Tag: Farmer Grey cartoons

‘Memory Lane: Don’t Try This’ (2018)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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Growing up with 1950s TV, I must have seen this a thousand times in ancient Paul Terry cartoons–assorted mice, cats, and humans safely jumping off rooftops with an umbrella for a parachute.

Memory Lane: Don’t Try This!

All over the world, kids got hurt trying to duplicate this feat. Jump out the fifth-story window? Sure, no problem–I’ve got an umbrella!

These were really old cartoons, with captions instead of speech. Like silent movies. Actually, all these decades later (some of them are a hundred years old), they’re still pretty funny.

But kids will try to do what they see characters do in cartoons–so do your best to make them understand why they shouldn’t. (“Experience is the best teacher, but the fees are very high.” Especially when you jump out the window.)

Memory Lane: Farmer Grey Cartoons

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

If you grew up in the 1950s, you very likely saw these silent cartoons, created by Paul Terry, on your black-and-white TV. If you’d enjoy that particular stroll down Memory Lane, Youtube has several of them available.

Y’know what? These are really funny! Primitive in technique, but well-advanced in crackpot humor.

Most of the commenters, myself included, would have liked to know more about the cartoons’ music tracks. I don’t think most of the music that’s been plugged into this example is original. Somehow that got lost. But considering that some of these are more than 70 years old, we probably have to take what we can get.

Hey, it’s Labor Day, a holiday, so let’s have a few harmless laughs.

Memory Lane: Don’t Try This!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of farmer grey cartoons

“Hey! Don’t touch that umbrella!”

When I was a boy, TV was loaded with ancient black-and-white cartoons–those old “Farmer Grey”cartoons, by Paul Terry. You might not be old enough ever to have seen one.

A common feature in many of these cartoons was cats, mice, and sometimes humans jumping off a rooftop and wafting gently to the earth by using an umbrella as a parachute.

This does not work in real life (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-4420876/Boy-jumped-five-storey-home-holding-umbrella.html). The host of one of those cartoon shows, “Uncle Fred” Sayles (he also MC’d wrestling), used to have to issue frequent reminders to his youthful audience not to try this. But kids did try it, and some of them got hurt. But good. I would have tried it myself, but I didn’t have anyplace handy for jumping off.

Is it necessary to explain why this doesn’t work? Like, is there any 29-year-old Gender Studies major who thinks it might work, if you use a big enough umbrella? Yo, genius, stick to Play-Doh.

Kids try crazy things because they don’t know any better. That’s why we don’t give them credit cards and drivers’ licenses.

And we still can’t stop overgrown kids from trying to eat detergent pods because they saw it on Youtube.