2008

BLOGCAA: Articles From A Time When Critics...

Muttley speaks! An unusually eloquent conversation between...

ToughPigs.com: Remembering Bernie

Down With Dagwood!

From pages 82, 83 and 129 of Argosy, “the largest-selling fiction-fact magazine for...

A picture of Henry Winkler’s London honeymoon from...

“It’s a bit of fun!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

Biography of a One-Man Menagerie

A treat from the archives for you today - this is the official biography of Mel Blanc which Warner...

“Let’s go, is it Mand?”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

The above image was taken from a Grange Hill comic strip...

Bill Thompson: King Of Wimps

“Not in the way you’re thinking!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

"You start by being polite and lying"

It’s hard to remember a time when Robin Williams wasn’t considered a tiresome embarrassment.  At...

“Wilco, Mr Brittas!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

We Don't Wish To Know That

As you can’t have failed to notice, we’ve been celebrating some failed catchphrases here...

Advert from page 48 of Screen International, Saturday the...

Who The Hell's John Junkin?

From the ‘Bits’ section on page 5 of City Limits, 3rd to 9th of February 1984: One of...

“My mum will do her raving nana!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

Popeye II

You would have thought that after Popeye Hollywood would be trying its utmost to keep Robin Williams...

Shelley Vision

Previously on this blog we have lamented the career of Shelley Duvall post-Popeye, how she fell into...

“Well ain’t that cute? BUT IT’S WROOOOOONG!!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

Not so Dizzy Dame

From Girl About Town, 27/4/1981 Popeye’s Gawky Goil Gone are the days when film stars turned...

In this context, 'combine' becomes an...

Just to break up the Popeye onslaught a bit, here’s a news item from Starburst no. 26, concerning...

“Very much so.”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

This one's got legacies!

The feature film Popeye is often regarded as a mass-murderer of a movie, having serially killed the...

Popeye Animator ID

“Thatcher’s Britain…!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

A pretty naturalistic figure

Last Monday (14/7/08) your trusty-yet-slack STTA pals trundled down to the South Bank for the latest...

“Kiss my chuddies, man!”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

blogcaa

“Very nice, very tasteful”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

The Turkey Has Landed

Talk About The Passion have launched this week’s theme of comics with a poll of the greatest...

With the news that John Cleese has just recorded...

“Any questions?”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

What If The Machine That Repairs The...

Interesting thing about the two hit animated films of this Summer: both appear to borrow rather a...

“Oh, nice(!)”
— Catchphrases That Somehow...

Hanna-Barbera is good for your health according to this...

“I was trying to get something matching up to the lyric at...”
— Scott Walker on his artistic...

Genius With No Strings Attached

Most of you will probably have been reading the recent postings of puppet-related articles over on...

Movillis, Stipenditz, Killotzil

Another unproduced television series based on a comic strip for you today, this time for George...

By comparison with the stark simplicity of the...

Chilling teaser ad for When the Wind Blows from the 17th to...

Strip For Action

Well, the BFI Southbank’s current season of Comic-Book Movies is in full swing, so let’s...

From page 7 of the RadioTimes, Thursday the 13th of December...

Unproduced Magazine Of The Day

Here’s one of the biographies from the Contributors page of the first issue of COMEDY...

Possibly the least appealing advert for anything ever. From...

“In America the press are already hailing it as ‘the...”
— Peter Cook on Yellowbeard,...

Are We Having Fun Yet?

We here at Smarter Than The Average love learning of movies and television productions that were...

He’s at it again! After kicking the arm off the...

This ridiculous inflatable is currently on display in the...

Yes, he really did just give a nod to...

The final edition of Footlights at 125: a Retrospective airs tonight at 18:30 on Radio 4. The series...

Meeting Adjourned

So I’ve just finished reading National Lampoon’s Big Book of True Facts - a compilation...

Do you recognise the above screengrab? It’s a frame of...

Listen

When The Simpsons overtook The Flintstones as the...

Unillustrated

Despite over fifty years writing and performing comedy, there is one routine above all others that...

George Carlin: 1937 - 2008

From The Hollywood Reporter Comedy Special issue, 25th February 1997: 40 Years Of Comedy George...

He Is Dressed In A Tuxedo And Cowboy...

Recent posts on this blog have dealt with the subjects of Groucho Marx, the late Cyd Charisse and...

"It Must Be Some Symbolism - I Think...

Come the 21st Century and, having previously provided a couple of voices uncredited for the 1998...

I think Rory McGrath might've wrote that...

The first episode of BBC RADIO 4’s Footlights At 125 – A Retrospective airs on Tuesday 17 June, at...

Listen

Paul Whitehouse & Simon Day at Regents Park 2006: See...

It’s The Fireworks Talking: Daniel Kitson’s...

Weltanschauung: Daniel Kitson’s first Regents Park...

The Arts and How They Was Done: John Ramm (right) gets a dig...

Galumphing Back... is back.

For some wild and crazy reason, Tumblr removed our post from 9th May, 2008. Possibly because it was...

Galumphing Back: Footnotes Ahoy!

[1] One famous episode of the Dante-overseen Eerie Indiana (“Reality Takes A Holiday”, U.S. TX:...

"I hear Lester Freamon's up on a wire."

Leonardo Dan Van Dinci!

Riddle Me This

Was the only person to attend both the premieres for Batman Returns and Batman Forever Faye Dunaway?...

Neil's Last Stand

From page 32 of City Limits, 21st December 1985 to 3rd January 1986: Neil’s last stand ●...

Spotted this lunchtime outside the Vue Leicester Square -...

Beetle Juice, Beetle Juice, Beetle...

Rejoice, good readers, because in three months time, after over a decade of being available in a...

Cannes 2008: La Panoplie Coutre des...

From Libération Extra #9, a supplement which came with issue 8401 of Libération, 10th May 2008, here...

Cannes 2008: Giggles in Catherine...

One of the perks of being at the Cannes Film Festival and Market are the free periodicals that can...

Cannes 2008: One Froggy Evening - Looney...

“They’re the crown princes of animation. They’re the international Ambassadors of...

Harvey Korman: 1927 - 2008

Last Wednesday I was sitting in a deckchair on the Macé Beach in Cannes gazing up at Mel...

Cannes 2008: The Animated Century - The...

Last month on this blog we were complaining that there wasn’t a recent documentary about...

That terrifying poster for We Are The Champions!?, Cannes...

Cannes 2008: Light of Olympia - The...

As I’m sure everyone reading this knows, for two weeks in May of every year Cannes is home to...

Cannes 2008: Part Deux

Bonjour again folks. Zon here, at home again having just returned from an exciting and exhausting...

“You’ll be using cripples and blind...

As promised almost, ooh, two weeks ago now, here’s the second article STTA managed to dig up in...

But Will They Show Pepé Le Pew?

Bonjour folks. Should you happen to find yourself at the Cannes Film Festival this evening but, like...

Ren and Stimpy and Pinky and the Brain are back in fashion...

Dear Victoria

As part of our ever-expanding archive of materials on that insane Wood and Walters sketch with the...

Get Lost!

A letter printed in the Daily Star, Friday 19th March 1982: I WAS disgusted and amazed at the bad...

Lily. Illy. Yill. Toby. Boty. Otby.

Galumphing Back

Please see our post here.

The Woman with 740 Children

Thought you’d read all there was to read about the Woman with 740 Children sketch from...

Charlie bloody Catchpole - being crap...

From The Sun, 16th January 1982. Note the reference to Alan Bennett’s Play For Today,...

Dish Night

From page 5 of the January 1979 issue of Take One, here’s their regular gossip column....

JULIE WALTERS and VICTORIA WOOD as they appeared in...

"Miss Wood Needs The Discipline Of A...

From the middle of Hazel Holt’s Reviews column, page 26 of Television Today, 8th January...

Advert for Twyman Films, from page 11 of the October 1976...

“I have a tattoo on my most private part of Mickey and Minnie...”
— Janet Jackson

Shows We Wish Were Still On Television

From page 23 of the Times Educational Supplement, Friday 19th August 1988: CARTOON CLASSICS...

Baby Aches

From page 31 of the TV Times, 16th to 22nd January 1982: Victoria’s wail of an ideaSaid Victoria...

It Takes Two To Skidoo...

It’s just been announced that Skidoo will be screening as one of the Curzon Soho’s...

Alvin and the Chipmunks making an in-store appearance at...

A Fake Giant Among Real Pygmies

Friz On Film, the documentary created especially for volume four of The Looney Tunes Golden...

Dartman's World Of Wonder

Everyone knows about Fellini, but it’s less well-known...

From the sublime to the ridiculous: in addition to the...

"Those Pundits Who Insisted That The...

One of the pleasant things about researching a blog like this is the amount of other fascinating...

You Dirty Rat

Page 3 of the Times, Thursday 25th August 1983: Big time beckons Roland Rat By David...

As a follow-up to yesterday’s piece about the missing...

Whither Wally Weazle?

Here’s a revelation for you - the rediscovery of a long-lost Muppet. From the Sun, Saturday...

"Oh, Mr Lowe! I'm Such A Fan!"

Presented at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, on Wednesday the 29th of March 1989, The 61st...

Advert announcing production on what would eventually be...

Press ad for the first season of The Simpsons from page 61...

Just received this image in an email from Panda Security....

It Pays To Be In Talkies

At www.the-numbers.com, there is a list of the ‘All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box...

"I've Got It! We Can Retitle The...

In issue 258 of British satirical magazine Private Eye, dated Friday 5th November 1971, there are...

Move Over, Mickey!

From the Daily Mail, Saturday 30th January 1982: MOVE OVER, MICKEY! MICKEY MOUSE and Donald Duck...

Piece about ordering promotional buttons from the US...

Humour: My Sixth Sense by Walt Disney

From Films and Filming Vol. 7 No. 5, February 1961: Humour: My Sixth SenseBy WALT DISNEY Few people...

Page 9 of The Hollywood Reporter, Friday 10th April 1987.

Good Grief, Look Who's In Movies

From page 10 of Premiere magazine (no, not that Premiere magazine - a short-lived British...

Trade ad for Universal Studio’s Musical Miniatures...

Steve Gerber

Steve Gerber has passed away. Through illness, he continued with his blog, which you can read at...

The Guinness Commercials of Pete and...

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore made a series of advertisements for Guinness’s new...

Trade ad to announce the upcoming press promotion of the...

From page 15 of Channels magazine, November 1987. The...

Daffy Dittys: The Lady Said No, Choo...

From the Motion Picture Herald, 11th May 1946: THE LADY SAID NO (UA)Daffy Ditties The young hero of...

This was in the 7th February 2008 issue of London Lite. Have...

Northwest Hounded Police trade ad, August 1946.

Daffy Dittys: The Cross Eyed Bull and...

From the Motion Picture Herald, 4th November 1944: THE CROSS-EYED BULL (UA)Daffy Dittys Larry Morey...

Daffy Dittys: New-Type Cartoons From...

From page 18 of Today’s Cinema, 7th March 1945: New-Type Cartoons From United FIRST of a new...

Starting off our collation of press clippings on the Daffy...

This picture originally appeared on page 47 of the...

A Salute to the Marilyn Munsters

Ask anybody who the most interesting character in The Munsters was and you’d be unlikely to...

A Night of A Night in Casablanca

Two articles from the Manager’s Round Table section of the Motion Picture Herald, 10th August...

Press advertisment to promote the Interstate chain of...

Daffy Dittys

John Sutherland and Larry Morey, who had been highly successful writers and producers at Disney,...

Wallace Wood's Official Shit List

Wallace Wood, unarguably one of the world’s greatest ever comic book artists, used to have two...

Animex International Festival of Animation &...

We've Been Waiting Since February 1973...

Hagar the Horrible was first published twenty-five years ago today according to the Arf Lovers blog,...

Mickey Mouse competition poster, spotted in Tesco’s...

In & Out of the Inkwell