Saturday Morning Cartoons: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (1981-82)

Posted on August 20, 2022 by Emilie Black

On this week’s episode of Saturday Morning Cartoons, come with us and reminisce about the early 1980s, a time when we got cartoons about just about anything and everything, when Around the World in 80 Days, Tom Sawyer, and a few others were turned into dogs (and sometimes cats) stories. The focus of today is on one particular instance of this that spawned a few reboots and films: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. Based on the book by Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers), something that has also been adapted by Disney with Mickey in the lead. Here, D’Artagnan is our lead, as usual, and he is now known as Dogtanian, because why not!

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The Bootleg Files: Duck Amuck Reanimate Jam

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 795: “Duck Amuck Reanimate Jam” (2020 fan film that reimagines the classic cartoon “Duck Amuck.”).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unauthorized remake of a copyright-protected work.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nil.

In 2018, an unlikely project caught the fancy of animation addicts: a group of 90 animators were gathered together to reanimate the 1942 Warner Bros. cartoon classic “The Dover Boys at Pimento University.” Each animator was given a small slice of the cartoon to reanimate – the soundtrack of the original film remained and the scene had to adhere to the basics of the sequences’ actions, but the animators were able to redesign the characters and animation style in any manner they desired.
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The Bootleg Files: New Year’s Eve

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 790: “New Year’s Eve” (1948 Soviet animated short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Not that I can determine.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe in an anthology collection of Soviet-era cartoons.

Here we are at the end of another year, and to say goodbye to 2021 I decided to lean back into the Cold War era and dig up a wonderful but obscure animated short from the Soviet Union that takes place on New Year’s Eve. The film, not surprisingly, is called “New Year’s Eve” and it is one of the most delightfully odd relics of the house that Lenin built.
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The Bootleg Files: Sadie Hawkins Day

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 784: “Sadie Hawkins Day” (1944 animated short based on Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” comic strip).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On VHS.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A film that fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Only if someone restores the full series of animated shorts.

In 1934, Al Capp introduced the comic strip “Li’l Abner” that offered sharp satirical humor within the setting of a burlesque of Appalachian subculture – or what an earlier generation unapologetically referred to as hillbillies. Capp’s work quickly caught the favor of the newspaper-reading public and the characters and backwoods catchphrases that populated the comic strip quickly became fixtures in pop culture.
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The Bootleg Files: Tin Pan Alley Cats

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 765: “Tin Pan Alley Cats” (1943 Warner Bros. animated short).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Withheld from release due to politically incorrect humor.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

In today’s woke environment, the possibility of giving a second chance to the long-banned racially insensitive Warner Bros. cartoons collectively known as the “Censored Eleven” is nil. At least one of these cartoons, the 1943 “Tin Pan Alley Cats,” is certainly deserving to be kept out of circulation – but not so much for its broadly demeaning caricatures as for the laziness and sloppiness that went into its creation.
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The Bootleg Files: The Crunch Bird

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 758: “The Crunch Bird” (1971 Academy Award-winning animated short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: It was part of a Goodtimes Home Video VHS release at one point.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Only in an anthology of Oscar-winning shorts.

Here is a great question for Oscar trivia buffs: which Academy Award-winning production had the shortest running time? If you are reading this column, the answer is a bit obvious: it is “The Crunch Bird,” the 1971 winner of the Best Animated Short Subject Oscar, which only ran a mere two minutes.
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