Theatrical Cartoons: Gran’Pop Monkey

Description

When Ub Iwerks decided to end his contract with Columbia Pictures and turn the reins of his studio over to Paul Fennell, there was initially a scramble to drum up work to keep the studio afloat. The result of this effort was the creation of three of the rarest and most obscure cartoons in the history of the studio… “A Busy Day”, “Baby Checkers” and “Beauty Shoppe”. The films were based on the popular monkey illustrations by Lawson Wood that adorned magazine covers and calendars in both the US and the UK, and were part of a brief period where the newly renamed Cartoon Films Ltd. had co-production deals with producers in Britain. (See the “This Changing World” series in our last reference pack for more films that were trans-Atlantic co-productions.)

Iwerks had decided to return to Disney, so it’s likely that he had no hand in these films- Fennell took on the directors’ duties. These three shorts were mentioned in trade magazines at the time, but for many years they were thought to be lost. Animation Resources Advisory Board member, Steve Stanchfield discovered several fragments of prints, in both two color and B&W and reconstructed the complete cartoons from the fragments. Because of the ephemeral nature of these films, these prints may be the last surviving copies of these films in existence. Animation Resources thanks Steve Stanchfield for sharing these with us.