George Pal's Puppetoons: The Long Road to High-Def

In the 1930s, animator George Pal was virtually the Walt Disney of Europe, producing a string of extraordinary stop-motion featurettes (mostly soft-sell commercials), later christened "The Puppetoons" and "Madcap Models." Filmed using "replacement animation" techniques where puppets' heads and limbs were replaced from frame-to-frame, these phenomenal little films were uniquely stylish and musical, and imbued with Pal's distinctively whimsical charm. Pal emigrated to American in 1938 where he continued producing the series for Paramount Pictures. (His American films were repeatedly nominated for Academy Awards and won once.) 

But since the Puppetoons departed movie theaters after their original run in the 1940s, seeing them in a form that even vaguely approximated their original Technicolor beauty has been next to impossible. A lucky few have seen them in their original glory at Los Angeles revival screenings. Most of the people who have seen a sizable chunk of Pal's American output only saw them as shoddy, ragged black and white 16mm dupes on seven a.m. kiddie shows fifty years ago. When I began researching Pal's life and films for his authorized biography, finding the entire run of the Puppetoons became like a quest for some arcane, seldom-seen, and nearly-extinct creature.

The only widely-available source for them on video was the Pal compilation THE PUPPETOON MOVIE, but that only delivered a fraction of Pal's oeuvre. To see the rest, I was forced to scavenge high and low--to sweat, bleed, and dig. I watched a tattered, black and white, silent (oy!) 8mm print of Pal's Dr. Seuss adaptation "And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" on a projector with a chattering gate that I had to steady by jabbing a pencil next to it. The dilapidated, splicey 16mm print of "The Truck That Flew" was also monochrome, but at least it had sound. I practically did somersaults from unbridled joy when some animation aficionado friends loaned me their second- and third-generation VHS copies of some decent color copies of shorts like "Date With Duke" starring Duke Ellington. Then came the motherlode: a multi-disc DVD set containing every last one of Pal's American Puppetoons that some hardcore animation collectors had assembled. The prints used for it were generally beet-red and missing their original Paramount titles, but I WAS ACTUALLY ABLE TO SEE THEM. Sasquatches, Jersey Devils, and Chupacabras have nothing on the elusive North American Puppetoon. 

Now, at long last, B2MP, a boutique video label, has released THE PUPPETOON MOVIE in a two-disc limited edition Blu-Ray, which I cannot recommend highly enough. With a goodly portion of its content rendered in high-def, this set is a revelation for fans of animation, Pal, the Puppetoons, and even Dr. Seuss. Splitting at the seams with extras, the highlight of the set for me is the new transfers of seven of Pal's shorts that have never before received a proper video release. Highlights include Pal's adaptations of Dr. Seuss's afore-mentioned "Mulberry Street" and "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins." The lush color, stylish, sleek animation, and gorgeous design (one-third-European folk art, one-third Dr. Seuss, and another third Art Deco) are restored to a peak of quality that they haven't experienced in nearly seventy years. (Theodore Geisel devotees might be disconcerted by the lack of adherence to the Dr. Seuss "look," but bear in mind that his now-archetypal style was only beginning to gain widespread popularity when these shorts were filmed. The name "Dr. Seuss" didn't carry the sacredness that decades worth of readers have conferred upon it.) 

B2MP has made a quantum leap forward in rectifying the gross widespread neglect that the Puppetoons have received on video. THE PUPPETOON MOVIE itself, which contains Pal masterpieces like "John Henry and the Inky-Poo," "Tulips Shall Grow," and "Tubby the Tuba," here outclasses its previous incarnations on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD. Also included in the set is a high-def transfer of Pal's first feature film THE GREAT RUPERT, looking and sounding better than previous substandard versions. The extras on the set are plentiful, including a rare and particularly interesting filmed interview with Pal, discussing among other things his film THE POWER. 

It's my profound hope that, someday, someone will release Pal's entire American run of animated films on DVD or Blu-Ray--maybe even with a gaggle of his European shorts thrown in. (Note: Pal produced many shorts in France, Holland, and elsewhere that have seldom--if ever--been seen in the United States. Photos and sometimes only titles offer clues to them, but they remain mostly buried.) For now, though, THE PUPPETOON MOVIE Blu-Ray set is the single finest presentation that this outstanding series has ever received on video. The fifty-dollar price tag might seem off-putting in this age of free content, but it is worth every last cent. To my fellow Puppetoon-seekers and enthusiasts, and to animation-lovers everywhere, this set is requisite viewing.  

The set is available directly from B2MP at: 

http://b2mp.net/products/the-puppetoon-movie-blu-ray/

And here is a sample of this set's visual quality:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1gnri4_and-to-think-i-saw-it-on-mulberry-street_shortfilms