Before the Show

[pasithea]

I tend to watch a lot of old movies and when I do, I often wish the movies were presented the way they originally were displayed. Like, I'd so love it if they included the cartoon and newsreel that would have gone with the film when it originally broadcast. Probably not practical for copyright and licensing reasons alone, nevermind that the same news/cartoon may have got played with more than one film or varied regionally so it might not be practical. But something at least from the same month would be really cool. Add a lot of the feel of the show.

On a related note, I was thinking about how sad it was that they no longer put cartoons in front of films and I wonder... Do you suppose it was really cost that made them drop the cartoons or was it that the actors and directors got tired of frequently being compared to the cartoon by negative reviewers. I don't know this is true but I imagine it. I bet if one looked up old papers that many of the negative movie reviews would compare someone's acting skill to Daffy Duck or handling their lines like Porky Pig.

Anyhow... That concludes this random musing.

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

That's one of the few good memories I have of weekends as a kid. There was this show on PBS, "Matinee at the Bijou" and it really was formatted like going to the movies in the '30s. You'd get a newsreel keeping you current with the '30s news, and I don't remember cartoons but there were some truly awful serials (the one I remember was about Atlantis) and then a feature length film (the one I remember best was this terrible movie about a mad scientist draining spinal fluid from people to keep his pet brains alive, and people thinking that a vampire was behind it instead).