Fanny Friday

In 1927--the year this week's Flapper Fanny cartoon was originally published--the U.S. was fully engulfed by the Black Bottom dance craze. For more information, and to see demonstrations, check out this previous Shades of Gray post.

Plaaaay ball!

Today, Major League Baseball starts its 2023 season. We're celebrating the return of America's Pastime with Julie Newmar... and weirdness in a cornfield! (We're not sure if it's the Field of Dreams we've heard so much about, but it would explain a lot if it is.)

 
 

 
 

 
If you want to learn more about baseball, we've compiled everything we know about the game into this handy booklet. All proceeds go to support our coffee habits, although if Julie Newmar showed up wanting to go to a ballgame, we'd spend that money on tickets!

What are the dancers doing now that it's Spring?

On International Dance Day 2022, the ballerinas ran off into the wild. We're trying to keep track of them, and we'll try to bring you updates on the last Wednesday of each month until International Dance Day 2023.

And now that winter is ending, and Spring has arrived, we're checking in to see what's up with the ballerinas.

We have discovered that some are dancing around their favorite trees, encouraging leaves to grow. (While also demonstrating the Unifying Theme here at Shades of Gray.)

Some of the ballerinas have also come back inside, so they can properly prepare for International Dance Day 2023, which is one month away!

It's Women's History Month...

... and Flapper Fanny makes a special appearance (via the pens of trailblazing female cartoonists Ethel Hays and Gladys Parker) with commentary on changing fashion.

In 1928...

In 1938... 

Then, Now, and In the Future...

Musical Monday with the Lennon Sisters

The Lennon Sisters are a group of musically talented sisters whose professional singing career (together and occassionally seperately) spanned seven decades. We're kicking off the final week of Women's History Month 2023, with them being all traditional and stuff on "The Lawrence Welk Show" in the late 1950s while performing a song that is best known for its association with Doris Day and the Hitchcock's remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

It's a Mohammed Monday

 
THIS WEEK WITH JESUS & MO

 

We have another sponsor!

Shades of Gray and NUELOW Games have our offices in the same building as Threapland Industrial Products, and we are proud to announce that our downstairs neighbors have joined the Shades of Gray line-up of sponsors.

Here's an ad for their latest innovation!

Fanny Friday

Don't stay in the dark about 'Pitch Black Heist'

Pitch Black Heist (2011)
Starring: Liam Cunningham, Michael Fassbender, and Alex Macqueen
Director: John Maclean
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A pair of safe-crackers (Cunningham and Fassbender) team up to rob an office secured with an alarm system that's triggered by light.

"Pitch Black Heist" has all the elements you expect to find in a caper film, and it delivers them succinctly and so satisfyingly that I would have thought impossible in a film that isn't even 15 minutes long. Even more astonishing, the expertly executed and paced heist plot is almost secondary to the development of the relationship between the two thieves, much of which takes place as they hang out in a pub. Watching actors of Cunningham and Fassbender's talent play off each other is a treat in and of itself, but since they are performing within the structure of a great script makes this a must-see movie, especially if you're a fan of crime and/or heist movies.

Aside from delivering in under 15 minutes what many films can't deliver in more than two hours, this award-winning effort from writer/director John Maclean is made even better by the great twist at the end. While it's a given that a heist movie like this will have things go wrong during the heist and that there will be one final twist/obstacle threatening the characters at the end, "Pitch Black Heist" goes above and beyond in every way during its final few minutes.

Grab a drink, click below, and get ready for some great story-telling!

 

 

It's Women's History Month...

... so here's one more cartoon about 1920s fashions from illustrator and writer Ethel Hays.

A fun horror movie spoof!

Night of the Living Bread (1990)
Starring: Vince Ware, Katie Harris, Robert J. Saunders, Gina Saunders, Stephen R. Newell, Kevin J. O'Brien, and Steve Heminghausen

Director: Kevin J. O'Brien

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When a strange explosion at a factory causes bread to animate and attack the living, will anyone survive to see the sun rise again?

"Night of the Living Bread" is a fun, well-executed spoof of the genre-shaping zombie flick "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). In its eight-minute running time, it touches hilariously on all the key scenes and story elements of George Romero's most famous flick... but with the zombies being replaced by slices of bread and hamburger buns.

This is one of those flicks where too much talk by a reviewer will ruin the fun of watching it (which you can do by clicking below, in this very post), so I'll just highlight two things that make this film so good: First, the cast of actors plays everything completely straight (with one exception); this heightens the comedic absurdity of the story. Second, the film has a jump-scare that is so unexpected that even a jaded horror film viewer like myself was startled by it.

Check out this great little flick and have your day brightened. (It will be ten-times more enjoyable if you're familiar with the film its making fun of, but I think it can be enjoyed by any fans of classic horror films.)

It's officially Spring!

Everybody say "thank you" to MacKenzie Richter for, once again, pushing back the cold winds of winter! Jack Frost knows not to mess with her!

Musical Monday with A.Chal

"Round Whippin'" is a song from the Peruvian DJ/singer known as A.Chal. It's a pretty chill tune that starts to feel a little repetative as it closes out, but the video remains absolutely engrossing, and more than a little spooky, throughout. 

While I don't know what message the artist was trying to convey, I think it all adds up to, "Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs."

Round Whippin' (2016)
Starring: A.Chal

Director: Max Vatble

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A fun but sloppy entry in the 'Cartoonland' series

Alice Chops the Suey (aka "Alice in Chinatown") (1925)
Starring: Margie Gay
Director: Walt Disney
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When Alice is kidnapped by cartoon Chinese gangsters, her animated cat friend sets out to save her.

 

 "Alice Chops the Suey" is a so-so entry in the "Alice Comedies" (referred to as "Alice in Cartoonland" in these parts where the strengths are almost cancelled out by the weaknesses. It was an early series animated by Walt Disney himself, and if it tells us anything about Disney, it's that his talent for gathering and managing creative teams was superior to his own creative talents.

Coming during the latter half of the series, and ostensibly starring the fourth and final girl to play the live-action character having adventures in a cartoon world, this short film is literally non-stop action from beginning to end. Like some of the other best moments in the series, the fun it has with cartoon-world physics and the malleability of animated characters are also highlights here, especially if you have a taste for surrealism and the absurd.

On the downside though, there is a lack of attention to detail that felt sloppy and that I found frustrating. The most obvious example of this is the way Alice's shape changed to appear more like one of the natives of the Cartooniverse when she was put in a bag and carried off by the gangsters. I've previously commented on how disappointed I was when the live-action Alice turned into an animated Alice for no reason other than to make the scene easier to execute, but it's never been as badly and sloppily done as it is here. At the very least, Disney could have bothered to make the struggling character in the bag thinner, to match Alice.

I was also annoyed by the way this installment opened, but not for the reasons I understand that has frustrated other reviewers.

I've seen negative comments directed at "Alice Chops the Suey" because its opening moments are a clear and obvious "rip-off" of Fleischer Studios' Out of the Inkwell shorts. I didn't see that as a negative, but more as Disney acknowledging where the inspiration for his series mixing live-action and animation came from... even if Fleischer consistently did it better than Disney ever managed to do.

To my mind, the biggest flaw here is that Disney either forgot the set-up of the series and that the "borrowed" opening from Out of the Inkwell doesn't fit with how he uses it. Alice is NOT a creation of pen and ink, but is instead a flesh-and-blood being who enters Cartoonland. It makes no sense for her to pop out of the ink well, especially not since she isn't a drawn character. I don't know if the target audience for the series would be bothered by this, but it cast a pall over the entire episode for me. And the pat ending didn't help. 

Ultimately, though, the good almost cancels out the bad here, with "Alice Chops the Suey" being fast-paced and goofy enough to entertain.

It's a Very Fanny St. Patrick's Day!

Well-crafted film noir homage with a twist!

Long Cold Walk (2022)
Starring: Nat Wise, Rocco La Motta, Stephen Scott, Jessica Rudolph, and Gene Winer
Director: Gene Winer
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A homicide detective on the nightshift (Wise, voiced by Winer), is called to the scene of what turns out to be a greater mystery than he could have possibly imagined.

 

"Long Cold Walk" is a well-crafted film noir homage with an unexpected twist. Visually, there are a few jarring elements--such as some extreme close-ups that don't seem to serve any purpose and an extra that seems out place with the historical setting of the film--but overall Gene Winer and his crew do a fine job, on pretty much every technical level you'd care to consider.

As this film reached its final moments, I was certain that I would be giving it a solid Six of Ten Stars... but then the twist occured. I was expecting there to be some sort of twist due to a comment made by the narrator at the very beginning of the film, but when it happened, it was not at all what I expected it to be. That twist, and how it was executed, got a star added to the rating all by itself! I've watched and reviewed so many films over the past 30 years that "WOW!" moments don't happen all that often anymore, but Winer delivered one with "Long Cold Walk".

If you like old-school detective movies and TV shows, you're going to enjoy this short. Click below to check it out!

It's Women's History Month...

... so here's another cartoon from the 1920s about women's fashion trends, by author/illustrator Ethel Hays. (Her self-titled cartoon series was syndicated to over 500 newspapers.)

This Day in History...

 

Musical Monday with LostProphets

Part crime drama about small-time British crooks and part music video, "For He's a Jolly Good Felon" is the first chapter of a story about Simon (Sie Haworth) and a few other hapless men trying to get out from under the thumb of a vicious gangster/fight promoter, Harry (Alan Ford). It closes on a cliffhanger, and if I ever find Part Two, it will be featured in a future post here... because I liked both the music and film portions of this neat video--which is something of a throwback to the Golden Age of Music Videos during the 1980s and 1990s.

By the way, if you liked Alan Ford in "Snatch" (2000), you may like this one, too: He essentially plays the same character here as he did in that movie.

For He's a Jolly Good Felon (2010)

Starring: Alan Ford, Sie Haworth, Richard Sharpe, and Ian Watkins 

Director: Charlie Lightening

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

It's Mohammed Monday!

THIS WEEK WITH JESUS & MO

'The Gay Goucho' is one of Van Beuren's best

The Gay Goucho (1933)
Starring: Gus Wicke
Director: Hugh Harman
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Cubby Bear descends from the Argentinian highlands to spend the night with his dancer girlfriend... but when banditos intrude upon their fun, Cubby's defense of her honor places them in deadly danger.

 

Animation-wise, "The Gay Goucho" is one of the best efforts I've seen from the Van Beuren Studios; the character designs are decent, varied, and they remain stable throughout the entire run-time of the cartoon. Further there are honest-to-god detailed backgrounds and other elaborate scenery, something that's a rariety in a Van Beuren production. There is also a minimal amount of obvious looping and none of the visual gags and other sequences are stretched to the point where they stop being funny and become dull. In fact, one can even describe moments of this cartoon as thrilling. 

So why am I only giving it a rating of Six Stars? Because as funny and cute and energetic as this cartoon is, it falls completely apart and the end. The final gag is amusing, but the wrap-up is such a lazy cop-out that I knocked a full star off.

But I've embedded "The Gay Goucho" below for your viewing convenience and--hopefully--pleasure. Let me and everyone else know what YOUR thoughts are about it!

Happy birthday, Sharon Stone!

Actress Sharon Stone turns 65 years old today. We're celebrating with pictures of her from various points during the past five decades.

 

 

Fanny Friday!

A short film that made me say, 'That's all?!'

The Detective (2021)
Starring: Alex Perri
Director: Alex Perri
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Late at night, a hardboiled detective (Perri) sits down to write a report. But something is amiss...

I have only two negative things to say about this excellent homage to the hardboiled film noir detectives and their cinematic vehicles of the 1940s and 1950s--because Alex Perri pretty much gets everything right in the minute-and-a-half run-time of "The Detective".

First, the narration provided by the title character is a too much. I understand that Perri was trying to fit all the standard elements of a film noir mystery into a very brief space, but it was so intense that it was bordering on parody. It wasn't bad, just a little over the top.

Second, despite my complaint above, I was drawn into the situation that is set up here... and when the end title card appeared, my reaction was: "That's all?! What happens next?! What about--argh!"

So, my second complaint about "The Detective" is that wanted more than what's here. What Perri delivered was so good and so engaging that I was taken aback when it ended. My complaint, therefore, is that this is vignette is so good that I want MORE! I want to know the story that's unfolding around this tiny glimpse into the shadowy world in which this nameless detective lives. 

Basically, my complaint is actually the highest praise I can give to any bit of creative story-telling that I come across: I enjoyed it so much that I didn't want it to end.

How about you? Check out "The Detective" by clicking below and let me know if you like it as much as I do!

It's Women's History Month...

 ... so here's a 100+ year-old cartoon about women's fashion trends, by cartoonist and children's books author/illustrator Ethel Hays. 

Among Hays' creations were "Flapper Fanny Says" and her self-titled "Ethel" series, which were syndicated to over 500 newspapers during the 1920s and early 1930s. ("Flapper Fanny" appeared daily while "Ethel" was two or more times a week.)

Hays stepped away from newspaper cartooning to focus more on her children and family, but she continued to illustrate children's books.

Betty & Crew has a cure for what ails YOU!

Betty Boop, M.D. (1932)
Starring: Mae Questal (voice of Betty Boop) and William Costello (voices of Bimbo and Ko-Ko)
Directors: Dave Fleischer and Willard Bosky

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Bobo, Ko-ko, and Betty Boop are traveling snake-oil peddlers who use Betty's charms to seal their deals.

 
Nice music, weird plot, and even weirder cartoony results of the miracle tonic that Betty & Friends are hawking. All in all, another wildly creative and zany adventure from the Fleischer Studio. It's also one of those masterful bits of entertainment that needs to be experienced cold--I feel that any else I say about the plot and events of the film will ruin the experience.

Aside from the wild strangeness of this cartoon, I also love it because it lets me imagine Betty Boop's world a bit more clearly. There appears to be villages of humanoids like Bimbo in addition to the cities where humans like Betty live. (Heck, Betty's weird looks could be explained by her being a third kind of being... or maybe some sort of crossbreed? After all, when she was younger, she look a bit like a poodle... :) ) 

Musical Monday with Saro

Start your week off with something a little creepy from an artist I've just discovered. I THINK this a love song? Maybe it's about obsession? about drug use? Whatever it is, it's equal parts pretty and spooky and completely excellent. 

But the video... don't watch it with the lights off!

Please (2019)

Starring: Saro

Director: Alex Cook

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

It's Fanny Friday!

"Flapper Fanny Says" (later just "Flapper Fanny") was a daily single panel cartoon that rose and fell with the popularity of the pop culture popularity of the fun-loving, free-wheeling Flapper Girl. It ran in up to 500 newspapers across America from 1925 until 1940.

Gladys Parker was the second artist to draw the Flapper Fanny, taking over from Ethel Hays in 1930.

The Cave Clown is here, there, and everywhere!

The Disconnected Clown (aka "Mysterious Displacements") (1901)
Starring: Andre Deeds
Director: Georges Méliès

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A clown (Melies) joyously violates the laws of nature and reality in creepy ways.

This is another instance of stage-magician-turned-pioneering-filmmaker Georges Melies using special effects to bring magic tricks to the screen in a way that would be neigh impossible in a live performance. Generally, I favor his films that feature a bit more plot than this one, but the visual effects are so impressive in this one that I can't help but love it. (Plus, the rambunctious joy with which the clown performs his creepy show makes the film all the more fascinating and surreal.)

But don't just take my word for it. Click below and enjoy a couple minutes of pure weirdness and special effects that are pretty convincing even more than 120 years after this film was made.

March 1 is National Smile Day!

 Here are some random smiles in celebration, and to make this Picture Perfect Wednesday complete!