Cool Cat (1967)

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Phil Hall

Notable for introducing the first new characters in the brief (1967-69) era of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts cartoons, “Cool Cat” debuted the eponymous feline and his predator, the bumbling Briton Col. Rimfire, in a variation of the Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd hunting romps. The only difference here is that Cool Cat is blissfully unaware that Col. Rimfire is pursuing him. Even more peculiar, the feline star mistakes the colonel’s vehicle – a metallic pink elephant on wheels – for being a real pachyderm and he has a running one-way conversation with the machine.
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Disneyland Dream (1956)

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Phil Hall

One of the funkier aspects of the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry is the inclusion of extraordinarily obscure amateur works alongside Hollywood productions. In 2008, a home movie made in Connecticut in 1956 by Robbins Barstow called “Disneyland Dream” was added to the National Film Registry alongside such classics as “Foolish Wives,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “Flower Drum Song,” “Deliverance,” and “The Terminator.”
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Conrad the Sailor (1942)

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Phil Hall

For every Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck that becomes a pop culture icon, there are countless cartoon characters that get tested in one or a few shorts before being dropped for lacking versatility and viability. Conrad the Cat, a yellow bipedal feline created by Chuck Jones, is an example of a character that was jettisoned after failing to immediately click on the screen.
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Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Phil Hall

When a British secret agent carrying confidential documents is abducted from a train traveling between New York City and Washington, DC, His Majesty’s government calls on Sherlock Holmes to travel across the Atlantic to locate the missing agent and retrieve the documents. Bringing along Dr. Watson, Holmes quickly unravels the mystery behind this disappearance while exposing a Fifth Column spy operation in the nation’s capital.
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Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (1948)

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Phil Hall

One of the most misunderstood (and, subsequently, controversial) characters in animation history is the amply proportioned Black woman who appeared in 19 of the Tom and Jerry shorts. Contemporary sources refer to as “Mammy Two Shoes,” but that name was never used on-screen or in the screenplays – that moniker was first applied incorrectly in a 1975 Film Comment article and stuck ever since. Not only did she not have a name, but viewers never saw her face (outside of a split-second gag in the 1950 “Saturday Evening Puss”) and never truly understood her relationship to the troublesome cat and mouse duo. It is widely assumed she is a maid or housekeeper because she wears an apron, but if that is the case her (presumably white) employers are never shown or even mentioned. In “Saturday Evening Puss,” she refers to the residence as “my house,” suggesting homeownership rather than domestic servitude.
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Jacqueline Kennedy’s Asian Journey (1962)

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Phil Hall

Long before Brett Ratner pointed his cameras at Melania Trump, another First Lady was given the big screen treatment. And while the resulting film may not have been a cinematic classic, at the time it proved to be an invaluable marketing tool for the administration of that First Lady’s husband.
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Soup to Nuts (1930)

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Phil Hall

The roots of the Three Stooges filmography can be traced to this creaky 1930 feature for the Fox Film Corporation, which has received more attention lately than it deserves thanks to the expiration of its copyright and its new status as a public domain work.
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