Saturday, January 05, 2008

Making em Move



I got this lovely youtube message tonight:

Sally, Thanks for posting your cartoons. I first saw these in 1980 at the impressionable age of 12. In 1982 I saw you speak at the Plaza Theater in Petaluma, Ca.. You were one of the influences that led me into animation. However, being hunched over a drawing board drove me nuts, so I became a photographer. I have such an affection for these. Thanks again!


BACKSTORY:
The Plaza Theater ran repertory cinema. My friend booked the films. My show consisted of a long reel of old 16mm cartoons that had influenced me, and then my own films. I did a dog and pony act-- no, I spoke a bit at the end of the show.

SO:
The message quoted above brought back a memory that haunts me still.

That night, at the Plaza Theater, my good girlfriend who'd set up the booking said, "Let's go across the street and have a few drinks. We'll come back when the films are done and you can talk and sign autographs."

"hey, okay, pal o mine."

When we got back to the theatre we were told that the projectionist had projected the films UPSIDE DOWN, but NO ONE had complained. They thought I did it on purpose. Hippies, god bless them.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Asbestos! ASBESTOS!
Great story and wonderful movie.

So your NEXT show––was that the time
when you decided you should bring your beer to the theatre instead? Instead of going across the street (So you could make sure the movies were shown right side up)? Was that when you stood up to speak and your beer can rolled from the back of the theatre to the front?

Anonymous said...

That is too funny and horrible about the upside-down films. And only an audience of artists could think upside down was on purpose!

Armageddon said...

Great cartoon. Just love the old black and white stuff before political correctness. BTW Wasn't that Leopold conducting the orchestra?

Sally said...

lin, the awful clanky can screening was five years before at the Palace of Fine Arts, as I remember it anyway.

I really felt guilty leaving my own show and the guilt compounded mightily when I learned what had happened.

fearless, the cartoon was made by the Van Beuren Studio in New York, one of my favorite cartoon studios. They used to run this cartoon on tv all the time when I was a kid.

Anonymous said...

They used to run that cartoon on TV all the time when you were a kid? Where was I? Not fair! I'm mad. (Payback by James Brown––that's how I feel.) My parents were so strict with the TV; they never let us watch ANYTHING.