Clock Cleaners, Barton Organ & Pizza

The date is 8-29-1975 and you are at the Landmark Pizza & Pipes in Dallas Texas listening to our very good friend Jerry Bacon play the Barton organ from the Rialto Theatre in Waterloo Iowa. Part of the experience of eating pizza at the Landmark besides getting to hear a great organist and great theatre organ was to watch some great old cartoons being projected from a silent 8mm film projector which sat on the organ console and projected on a screen near the pipes while the organist composed his own musical score to fit the film. This was the case on this date when my father decided to take his audio gear and record Jerry and until this past year this was all we had. Now thanks to the digital age we have once again reunited the cartoon with Jerry's musical score. Now one might suspect that syncing 2 digital files in the modern age of digital editing would be easy, however such was not the case. From what our best guess is, is that the original projector did not have the most stable speed which of course effected Jerry's speed since he was pacing to the film, then you factor in the original reel to reel recorder which had some very minor speed issues as well plus now the age of the tape of which the original recording was on as well as for some reason the missing bird sequence from the 8mm print vs. the this print we were now working from. All of these factors caused the edit hours to grow to where we quit counting. Oh did I mention dad had not seen the pizza print of this cartoon since the date of the audio recording. However as you can guess this was one of those projects that was a labor of love. I hope you enjoy this version of Clock Cleaners as much as we do. Thanks for taking the time too look.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Pizza
• Silent
• Film
• Barton
• Organ
• Dallas
• Texas
• Rialto
• Theatre
• Waterloo
• Iowa
• Wurlitzer
• Cartoon

[victrolaman100]

I love this . Jerry sent me a dvd of it a couple years ago. We have been friends since high school. Jerry is a wonderful organist and friend. He had a small pipe organ in his garage when we were in high school.

[TheProudAmerican777]

The clock reminds me alot of the clock tower in "Kiki's Delivery Service".

[DLLMWL]

This is absolutely wonderful. I've watched so many theatre organ pieces on YouTube, but none like this. This piece shows what a talented organist can do to enhance silent film, which is why we had organs in movie houses of those days.  Thanks to you for recording this live, and making the painstaking efforts to re-sync this with the film. Great work by all.

[TEMPmichaelhansen]

@thorir30

could someone show the super 8mm silent one of this at the beginning, because the copy i saw as a kid explained why there was no sound

others had the same super 8mm and posted excerpts on here

[thorir30]

@TEMPmichaelhansen Yes, Super 8 films were silent untill the 1970s. But the funny thing is that even though it was silent, you could choose betveen black and white or colour prints. B/W was cheaper so I think that was the most comon. Ive been collecting 8mm films for about 10 years now and most of my films are B/W, silent. So I think they were the very most comon.

If you dont mind, I would like to download the soundtrack from this video and sync it to my 8mm copy, then upload it here on youtube.

[thorir30]

@TEMPmichaelhansen Its recorded on a live performance. I love it too.

[TEMPmichaelhansen]

are you ttrying to re create the experience with overdubbed laughter in the background???

i love experiences like this

[TEMPmichaelhansen]

@thorir30

i remember the super 8 mm of this with NO SOUND. someone all these years later showed the projector of it on youtube before selling. i wished someone could show the video of the beginning which explaines why no sound on the super 8 mm...

[TEMPmichaelhansen]

we have a pizza and pipes in san jose california, i went there once, and vaguly remember the organ -then they removed the organ, if this super 8 mm happened i would have loved it

[thorir30]

I am transfering my 8mm movies incluting this one. Its one of my favorites. And what a score! Fantastic! Do you mind if I download the soundtrack to use in my 8mm copy?