Screen Snapshots: Famous Cartoonists (1950) User Reviews

See Them in the Funny Pages

[boblipton · 5/10 · 19 March 2014]

This Columbia Screen Snapshot is about cartoonists: not the ones who make animated cartoons, even though Walt Disney is prominently displayed, but the ones who draw the well known comic strips of the day, more than sixty years from today. Alas, all are gone and almost all o their comic strips. Shrinking space in newspapers and dying newspapers, as well as the evolution of comic books, have put paid to the beautifully drawn five-panel daily strip and the full page Sunday feature in color.

If you're a fan of these old-time comic strips, you'll enjoy seeing them at some sort of gathering in Hollywood. Each gets an average of five seconds of screen time as Don Wilson, better known as Jack Benny's announcer, calls out their name and their strip and that of their companion in mostly two-shots.

Incredibly dated.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 28 July 2018]

My father was a cartoonist. So, I have a better than average knowledge of comic and cartoon artists from the 'good old days'. However, even I had a hard time caring about "Famous Cartoonists" because most of the folks featured here I am not all that familiar with nor did I care about them. Sure, I recognized Milt Caniff and Walt Disney in this one...and a few others. But mostly it's like going to a total stranger's house and watching their home movies! In addition, even if you ARE aware of who all these folks and all their strips are, there is a huge problem....it is all presented so quickly and so little is said about each of the men that it is tiresome instead of educational or interesting.

By the way, the announcer, Don Wilson, was famous for being the announcer and sometime actor on "The Jack Benny Program".