Eshbaugh's Wizard cartoon

Early animated Oz story by the Ted Eshbaugh studio from 1933 and featuring music by Carl Stalling. It was intended to be the first in a series of Oz cartoons but from what I understand it was never released theatrically because of copyright disputes and the project died.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• eshbaugh
• stalling
• wizard
• oz

[comedrac]

Computers would ruin this cartoon, they would completely destroy the color scheme, and thin the drawings.

[fromthesidelines]

This was filmed in Technicolor, but Walt Disney had the exclusive rights to use "three-strip" {full} Technicolor in his short cartoons from 1932 through '35. Studios such as Eshbaugh's had to use the "two-strip" process, which wasn't as vibrant, and looked a little better than "Cinecolor"...

[gnikcohs]

Great stuff, loved the helmets on the guards, the chimeric critters hatched from the eggs, and that incredibly ominous, ever enlarging egg. Pretty free adaption of Dorothy's story, but OZ is a place where the imagination runs free and changes and adapts things: takes absolutely nothing away from the worth of the original books (or movies, stage or radio plays using the same universe). I wish there had been more.

[RayPointer]

Aside from the historical significance, this is not a very good cartoon since the story is so truncated. The other characters such as The Lion, Glinda, and the Wicked Witch are missing. While the animation has its moments, it is also not well realized for the most part.

The illusion of "full animation" does not always make for "good" animation especially if it is confused or misdirected. In this, the characters "go through the motions." But they lack "character definition" and expression.

[RayPointer]

@fromthesidelines The two-color Technicolor Process was limited to two primary colors, usually red and green. In this we see red and blue, which were the two colors available in Cinecolor. Not seeing a print closer to the original source makes this difficult to fully appreciate since there is a lot of color distortion obtained by reprinting on modern color stocks. That is why the Emerald City looks mostly blue. Also the transfer is not color balanced. It's too cyan.

[RobertaGregory]

This is what I would call a rather loose adaptation. I don't recall all the birds and bees making out in the book OR the movie. Toto putting his butt up to another dog's face (or did the chair have a dog's head on it??) was kind of weird. Highly imaginative to say the least.

[Londelle89]

I remember this animated short! I had a VHS with 50 great cartoons. Wow...good times.

[angelwingz286]

another great betty classic

[sakara18235]

dorothy looks betty boopish.

[VideyoJunkei]

2:08-thats what the soundtrack looks like!!