Edison Film Tricks -- The Happy Song

Well, this is a case of me finding a short short short film, then a few longer ones because I had more music than film, and then had more film than music and...

I think I got it worked out!

This is a trio of Edison shorts from 1900, filmed in his studio, and I think the "magician/professor" is played by the same man in all three. They're very vaudeville, and feature probably the first film 'special effect'.

You stop the film, add or remove actors or props, and voila. Magic. It's actually hard to see where the cuts are, they seemed pretty good at it even in 1900.

The first was part of a series featuring the ne'er do well "Happy Hooligan", he was sort of a clown who was afraid of clowns (and who wouldn't be afraid of the monster clown in that clip?)

The next clip shows a "professor" outdoing Mephisto with his "magic". A sort of bizarre little allegory, except one wonders how the scientist got those powers of summoning.

And the last which is my favorite. It ends with a trio of geese. They look like Embdens to me. Why geese? Why not doves?

Geese are easier to see on camera!

The music is "The Happy Song" and that's not actually it's name, that's just what it got called because it sounds happy. Yes, ph33r R l33t titling skillz, yo.

This is the work in progress, and considering Tedd first composed it oh, back in the 1970s, I think it's due for a sneak peak.

There's no real 'finish' for it, it's rough, you'll hear dulcimer in with the Moog and guitar, and in all, it's still just a happy song.

You can get the Edison films from the US Library of Congress under "Edison", and a lot more. They're in poor shape, but they're still watchable.

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Edison
• Magic
• Happy
• Hooligan
• Mephisto
• Song
• Moog
• Voyager
• Dulcimer
• Tedd
• Smith

[cairnsyda2nd]

Gday,

I was just wondering is there anyway i can get a copy of this video. Or can i download it from somwhere. Also do u know where i could get similar videos.

Cheers

Dan