OutOfOdor
a year ago
Thanks for setting the record straight, Tommy.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
OutOfOdor
a year ago
On another note, Tommy, I spotted two cartoons in your photo of your collection you posted on your Facebook sometime back from which other titles have been taken from: "Big Apple" and something with a name I can't completely make out save for the words "Wanted A" ("Wanted a Doggie"?).

I want to add them to the list, seeing they're definitely in the "Astra" section of your collection, but seeing as your labels for them don't indicate whether they're Astra or not [at least from what I can see written on the labels] (I can only make out the word "Bootleg" next to "Big Apple"), but just to be on the safe side, I'd like to confirm with you whether they have Astra titles or not. And if you can remember offhand what cartoons they are, I'd appreciate that information as well.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
Tommy Stathes
a year ago
Wanted a Doggie is an Astra (silent Castle of a Puddy, with Sharples tracks) and Big Apple is a non-Astra oddity.
OutOfOdor
a year ago
Thanks for the info!
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
OutOfOdor
a year ago
Ya' know, I think you may be right! Not to mention, the fact the Castle Films reissue renames it "Dog Wanted!", obviously mangled by Astra in an attempt to avoid getting their keisters sued off by Castle or Terry himself. Thanks a lot!
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
S. C. MacPeter
OutOfOdor
a year ago
Brilliant. Thanks, SC!
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
S. C. MacPeter
a year ago
FELIX SEEKS THE FUTURE=FUTURITZY (1928)
OutOfOdor
a year ago
Thank you kindly!
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
OutOfOdor
8 months ago
Updated the list slightly because I finally know the identity of "Batter Up". It's not "Play Ball" as has been speculated before, rather "The Magnetic Bat", a silent Aesop from 1928. Credit goes to S.C. MacPeter for letting me know its name elsewhere.

EDIT: I have since been informed by him that "Batter Up" is also the name of the Commonwealth reissue of this cartoon, so we now know where Astra got their copy of the cartoon from as well.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
blinkyenjoyer
5 months ago
Astra TV print of Felix Minds the Kid, changed to Felix Minds the Baby. Uses an Official Films print so I believe thats where they sourced the different title. Found this on a DVD I recently bought. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkWQYGSaZw&t 
OutOfOdor
5 months ago
Awesome! Thanks.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
blinkyenjoyer
4 months ago
Another Astra print of a Felix cartoon that I don't think has been seen before, this time Felix Busts a Bubble
OutOfOdor
4 months ago
Thank you again!

While I'm here - for what it's worth, I've just stumbled upon a few 8mm Whimseyland boxes on eBay that have a somewhat different box design than the Brumberger releases with this brand (lacking the red concentric circles featured on those). Some of these have similar names to those confirmed to be in the Astra package, but hoping someone can confirm if these titles were indeed part of Astra's wares:
"A Joy Ride" (Potentially the Judge Rummy of the same name?)
"Bravo" (featuring "Crazy Cat" [probably originally a Nolan/Winkler Krazy outing])
"Little Donkey" (maybe originally a Hunky and Spunky?)

In addition, it would seem "A Good Time" is a currently unidentified Felix the Cat cartoon, as one of these listings has Messmer's feline named in brackets next to that cartoon's name. The only question is, of course, which Felix it could be.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
Tommy Stathes
4 months ago
Here is a general rule of thumb: The world of 8mm and 16mm pirating had a lot of overlap, but they were still two different animals. While a lot of the 8mm prints made by these companies included Astra material that was prepared in 16mm initially, it doesn't always work the other way around. Just because something was sold in 8mm by Whimseyland doesn't mean the same thing was absolutely an Astra TV offering in 16mm. Many of these 8mm prints are dupes of home movie *cutdowns* made by other companies in the 1930s-40s (Keystone, Excel/Exclusive, Novelty, Bergen, Buccheister, et al.). The Astra TV package in 16mm didn't normally rely on old *cutdowns,* instead, they were often based on complete or fairly complete prints...regardless of provenance.

"A Good Time" is probably the Little King cartoon, A Royal Good Time. I have an Astra print with that title. The 8mm packagers were even more careless when it came to stamping the proper character/series names on the boxes. "A Joy Ride" would be a direct copy of Keystone's truncated 8mm/16mm version of the Judge Rummy cartoon, likely with the original title still present.
Tommy Stathes
4 months ago

Another Astra print of a Felix cartoon that I don't think has been seen before, this time Felix Busts a Bubble

Originally Posted by: blinkyenjoyer 



Funny; right as I was clicking Buy it Now, I got an error message saying that the item was already sold.

The buyer/YouTube uploader writes: "The title card just says "Felix the Cat/Sourced from a Astra TV Print/With Metro Films/Atlas Films Reissue Titles"

This would be a direct copy of an Astra type 16mm print; the titles were not made by Metro or Atlas. "At Home" is probably there but just completely muddied because it's such an awful dupe of an already crappily designed/photographed title card.
blinkyenjoyer
4 months ago

Another Astra print of a Felix cartoon that I don't think has been seen before, this time Felix Busts a Bubble

Originally Posted by: Tommy Stathes 



Funny; right as I was clicking Buy it Now, I got an error message saying that the item was already sold.

The buyer/YouTube uploader writes: "The title card just says "Felix the Cat/Sourced from a Astra TV Print/With Metro Films/Atlas Films Reissue Titles"

This would be a direct copy of an Astra type 16mm print; the titles were not made by Metro or Atlas. "At Home" is probably there but just completely muddied because it's such an awful dupe of an already crappily designed/photographed title card.

Originally Posted by: blinkyenjoyer 


The titlecard is the same one used for their bootleg of Felix Minds the Kid so you are right about 'At Home' most likely being there.
Tommy Stathes
4 months ago
There are quite a few with that specific title card design, but who knows how many in total. The sky was the limit when it came to Astra and its strange bedfellows. A few more that come to mind are also Felixes; Trumps the Ace/Woos Whoopee/and the Future (Futuritzy). I think I've also seen Oceantics that way.
OutOfOdor
17 days ago
Found a cartoon while browsing through eBay today that seems like it's probably Astra, but I'll park it as "maybe" until the print itself gets scanned and released somewhere and I can study it further: the 1929 Paul Terry Fable "April Showers". One of the stock end titles used by Astra a good deal shows up at the end, and is included as part of the print rather than spliced in, plus despite being a silent print, the description indicates there being a soundtrack. Rather not link the listing at the moment, but fingers crossed somebody who'll be more than willing to share it with the world wins it.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)
OutOfOdor
17 days ago
Actually, make that two Astra finds in one day, this one a source of background music for at least one of these prints (Stathes' Cinepix print of "A King's Christmas"). Appropriately, the score used there was lifted from a Russian holiday cartoon from 1942, entitled "Christmas Tree". . Since the odd Russian/European film did find its way into this package (e.g. "The Magic Fish"/"The Tale of Emilya"), it wouldn't surprise me if this was in their inventory at one point and they converted this portion of score with minimal sound effects to optical at some point for use as soundtrack in their silent prints.
"With all respect to the great mousetrap."- Popeye, "The Spinach Overture" (1935)

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