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T. J. Dobbin

@tjamesdobbin.bsky.social

670 followers 290 following 1.7K posts

I write about Bugs Bunny cartoons.

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 16d

My new essay is up. It's on Bugs Bunny's most infamous short, the Censored Eleven, and Warner Bros' inconsistency with regards to allowing its racially problematic animation be seen by modern audiences. It's the longest and nerdiest Bugs essay to date (I talk A LOT about Blu-rays).

All This and Rabbit Stew (1941)

I normally include a handful of screenshots in my Bugs Bunny essays, but virtually every frame in All This and Rabbit Stew (1941) features a racist caricature that I don’t feel comfortable sh…

strawberrypenguin.ca

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 1h

Hell yeah. Great job Blue Jays. My late grandmother loved watching the Jays. She'd be so thrilled right now.

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 6h

Saoirse Ronan is apparently playing Linda in the Beatles biopic thing. I have no interest in "Beatles biopics", but an early 70s based movie about the Wings period of Paul's life would have a lot more juice as a self contained movie (and it would give Saoirse a lot to work with).

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 12h

This is cinema.

Godzilla on the left, Jet Jaguar on the right. Both are looking in the same direction. The sky behind them is grey because the film print is terrible.

T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 13h

Bring back Disco Godzilla.

The scene from Godzilla vs Megalon where the sparkly dressed-in-white space women are doing a ritual dance on a dance floor

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Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 1d

I'm revisiting an old favorite tomorrow for my horror column with a lightly personal essay on MAY, which is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 1d

"I love the Peanuts." -Willow

Reposted by T. J. Dobbin

Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 2d

I'm too fucking tired to debunk every stupid thing that Ryan Murphy said about Christine Jorgensen or how the public response to Ed Gein was catastrophic to the the perception of trans people so I'll just point to my book. We covered all of it.

bookshop.org/p/books/corp...

Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema

The History and Future of Transness in Cinema

bookshop.org

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Will Sloan @willsloanesq.bsky.social · 2d

I wrote about Ed Wood's finest literary works for the Metrograph Journal
metrograph.com/ridiculists-...

RidicuLists: The Top Five Literary Works by Ed Wood - Journal - Metrograph

Film history is a house with many rooms. In Ridiculists, Will Sloan explore some of its nooks and crannies. For the latest entry, a look at five of the cult independent filmmaker Ed Wood’s finest book...

metrograph.com

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 2d

Real George Carlin energy (complimentary)

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 4d

A consistent heartbreak I'm experiencing from reading the early chapters in Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema is how frequently I read a film description, think "ooooo this seems cool" and then immediately after discovering it's a lost film.

T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 4d

Sadly, it doesn't seem to be available. The majority of pink films from the 1960s are lost.

T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 4d

Long before the popularization of "porn parodies", in the early days of Japan's pink cinema, there was once a Zatoichi pink parody! It starred someone who was famous at the time for being a Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) impersonator. Daiei even sued this film on the basis of it "tricking" audiences.

Lewd Priest: Forty-Eight Positions Cutting (1969)

Zatoichi pink film parody from 1969

letterboxd.com

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Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 7d

Minnie the Moocher (1932, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville)

Betty Boop and Bimbo are in a dark scary cave, both are looking off towards something off-screen.

Betty Boop and Bimbo are looking ahead at three skeletons drinking mugs of beer in unison.

Close-up of the three skeletons drinking from their mugs, their white bones are turning black.

The three skeletons are white again, and they've fallen to the floor, drunk, a smile on their faces.

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Reposted by T. J. Dobbin

Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 6d

Minnie the Moocher (1932, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville)

Betty Boop and Bimbo holding each other in fright.

Betty Boop and Bimbo holding each other in fright, same image, but with the black and whites of the image reversed.

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Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 6d

Is My Palm Read (1933, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, David Tendlar, William Henning)

A circle peephole view of Betty Boop in a white dress, gloves and hat.

Betty applying her lipstick: a tiny creature lives inside her lipstick, and has paints and is painting her lips for her.

Betty lifting up the ends of her dress before she walks through a mysterious entrance which magically manifested.

Betty is in the middle of the room which has gone dark, but a spotlight peers over her, showing off the shape of her legs from under her dress. Bimbo and Koko look on.

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 5d

I was trying to place the Looney Tunes that's playing on the TV in One Battle After Another when Bob is walking through Sergio's home. The shot of church bells was distinct. I remember it because it was a recent viewing. It's the final seconds of "Of Rice and Hen", it's on a Collector's Choice blu.

Four screenshots of a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. In the top left corner is the name of the animator who worked on each individual sequence - this isn't my video, it was posted on the Cartoon Research blog years back.

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Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 6d

Minnie the Moocher (1932, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville)

Betty Boop and Bimbo are running away in the night as an assortment of witches and ghouls chase after them.

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 6d

A second short Karloff/Lugosi chiller before bed. It rules when a double feature is 130 minutes.

T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 6d

Time for an old favourite. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in The Black Cat.

My TV showing the Blu ray menu for The Black Cat (1934)

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 6d

I read it years ago, dug the early narrative a lot, but once the POV shifts, I basically hated it until the end.

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John Semley @johnsemley3000.bsky.social · 6d

good morning! I reviewed Thomas Pynchon’s latest—and, perhaps, last?—novel, SHADOW TICKET, for the @newrepublic.com. newrepublic.com/article/2010...

Thomas Pynchon’s Strangely Stripped-Back Noir

“Shadow Ticket” may be an exercise in restraint. But what is a Pynchon novel without its sense of unruly bigness?

newrepublic.com

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 7d

I've had so much fun building a playlist of horror animations to play in sequence on mute for my upcoming Halloween party that the party either needs to be 8-9 hours, or what I'll inevitably do instead, trim the list down a tad. This genre of cartoon is my happy place.

My private letterboxd list "Cartoons for Halloween" which has 80 films currently

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Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 7d

Minnie the Moocher (1932, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville)

Bimbo is looking down into a well. In the reflection in the water deep down below is three frightened looking Bimbos staring back up at him.

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Looney Melodies @looneymelodies.bsky.social · 7d

Minnie the Moocher (1932, Directed and Animated by Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, Ralph Somerville)

Betty Boop is arguing with her parents. Her father's head has been replaced with a gramophone.

Betty Boop is talking to a pair of lips that have appeared on her napkin.

Betty and Bimbo are running away. It is late at night, and there are mysterious dark shadowy figures frightening them.

Betty and Bimbo, worry on their faces, as they are about to head into a cave.

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T. J. Dobbin @tjamesdobbin.bsky.social · 7d

Two posts I'm aiming on having up on Strawberry Penguin later this month: one on Bob Clampett's debut Bugs Bunny short Wabbit Twouble, and one highlighting the creepy and surreal Halloween-appropriate horror animated shorts of the distant past.

Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Wabbit Twouble

Koko the Clown and a ghost behind him in an Out of the Inkwell cartoon

Willie Whopper and his dog are in the presence of the devil and hellfire.

Bimbo the dog is shivering in fear because tombstones are laughing at him.

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