Old Macdonald Had A Farm (cartoon)
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| Old Macdonald Had A Farm | |
| Noveltoons/Screen Songs series | |
| Directed by | Seymour Knetiel |
|---|---|
| Animation by | Orstes Calpini Otto Fueuer |
| Music by | Winston Sharples |
| Produced by | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date | 7 June 1946 |
| Format | Technicolor, 7 mins |
| Language | English |
[edit] Synopsis
Old Macdonald is tired, and he gets happy as soon as the music starts. The duck snores, causing the rabbit to play by choking the duck. The pig plays the stovepipe like a tuba, and the sheep sing "Mary Had A Little Lamb". He blows smoke revaling a racist blackface gag, that was cut out in some prints. The duck is annoyed by the horse, in the end he blows a balloon,with a jar wrap. The cat tries to eat the mouse with a violin, but the mouse plays the harp in his mouth using the cat's whiskers. The horse goes jazzy with the trumpet, and the chicks do the jitterbug, and after the dance sequence, Old Macdonald asks the audience to sing along with the Bouncing Ball to Old Macdonald Had A Farm. The version of the song featured in the cartoon still exists, yet it's not sung as much as the version today. Each animal sung is sung in every verse, and the boys and girls alternate, not done during the latter day Screen Songs. Then the animals go in a conga line, the iris circle moves in a funny position, and it ends with the Paramount or NTA logo.
[edit] History
When Paramount fired Max and Dave Fleischer, and renamed their studio Famous Studios, one of the things kept by Max Fleischer's son-in-law Seymour Kneitel was the Screen Songs series. These were the first bouncing ball sing-along films made in Technicolor. When U.M&.M. TV Corp. retitled the cartoons, NTA retitled the cartoon.
[edit] Availbility
The original Paramount titles are lost, however it was thought that one print from a public domain VHS tape from UAV Corp. had the original titles. Most prints are from National Telefilm Associates (NTA), and some prints have an end Paramount logo with a "Color by Technicolor" title on the bottom of the screen, in the beginning and end.
The UAV video having the original titles is a mystery, because the tape is almost near extinction. In a recent e-mail to animation historian Jerry Beck, he replied the following about finding a restored print of Old Macdonald. "UCLA has the original negatives with the original titles and nitrate film prints. I checked. Have I seen them myself? No. But they exist and can be restored." The UAV video has many broken copies, caused by either VCR problems or little kids breaking the tape on purpose.
It was recently discovered that the film had the original titles on the tape. There were reissues of the VHS tape, and they cut out the Paramount mountain, and showed a cheap THE END, after the conga line sequence.
