BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONONLINE.NET
You never know when someone famous will show up in a classic cartoon!
With Charles Lindbergh and others making great strides in long distance air travel, Cubby takes to the air in World Flight (1933)! Special appearances here by the Marx Brothers, Lindbergh, German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Maurice Chevalier, and King Kong. The Van Beuren Studio also manages to have fun with Native Americans, Chinese, Russians, and Satan.
Cubby runs a live radio show in Croon Crazy (1933)! The "crooner" style of singing became popular with the advent of the microphone, since singers no longer had to project to the rear of a theater. Rudy Vallée, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were crooners. Here, Cubby impersonates singers Kate Smith, Mae West, Paul Whiteman and Al Jolson singing the popular "My Mammy." Mahatma Gandhi puts in an appearance. Cubby attempts to fill 15 minutes of air time when his talent cancels.
Cartoons can be found at Muskegon County's online magazine, http://muskegononline.net/
Van Beuren Studio's Cubby Bear appeared in 20 cartoons between 1933 and 1934. With offices across the street from Fleischer Studios in New York, the Van Beuren Studio produced a steady stream of oddly unfocused, stream-of-consciousness cartoons for the blossoming black and white film market in the late '20s and early '30s.