Mighty Mouse Box Query

[Maurice Leakey]

Just bought a Mighty Mouse Super 8 cartoon in its original artistic Ken Films Inc cardboard box. The box covers states:- "Full movie length cartoon PLUS preview attractions!"
Inside was a printed illustrated listing of Ken Films with the heading "Send for our complete catalog".
Is this paperwork the preview attractions to which they refer?


Maurice

[Rich Malmsten]

I used to have a couple of Ken Films with previews of Coming Attractions, and they're actually short promo clips of one or two other Ken Films releases that were appended at end of the main film. So no, the catalog is something different. If the Coming Attractions aren't on your film anymore, perhaps someone cut them out.

I always thought the Coming Attractions was a rather cool idea Ken came up with, and I ended up buying a couple of the full-length cartoons just because I saw their previews on other films.

[Maurice Leakey]

Rich
Thank you for the information.
My film is "Winning The West". The film ends with a fade out, preceded by standard tab cues. This is followed by a tail with info on the film's name. There is nothing more. It's not possible that anything else could have been removed, unless it followed a couple of feet of blank clear film.


Maurice

[Douglas Meltzer]

Like Rich, I always liked the short clips at the end. I remember seeing scenes from Little Rascals, Mighty Mouse and Rodan.

As for your print, Maurice, I have a theory that as film stock costs grew higher, Ken snipped a section from their releases to save money. I've seen prints of Trog that differ in their running time by 30 seconds. There is also the chance that the negative was damaged.....

[Carter Bradley]

Hi Maurice,

I can solve this mystery. The "coming attractions" are intact in the 200' black & white versions of Ken's Terrytoon releases. They feature a short clip from other b&w releases, such as their Little Rascals and Shirley Temple titles. The color/sound version of these same cartoons never featured the "coming attractions," since those clips weren't available in color and sound. I feel the sound releases were rushed into production, since many feature faded prints even when Ken first released them. So they probably didn't even read their own box art! Plus these are a carry over from standard 8mm releases, so the same Terrytoon titles went through several incarnations!

[Douglas Meltzer]

Carter,

Excellent explanation. I'm so used to Ken's earlier silent releases that I didn't even consider Maurice's print might be color & sound.