Posted on 06/09/2019 3:32:17 PM PDT by MNDude
When I was a kid, I loved to wake up Saturday morning to watch The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner hour. I bought the Looney Tunes golden collection which should contain most of the episodes, and it is money well spent. Those episodes never get old.
But I was wondering, is there anyone here old enough to remember how they were originally broadcast back in the 40s and 50s? I doubt they had Saturday morning cartoon lineups back then. Did you have to go to the movie theaters to watch them or what?
They were originally released as shorts shown with Warner Brothers feature films. There were other studios that did the same. Walt Disney Studios was one of the few independent animation studios and leased their animated shorts separate from any feature films before the release of Snow White.
I only remember color. Is your collection b&w?
They were shown between episodes of short “B” movies that were only 35 minutes to an hour long. You’d go to see three 30 minute episodes of buck Rogers or two Charlie Chan Mysteries and the cartoons were used as filler between the main features.
Even when I was a kid in the '60s, they weren't showing them all. Later on, even less.
I’m pretty sure I saw Warner cartoons on TV before the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner hour. I remember when that show debuted. I certainly saw a slew of the earlier cartoons at the movie theater or the drive-in.
I remember when our family got our first TV. It had to be 1955 or 1956. The first show I watched was the Mickey Mouse Club.
Yep, movie theaters. Some Warner DVDs of classic movies of that period give you an option to select “Warner Bros. Night at the Movies”. These presentations include trailers, newsreels, short subjects and a cartoon as one might have experienced it in a theater in the 30s, 40s or 50s.
You know what was amazing about the Looney Tunes? The link to classic American literature. I think some of the Merry Melodies and Tex Avery cartoons had them too.
My family didn’t have TV in the forties.
Saturday morning for me was Space Patrol,
Big John & Sparky, the Buster Brown Show,
and maybe the Lone Ranger.
The fifties and TV brought Crusade Rabbit,
Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Our Gang.
Occasionally theater’s would run them
four in a row....Saturdays were always Looney Tunes lineup..
But then political correctness took over...
We got our first TV in 1956, and I would get up early Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. I don’t remember the names. Howdy Doody and the Mouseketeers were on weekday afternoons after school. Disney was on Sunday evenings, along with Ed Sullivan.
Cartoons were also shown at Drive in theatres. They would show at dusk and run until it was dark enough for the main feature. Not sure when drive in first came into existence, must have been late 30’s? or just after the War.
In the early 50’s it was newsreel, cartoon, short ‘cliff hanger’ and then the main event movie.
Yes, the old ones were originally shown in movie theaters. That’s why the old ones had to be funny to two different audiences—the kids and the adults. The ones from the forties often have lots of references to the war, rationing, etc and they sometimes feature the stars of the day—Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, etc.
Movies were a great deal. Usually two feature films and between a newsreel, at least one cartoon and a serial or two. Many people went at least once a week because it was an affordable night out. They did rip you off on the candy though. Movies would charge 6¢ for a candy bar that cost 5¢ everywhere else.
One of my earliest memories of a cartoon was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKlj9d6J5v8
Now considering Disney had made Bambi in ‘42 this was pretty bad.
I remember, even as a kid, staring at it, wondering why it was so weird.
All different kinds. The frog singimg Hello my baby. There are some WWII era ones on YouTube like Gremlins from the Kremlin. Some great ones.
Right after the previews and just before the movie. We didn’t always get a cartoon, but quite often did.
They were shorts shown in the movies. There would be a couple of cartoons, a newsreel and the feature.
For a modern rebirth of ‘30s animation,
get the video game “Cuphead.” You might
even be able to download it for free.
The original cartoon shorts were in the movie theaters.
I was regaled many a times by my parents who would tell me about the cartoons, the news reels, a short subject and the double features you got for your nickel. (I believed it all, except for the nickel.)
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