Like Martin Scorsese and The Film Foundation, Tommy Jose Stathes has a collection of some of classic animation works such as Felix the Cat, Bobby Bumps, and others in a classic archive that spans decades. To better showcase the importance of these films, they are juxtaposed on the rise of important animation methods and techniques that are still used today to help produce animation. With this comes a showcase of classic brands that helped build the pillars of the industry that are still standing today. The likes of Terrytoons, Max Fleischer, Walt Disney, and more are showcased along with the various methods that had been developed.
Interviews with notable animation archivists and historians are included in the 90-minute film, including Kevin Brownlow and John Canemaker, Howard Beckerman, Peter Lord, Jerry Beck, the aforementioned Stathes, and more help tell the tales of the importance of these animation pillars for the future that are often taken for granted now. Nowadays, animators work an extra forty minutes on a week you’ll hear about it on Twitter. Back then, animators WANTED to work until something was completed for the simple notion of exploration of untapped wonder. It’s the stuff of legend that has helped embolden the future and develop a number of the paths that are still used today like an era before sound and it’s eventual development.
Cartoon Carnival is an important timepiece that helps us remember all of the roads that have led to the eventual development and growth of a medium that has since matured and continues to do so. The uncensored archive of these art pieces are paramount, and a testament to the importance of the exploration of art without consequence needs to be remember even now as it is constantly under attack. I would liked to have seen the film touch upon the importance of being uncensored and why choices were made for specific artistic endeavors, but the film still has enough substance to make for important instruction.