More Stoopnagle & Budd

When I last wrote about Stoopnagle & Budd, I mentioned that a Fleischer cartoon they appeared in, Stoopnocracy, had disappeared. I’m pleased to report that this is not the case. A kind benefactor (who would like to remain anonymous), after reading the post, sent me a copy of it. Most of it is typical Fleischer of the time (which is to say, brilliant as always), with humor reminiscent of the Talkartoon Crazy Town. Stoopnagle & Budd are towards the end in an inserted live-action scene; I had hoped they’d be rotoscoped like Fleischer’s guest stars usually were, but no dice. The scene is great, though. Stoopnagle shows off various labor-saving inventions and gives Budd a cigar which makes the smoker sing like Bing Crosby. Budd sings the Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger composition “Please”, which was featured in Paramount’s The Big Broadcast the previous year (and had also been used in the Fleischers’ Snow-White). We also get to sing along with “Minnie the Moocher” (which also was in The Big Broadcast, incidentally); funny to see the little bouncing ball on lyrics about cocaine and heroin abuse.

But that’s not all! My correspondent has also provided me with three other Stoopnagle films, which I’m happy to share here. The earliest is a scene from the first installment of Rambling ’Round Radio Row, a series that showed popular radio starts in their native habitat. The team performs what looks to be an actual radio show; if not, it almost certainly is the same material.

Next we have The Inventors, which actually has something of a plot. Stoopnagle & Budd get invited to a girls’ school and give a lecture on the Bulgarian Upquirp, and end up building a Stoopenstein Monster.

Finally there is Cavalcade of Stuff #1, which was Stoopnagle’s first film work after splitting up with Budd. This was supposed to be the first in a series of 12, although I don’t know if the others were ever made (IMDB has nothing about any of them). This might also be parts #1 & #2 combined, judging from this description on the Stoopnagle fan site.

Between this and the International House scene in the last post, we’re pretty close to having all of their film work available. IMDB lists one other film from 1947, Aren’t We All, and the Stoopnagle site has screenshots from a Chrysler training film called Second Guessers Incorporated, which is also not on IMDB. If anyone knows where to track these down, please let us know.

Below are links to the four films, as before in DivX AVI format. Please note that the quality on all of these (except Radio Row) is extremely poor: Stoopnocracy is a 16mm bootleg, Cavalcade is a several-generation down VHS copy, and The Inventors is an amateur kinescope. If anyone finds better copies of these, again, drop me a note or comment here.

Special thanks to Mr. X!

• Rambling ’Round Radio Row #1 (segment) (1932)
• Stoopnocracy (1933)
• The Inventors (1934)
• Cavalcade of Stuff #1 (1938)