A fantastic collection of some greatest animated shorts ever, as rated by Jerry Beck (via BoingBoing). The list includes many of the great Warner Bros. cartoon, a few Disney cartoons and a few of my absolute favorites including Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor and King-Size Canary.
It is somewhat amazing to consider that there aren’t more Disney cartoons on the list, but then again, who has seen a Disney cartoon? I grew up with an hour or so of Bugs Bunny every day. They, and their historical and pop-cultural references, have become a part of my vocabulary, even though I didn’t get most of the humor until much later in life. I still reflexively shout “Turn out that light!” even though I have never seen a civil defence helmet outside of a WB cartoon.
The Disney shorts, at least the ones I have caught on broadcast TV and Netflix, are beautiful, but just don’t trigger nostalgia like the Warner Bros., MGM and Fleischer shorts.
The list is missing some of my really wonderful cartoons, but it is about the “greatest” cartoons, by a number of historical standards, and not a list of cartoons to make Greg happy. Bambi versus Godzilla made the cut. So did Peace on Earth, an MGM short that made me cry when I was a kid. Surprisingly — or not so, depending how you think of it — Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, one of the infamous Censored Eleven, also made the list.