Oddball Films Media
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Jan 9, 2015
Oddball Films presents Antique Animal Antics!, a program of vintage films full of adorable, hilarious and anthropomorphic animals. Decades before youtube, CGI, and the Buddies franchise, these furry film stars were doing tricks, solving crimes, talking, singing and drinking too much! The evening's beastly brigade includes the knee-slapping anti-drug scare film The Cat Who Drank and Used Too Much (1987). Monkey spy, monkey do with Lancelot Link Secret Chimp (1971), the crime-fighting slapstick simian. Jerry Fairbanks brings us singing bears in Your Pet Problem(1944) part of the Speaking of Animals series. Bird Circus (1950s) is a technicolor fantasy of vibrant showbirds that walk tight-ropes, ride bicycles and more. Blackie the Wonder Horse Swims the Golden Gate (1938) stars our own local equine hero in all his glory. Silent era wonder-mutt Teddy saves Gloria Swanson from a dastardly villain in Teddy at the Throttle (1917). Interspecies parenting doesn't get any cuter than Mother Cat and her Baby Skunks (1958), unless you want to count the baby bunny in a dollhouse in The Adventures of Bunny Rabbit (1973). And head on down to the river with Hammy the Hamster and a rat in a motorboat in Tales from the Riverbank (1960). With even more animal surprises in store!
Date: Friday, January 9th, 2015 at 8:00PM.
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00, limited seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com
Your Pet Problem (B+W, 1944)
This bizarre Jerry Fairbanks “Speaking of Animals” series short features singing bears and talking cows, hogs, hens, baboons and hippos! Fairbanks created a technique to achieve the appearance of talking animals that blended real animals with animation, rather than filming the animals chewing gum or peanut butter.
Teddy at the Throttle (Clarence Badger, 1917, B&W)
As early as 1917, the serial genre was already ripe for spoofing. Mack Sennett had just the folks to do it: Gloria Swanson needs a hero to save her from her villainous guardian Wallace Beery! Keystone Teddy, one of the early Wonder Dogs of Hollywood, comes to the rescue, his $350 per week star quality blazing in an action-packed chase.
Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (Color, 1971) in “To Tell the Tooth”.
Get Smart meets James Bond in this chimptastic TV spy spoof as the top agent of APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) detective Lance Link discovers a dentist working for C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan) has been inserting secret radio transmitters into the teeth of military officials.
Mother Cat and her Baby Skunks (B+W, 1958)
An incredibly adorable tale of adoption, acceptance and inter-species love. A mama cat finds a trio of orphaned baby skunks and brings them into her own little of kittens. When the baby skunks wander off into the forest, mama cat's got to find them and get them back to the safety of the barnyard before the hungry hawk makes a meal of one of her black and white babies. Try not to squeal when the kittens and the baby skunks have playtime!
Hammy Comes to the Riverbank (B+W, 1960)
Hammy the Hamster and his menagerie of forest friends cavort along the riverbank, ride on motorboats, save baby ducks and do more unbearably adorable things in this anthropomorphic installment of Tales of the Riverbank.
Blackie the Wonder Horse Swims the Golden Gate (B+W, 1938)
In 1938, Shortie Roberts, owner of San Francisco’s famed Roberts-on-the-Beach restaurant, made a $1,000 wager with Bill Kyne, of the Bay Meadows race track, that his horse, Blackie, could swim the golden gate, following Kyne’s assertion that horses couldn’t swim. As will be made clear by this impressive footage of Blackie in action, Kyne was obliged to pony up and make good on his bet.
The Cat Who Drank and Used Too Much (Color, 1987)
Wacky anti-drug film about alcohol and drug using Pat the Cat. He hits the skids before finally reaching out for help - an all-time Oddball Films audience favorite! Narrated by Julie Harris and winner of 24 major awards!
Adventures of Bunny Rabbit (1984, Color)
A color remake of Encyclopedia Britannica’s 1937 classic! The pairing of live-action nature photography and a storybook style narration are a one-two punch of extreme twee! We meet the new-born Bunny and watch as he grows into a rascally rabbit. Tempted by talk of tender lettuce in the farmer's greenhouse, he goes a-wand’ring and ends up in the world's daintiest jail!
Bird Circus (Color, 1950s)
In this antique aviary gem, a flock of exotic birds display their mastery at a number of circus tricks. From riding bicycles, to tightrope walking to a spectacular miniature carnival of whirling parakeets, this technicolor dream is sure to dazzle and delight.
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.
