I’VE NEVER MADE LOVE IN TECHNICOLOR BEFORE: Confessions of a Child Raised on Budget Videos

When I was in kindergarten, my video collection was epic. Toys ‘R’ Us had a bin full of low-priced kiddie videos produced by substandard companies like Goodtimes and HGV (“We make collectbility a way of life”), most of which contained about three or four public domain cartoons from the “golden age of animation.” They were always recorded in EP mode, which led to frequent battles with the tracking button and occasional instances of the VCR chewing up the film.

My parents bought me a bundle of these. Sometimes they were as a reward for some big accomplishment like graduating junior kindergarten or learning to tie my shoelaces; sometimes they were given to me because my 4-year-old cuteness was so darn delightful; and sometimes they were just given to me because a 99-cent video was an affordable way to keep me busy for the afternoon.

My favourite video was Fifty Classic Cartoons – that’s right, one of the cheesier video distribution companies stretched the EP mode to its limit by cramming almost six hours of content onto a single videotape. The package design was incredibly seductive: it had a picture of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Popeye, Superman, Betty Boop, and Casper the Friendly Ghost cavorting merrily together. All of these heavily copyrighted characters are in cartoons that have wound up in the public domain.

Picture quality was horrid and the tracking button had to be put into overdrive, but I watched it endlessly, and while the majority of the cartoons on it were low-grade crap, there were still quite a few gems.

There were such Looney Tunes classics as The Wabbit who Came to Supper (1942) and Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939). I learned at a very young age that Bugs Bunny could kick Mickey Mouse’s cheerful little ass any day of the week. Then there were the surreal comic creations from the Max Fleischer studios like All’s Fair at the Fair (1938), which were trippy before the concept of ‘trippy’ was even invented.

Popeye, I’m afraid, introduced generations of children to the idea of a formula plot. Furthermore, I could never understand why at the start of every cartoon, Bluto and Popeye would be equal in Olive Oyl’s affections, despite the fact that Popeye had saved Olive from rape and brutality at the hands of Bluto in every single previous cartoon. Still, at his best, the spinach-addicted sailor starred in some of the best cartoons of all time, particularly the great Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936).

If you liked superpowers that weren’t enhanced by steroid products such as spinach, you were bound to enjoy the striking, highly stylized Fleischer Superman cartoons, the obvious precursor to the 1990s Batman animated television program.

These weren’t just great cartoons; they were great filmmaking, and I loved ‘em. Still, I loved a lot of stuff when I was four and not all of it was good. One such cartoon series that would commonly be found on low-grade VHS tapes was The New Three Stooges (1965-66). The format for this show would be as follows: a live action comedy sketch with Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe, a cartoon segment featuring animated version of the Stooges, and another piece of live-action comedy to wrap things up.

Unfortunately, this was not exactly top-tier Stooge material. Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe were 68, 64, and 56 years old respectively, and whenever they slapped each other in the face or assaulted one another with some blunt instrument, you could almost hear the bones cracking. Furthermore, the series was in colour, which revealed in startling detail the greyness of Curly Joe’s stubble, the vivid liver spots of Larry’s skin, and the industrial-strength tar that must have been used to dye Moe’s hair. The filmmaking technique of the live-action segments was essentially to plop the camera down and let the geriatric Stooges do their old routines on a low-budget soundstage, with as few camera set-ups as possible. One of the skits was set on a beach, giving us ample opportunity to see the Stooges cavort in their skin-tight, full-body swimsuits, and to marvel at the sight of Curly Joe’s thick, rolling flab. Not a pretty sight.

Slightly less painful were the animated segments. In cartoon form, it was much easier to ignore the heavy bags under Moe’s eyes and the huge man-breasts of Curly Joe. The animated versions of the Stooges kind of looked like their human counterparts, but only if you squinted really hard. The animation, which went at a rate of roughly four frames per minute, was a slight step up from Clutch Cargo.

“Dated” was the name of the game for most of the cartoons on these public domain videos. Many of them were produced during the Second World War, and contained no shortage of references to rationing, war bonds, and food hoarding (the classic Daffy the Commando (1943) climaxes with Daffy Duck whacking Hitler over the head with a mallet). Jokes about Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and George Jessel further confused my four-year-old self.

The cartoons were also dated in another aspect: they were astoundingly politically incorrect. When these videos were being produced, I don’t think anybody paid much attention to the content, so on my Fifty Classic Cartoons video is the Bugs Bunny cartoon Fresh Hare (1942), which ends with a scene in which Bugs, Elmer Fudd, and a chorus of Canadian Mounties sing “Camptown Ladies” in blackface. This particular moment has been cut from Warner Brothers’ television version of the cartoon.

On another generically named video (something like Fun-Filled Cartoons or Fun Cartoon Hour) one of the most notoriously racist cartoons ever made, Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat (1941), was unleashed on an unsuspecting kindergarten-age public. A Walter Lantz production with voices by Mel Blanc, Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat was about ‘Lazytown’ (population: 123 ½), a town full of lethargic, watermelon-eating black people. Ah, but not one cotton-pickin’ minute goes by until a lively young black woman races into town singing the title ditty and rejuvenating Lazytown in the process. Stereotypes ensue. (For the curious, this cartoon can be seen on YouTube.)

In preparation for this article, I rewatched my Fifty Classic Cartoons video, and while my enthusiasm for certain sections of it has dimmed in the years since kindergarten (yes, Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe, I’m looking at you), my opinion on the better cartoons remains high.

In one of the best of the Popeye’s, Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939), Popeye finds himself in Princess Olive Oyl’s palace, nervously wooing his object of affection. Shaking and sweating, Popeye mutters under his breath, “I’ve never made love in Technicolor before.” No amount of tracking problems can ruin that.

Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #19 (the ever-popular VHS RIP issue).