Sorry there’s been no posts here on Junkyard Clubhouse. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve been pretty busy with lots of other things (learning some new 3d tools, posting to my geeky, other blog, working on the Tiki Crawl, twittering geeky stuff, and just so much more exciting things that the ol’ JYC hasn’t been gettin’ the TLC it deserves. I am not sure if this is a temporary trend, or if at some point I’ll start consolidating all my webby goodness over at my other blog (not that I’ve had things to post here at JYC that I didn’t). Anyway, until the next chapter in Junkyard Clubhouse unfolds, here’s another vintage cartoon from my youth.

Kansas City Kitty

This is the other Kansas City Kitty — NOT the Betty Boop one you’ll find all over the internet when you google it. It was difficult to track down. It’s proper name is “We, the Animals-Squeak!”, but when you watch it you’ll see why I could only remember it for a wordless song (well, “na na na na na”) a kidnapping plot involving unintelligible words spoken by mobster mice, and, well, the Kansas City Kitty. It’s a kidnapping cat-mouse story, thinly veiled as a Porky Pig cartoon.

There’s just so many great things in this cartoon I don’t know where to begin. It starts off with a nod to imbibing with a character named Tom Collins — with an actual cocktail in the cartoon, which leads to a birth, slyly implying that her baby was the product of a few too many cocktails. A out-of-wedlock birth follows. Then we’re hit up with a Hitler reference doodled on the blueprint during the kiddnapping scene, and many references to killing, including a hand-across-neck gesture, a mock strangulation scene, and a mouse screaming out “why, that’s MURDER!!” at the top of his lungs. The animation is crude and the lipsync is abysmal, but this actually adds to the charm. Of course the song is cute, but my favorite part is the hushed kidnapping plan made largely out of unintelligible words.

The mice in this cartoon are clearly precursors to the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (watch this scene from the movie to see the similarities) especially the voices, but of course these mice were probably based on cliche mobster types from the Hollywood pictures of the day.

Enjoy the cartoon!

Some people have too much time on their hands. But others are busy busy busy collecting together the electrocuted skeleton sprites from Street Fighter II. You know, when Blanka shocks them.
See if you can guess which skeleton goes with which SFII character, and post your guesses in the comments! Winners will get nothing.

[Via Tiny Cartridge]

I recently discovered a few cool things.

1. There’s a Hard Rock theme park.

2. In said theme park is a section called Banana Splitsville.

Sadly there’s not much info or photos of it on the web yet, but apparently the Splits themselves perform there several times a day. Can anyone help me out?

3. The Ben & Jerry’s Banana Split ice cream changed their logo to something that does not infringe on the Splits. Hopefully photos will be coming soon. (thanks Humu for the tip!).

And perhaps a little less cool:

4. The Banana Splits have updated their website, and recorded new videos and songs, which are on sale on iTunes, if you’re so inclined!. Sadly, they sound nothing like their old selves.

Check out JYC’s other Banana Splits posts:

Ben & Jerry’s Steals Banana Split’s Logo
Rare Banana Splits Stuff

If you know we well, you know I loves me some robots. This is just too cool — a real life robot of the new Pixar character, Wall-E. I’ve not listened to the audio of the clip yet (but I read it’s a bit awkward) but I really love the look of the character as a real life robot.

I am a huge fan of coming up with a funny-yet-completely-impractical idea and then actually doing it, especially when it snowballs into excruciating absurdity. Which is why I burst into laughter many times while reading the painfully exhaustive 5500 word technical analysis of Bugs Bunny’s legendary baseball game against the Gashouse Gorillas. Here’s a snip:

What can modern baseball analysis tell us about the talent of Bugs Bunny? Unfortunately, we are faced with several problems:

* This game provides us with an extremely limited sample. Bunny plays for only five innings.
* The level of competition is never established.

As the first can’t be overcome, let’s deal with the second. From the level of fan interest, it is fair to assume that the players involved are good enough to be a major draw: a semi-pro game of local celebrities would not (and still does not) draw a sufficient crowd to pack in fifty thousand fans who cheer wildly at events (for one example, see the attendance at MLB All-Star Celebrity Softball games). The best-fit explanation is that the Teahouse Totallers are a collection of former greats of baseball, playing against a team of current pro and semi-pro players drawn from the New York region.

Check out the full article here.

And here’s the cartoon itself:

[via Cartoon Brew]

One of my favorite illustrators Chris Ware animated this segment for This American Life:

[via Laughing Squid]

“Here comes Miss Glory!” popped into my head last night, and I had to seek this old cartoon out. I have vivid memories of this cartoon as a wee lad; it was one of my favorites. What I did not have any memory of was the copious amount of boozing, stripping and fine moderne art deco design throughout it.

They don’t make cartoons like they used to.

By my friend Graham Annable. Check out all his inspired animation on the Grickle Channel.

Delirium was talking about the PBS show Mystery and her comment unearthed vague, uneasy memories of the animated opening on the show. She informed me it was done by the macabre illustrator Edward Gorey. I remember as a tyke, being transfixed with nervousness every time my parents tuned in to to watch Mystery. Of course, Youtube has the opening. I’m ascared.

The nations of the world, by Yakko Warner:

Think the voice actor was doing it in multiple takes? Think he was reading the lyrics from from a cheat sheet? Think again!