The original titles from Bob McKimson’s Crowing Pains, courtesy of Jerry Beck. Available on the Golden Collection Volume 6 on October 21st.. Order your copy today.

With the sixth Golden Collection coming out in less than two weeks, here’s a little “absolutely delightful” Goofy Gophers cartoon that won’t be on it. It has some surprisingly strong gags from a freelancing Ben Hardaway (I wonder if Freleng cut out about 50 feet of static puns before it was shot). Layouts and timing are extra tight in this one, with the same high-level animation from Virgil Ross and Art Davis you’d normally expect in a 1951 cartoon (there’s even a bit of uncredited Emery Hawkins footage in the picture too).

In other gopher related news, I can confirm that A Ham in a Role, an even better cartoon that is on the DVD set, will have its original Looney Tunes opening and closing (not the Blue Ribbon reissue from the 1960s).

Jules White is a name familiar to anyone who’s watched Three Stooges shorts. His non-Stooge shorts are fairly rare, which is a shame, as with quite a few of them (notably the Andy Clyde shorts), they turned out better than just about anything White did with the Stooges. You wouldn’t know that based on his two shorts with obscure actor Roscoe Karns.

In his shorts, Karns played such a slimy scumbag that nobody gave a shit what happened to him, which explains why only two were ever made. This one, Black Eyes and Blues, was so bad, that at Rodney’s Columbia comedy short screening in Aberdeen last month, people actually left during it. Bewildered people were asking the curator, “What the hell are you playing, there’s some guy beating up his wife in there!” I guess White loved physical comedy so much that he just had to do it, even if it was at the expense of comedy.

(Note: clicking the below image will take you to sevenload… These shorts are too long to put on DailyMotion or YouTube.)

(FYI: HP = Horrible Person)

You can read my review of the three latest Universal releases here. In short, I’ll have to eat my words again, because after closer viewing (or listening really), two of these releases are flawed, one is great. Not good.

For this day and age’s faux pas equivalent of Turner’s putting a VHS with Bugs Bunny™ Nips the Nips clearly labeled on the box in the “Children’s” section, iTunes has made all of Popeye Vol. 3 available in the Kids & Family section… Including You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap, Scrap the Japs, and Seein’ Red, White, an’ Blue. Though they at least had the tact to censor J*p in the listing (at least!).

(For those curious, there are some errors in the download copies. Do not worry. iTunes is using the ‘old’ pressing masters of the shorts. Everything is fine in the new pressing.)