{"id":41426,"date":"2023-10-20T19:46:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T23:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=41426"},"modified":"2023-10-20T19:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T23:48:55","slug":"the-bootleg-files-the-weird-adventures-of-mutt-jeff-and-bugoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/20\/the-bootleg-files-the-weird-adventures-of-mutt-jeff-and-bugoff\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: The Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 845:<\/strong> \u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff\u201d (1973 animated feature). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube and Archive.org.
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\nAMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: <\/strong>The rights holder will not make it available.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: <\/strong>Not likely.<\/p>\n

Leo Tolstoy’s opened his novel Anna Karenina with the extraordinary observation: \u201cHappy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.\u201d A similar consideration can be applied to movies: \u201cGood movies are all alike; every bad movie is bad in its own way.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

Forgive me for desecrating Tolstoy\u2019s wisdom, but it is the only way that I can prepare to assault you with \u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff,\u201d a 1973 animated feature that haphazardly gathered a bunch of short silent cartoons from the 1920s and had them redrawn in color (badly), saddled these films with a dialogue track that had little acquaintance with the action on the screen, and punctuated the proceedings with live action sequences involving a belly dancer. \u201cWeird\u201d is a very mild description of this film\u2019s personality \u2013 words like \u201cstupid\u201d and \u201cdreary\u201d are more descriptive.<\/p>\n

Mutt & Jeff began as comic strip characters created by Bud Fisher in the first decade of the 20th century. In a way, they were the predecessors of Abbott and Costello \u2013 Mutt was the tall conniver who was the alleged brains of the duo while Jeff was the diminutive patsy who usually wound up on the receiving end of the mayhem in their various adventures. The characters became popular with newspaper readers, to the point that Fisher licensed them for two film series, one featuring actors bringing Mutt & Jeff to life and another consisting of animated shorts created by Charles Bowers and Raoul Barr\u00e9. The live-action films were produced between 1911 and 1916, while the cartoons were made between 1916 and 1926, with an astonishing 292 shorts produced.<\/p>\n

When sound came into movies, some of the Mutt & Jeff cartoons were redrawn in a process called Kromocolor and had music and sound effects added. But these reconceived offerings were not popular and the Mutt & Jeff characters remained in the funny pages while other creations became big screen favorites.<\/p>\n

On Halloween in 1971, the New York Times reported Mutt & Jeff would be making a \u201ccomeback\u201d via a feature called \u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff.\u201d This film was credited to William D. Cayton, a boxing promoter who produced several films related to the sport including the Oscar-nominated documentary \u201cJack Johnson.\u201d Cayton had a sideline in children\u2019s television where he imported and re-edited Eastern European films for American viewers. The genesis for Cayton\u2019s Mutt & Jeff film is not clear \u2013 the comic strip was still running in newspapers, though its popularity had waned over time. <\/p>\n

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Rather than create new animation, Cayton and writer Bud Evslin decided to plumb the old silent Mutt & Jeff cartoons. Some of the black-and-white films were shipped to Korea to be redrawn in color and a screenplay was created to link these shorts into some semblance of a running story. The foundation for this endeavor was the 1926 short \u201cSlick Sleuths,\u201d where Mutt & Jeff were detectives chasing a shape-shifting villain called The Phantom. In this new version, Mutt & Jeff are government agents while The Phantom was renamed Bugoff and identified as the Chief of Counter Counter Counterintelligence for the global crime ring SMOGPOO, which stands for both \u201cSubversive Manufacturers of Gruesome Plots On Order\u201d and \u201cSpies Meanies Oddballs Goons Phantoms Ogres Ogeresses.” <\/p>\n

But whereas The Phantom was black in \u201cSlick Sleuths,\u201d Bugoff was redrawn as pink (don\u2019t ask why). He was also given a Boris Badenov-style Russian accent while Mutt\u2019s new voice resembled W.C. Fields and Jeff sounded like a whiney Arnold Stang. <\/p>\n

So, what went wrong? For starters, the framing device for this feature made little to no sense. In each mini-adventure, the soundtrack Bugoff informs the viewer that he is changing himself into different disguises \u2013 he is a whale in one segment, a camel in another, a Mexican bull later on, and then he supposedly inhabits Mutt\u2019s body. But nothing on the screen corresponds with Bugoff\u2019s soundtrack pronouncements of trying to trip up and destroy his espionage foes Mutt & Jeff. Watching this film, it often seems like the wrong soundtrack was applied to the print. Even more bizarre are the live action segments where sultry bellydancer Terence Milo shakes her stuff \u2013 the soundtrack has the male Bugoff insisting the shapely lady is really him!<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that Mutt & Jeff\u2019s vocal antics were on the lame side, with bad quips and puns. Also complicating matters was the fact the characters\u2019 mouths in the original cartoons didn\u2019t move. Thus, watching this film one might assume Mutt & Jeff communicate telepathically, as their words ramble on the soundtrack while their lips stay stoic.<\/p>\n

As for the old Mutt & Jeff cartoons \u2013 well, there is a good reason why none of the 292 cartoons in the series is considered a classic. Not unlike too many of the animated shorts of the silent cinema, the Mutt & Jeff cartoons are stiffly drawn and rely too heavily on charmless slapstick. Of all the genres, animation was the one that benefited the most when sound came into films \u2013 having the added dimension of voice performances and music and sound effects aligned to the on-screen action helped bring a richer dimension to the animated proceedings absent when screen silence reigned. <\/p>\n

Adding to the confusion of \u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff\u201d is a closing gag involving the title heroes\u2019 \u201cboss\u201d \u2013 a news clip of then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. It wasn\u2019t a very funny joke in 1973 and it is even more obscure to any contemporary viewer unaware with American politics of that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff\u201d was marketed to the kiddie matinee circuit, which consisted of morning and afternoon screenings on weekends. This was a strange strategy, as other animated features of that period including Disney\u2019s \u201cRobin Hood,\u201d Hanna-Barbera\u2019s \u201cCharlotte\u2019s Web\u201d and the Charles M. Schulz-inspired \u201cSnoopy Comes Home\u201d were in general release and not segregated to a few weekend screenings. But the film flopped and mostly disappeared \u2013 I don\u2019t believe the film has ever been televised and it was never released in any commercial home video format.<\/p>\n

Today, a faded print of \u201cThe Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff\u201d can be found on YouTube and Archive.org. But unless you are obsessed with off-kilter animation, there is no great reason to rediscover this obscure mess.<\/p>\n