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Joe McDoakes is an American short-film comedy series produced and directed by Richard L. Bare for Warner Bros. A total of 63 black-and-white, live-action, one-reel films were produced and released between 1942 and 1956. The Joe McDoakes shorts are also known as the Behind the Eight Ball series or the So You Want... series. The character's name derives from Joe Doakes, which was a popular American slang term for the average man.
Spooney Melodies was a series of live action musical shorts produced for Warner Bros. aimed to showcase popular tunes of the day. Only the first entry in the series bore the title "Spooney Melodies." Subsequent releases, of which there were four, bore the series title "Song'nata."
Rambling 'Round Radio Row is a series of short subjects, produced by Jerry Wald, and released by the Vitaphone division of Warner Brothers. The final film in the series, released 1934, was #3 of the second season, and starred Morton Downey, Baby Rose Marie, The Harmoniacs, and Harriet Lee.
Bubbles is a 1930 American Vitaphone Varieties short film released by Warner Bros. in Technicolor. It was filmed in December 1929 at the First National Pictures studio with Western Electric apparatus, an early sound-on-film system, Rel. No. 3898. Bubbles is one of the earliest surviving recordings of Judy Garland on film, at 8 years old.
Edward M. Newman (1870–1953) was a film producer of many documentary film shorts released by Warner Brothers and edited at Vitaphone studios in Brooklyn, New York in the 1930s. These were mostly of the travelogue genre. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on March 16, 1870. His parents were Hungarian immigrants. He died in Los Angeles, California on April 16, 1953.
The “Vitaphone Color Parade” was a series of documentary short films produced by Warner Bros.
The name “Technicolor Adventure” was used by Warner Bros. to define its one-reel film shorts that were not part of the Sports Parade, also shot in Technicolor in the 1940s. Most were travelogues or human interest documentary films. Gordon Hollingshead produced most of them, with music scores provided by Howard Jackson.
The Sports Parade was a short film series of Warner Bros. that was regularly shown before the main studio feature, along with another Warner-Vitaphone short, Joe McDoakes comedy and/or Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. The average running time of each film was between nine and eleven minutes.
The Sport Slants and its follow-up “Sports Thrills” were a series of documentary film shorts produced by Warner Brothers and hosted by the top sports caster of the 1930s, Ted Husing.
Adventures in Africa is a series of Warner Bros. documentary film shorts inspired by the success of Martin and Osa Johnson and concurrent features such as Africa Speaks! and Trader Horn.
Vitaphone Varieties is a series title used for all of Warner Bros.', earliest short film "talkies" of the 1920s, initially made using the Vitaphone sound on disc process before a switch to the sound-on-film format early in the 1930s. These were the first major film studio-backed sound films, initially showcased with the 1926 synchronized scored features Don Juan and The Better 'Ole. Although independent producers like Lee de Forest's Phonofilm were successfully making sound film shorts as early as 1922, they were very limited in their distribution and their audio was generally not as loud and clear in theaters as Vitaphone's. The success of the early Vitaphone shorts, initially filmed only in New York, helped launch the sound revolution in Hollywood.
Technicolor Special was a common term used for Hollywood studio produced color short films of the 1930s and 1940s that did not belong to a specified series.
The Big V Comedies were two-reel comedy film shorts produced by Warner Bros. and Vitaphone between 1931 and 1938, contemporary of the more famous Hal Roach, Mack Sennett and Columbia Pictures comedies.
Broadway Brevities are two-reel musical and dramatic film shorts produced by Warner Bros. between 1931 and 1943. The series continued as Warner Specials in later years.
The Melody Masters were a series of first-rate big band musical film shorts produced by Warner Brothers, under the supervision of Samuel Sax at their Vitaphone studio in New York between 1931 and 1939, and in Burbank, California with producer Gordon Hollingshead in charge between 1940 and 1946.
Big Time Vaudeville was a series of black-and-white 9- to 10-minute short films resembling the Vitaphone Varieties and also produced by Warner Brothers and Vitaphone. These consisted of four to six vaudeville acts and are historically interesting with many performers rarely seen on film.
Dorothy Miller, better known by her stage name Dorothy Hall, was an American actress in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The Swell Head is a 1928 American romantic musical short starring Eddie Foy Jr. and Bessie Love, directed by Foy's brother Bryan. Variety mused that "this may be the first backstage sound short."
Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a series of black and white theatrical short sound films produced by Warner Bros. with Vitaphone from 1930 to 1932. Each short is hosted by Robert Ripley, creator and founder of the franchise of the same name. These shorts were usually shown in Ripley's Museums. The shorts were then sold to United Artists, who in turn sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who in turn sold these shorts to Ted Turner under Turner Entertainment, and ran these shorts on Turner Classic Movies. In addition, the rights were given back to Warner Bros. in 1996 after their merger with Turner Entertainment.
References
- Liebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films – A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786412792.
- Motion Pictures 1912-1939 Catalog of Copyright Entries 1951 Library of Congress