these years, working with the National Archives, UCLA, Blackhawk Films, Disney, and lots of other places keeps making the journey really interesting. A new venture, one I’m sworn to semi-secrecy about, involves over a thousand reels of film (pictured at left), and they all stink! I can’t wait to take that project further in the coming months.
We have a deal with MeTV/ MeTV Toons for a part of the Thunderbean collection, and it’s honestly pretty thrilling to know that there’s people seeing these classic (and not so classic) animated films that have never seen them before. I’ve been spending a lot of time in these last weeks prepping films for broadcast. The ones on the newer sets we’ve done look just fine, but since they wanted some things from the older sets, I can’t help but want them to look as good as we can. Pretty soon we’ll have all they’ve requested to them in this first round.
One this next year, we hope to get a good amount of the projects started finished, if not all, and start the next phase of this little business. Thanks everyone for keeping the lights on against all odds through these years- we’ll keep burning!
