Rating: 
Summary: R and D for effects artistry.
Review: Before he came to America, George Pal was already making these short animated puppet films musicals in Europe, which were relased here in the States by Paramount Pictures. When George Pal, his family, and his team of artists came to America, they set up shop on the Paramount studio lot and made the films that are shown on the DVD here. It was around this time, that a young stop motion photographer named Ray Harryhausen was hired by the Pal studio to work on these films and thus we have these films to thank for the riseing talents of two visual effects artists whose work in animation and in Fantasy/Science Fiction movies continues to this day.
Rating:
Summary: Puppetoons
Review: After viewing this movie, I realized why Puppetoons were not popular in the USA. Even tho they are cute and charming and cutting edge for their time, these were really just commercials!!!! Phillips Radios, Horlicks Malted Milk... The figures are adorable and the stop motion animation is almost flawless but these were commercials for radios, etc. Still, its a good DVD. Entertaining
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome Nostalgia & Extra Films
Review: I bought this DVD when Amazon sold it for 35 bucks, but this price is a steal! This is a great collection of stop-motion cartoon shorts from the 30's and 40's. The quality of these films are amazing considering how old they are. Plus, the music is swingin'! Buy it. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: George Pal...Genius
Review: I can't believe anyone would be offended by George Pal, a true pioneer in the animation field. A great friend of Walt Disney and Walt Lantz, many of their characters appeared in the backgrounds of scenes of pictures he produced.
I grew up on pictures like, 'Jasper and the Scarecrow', 'The 500 Hats of Barthalamew Cubbins' and 'To Think I Saw it All on Mullberry Street'.
Ray Harryhausen worked for George very early on.
Gene Roddenberry met George Pal before there was a 'Star Trek', of course it was Lucy Ball that gave the "Go Ahead" for 'Trek', but it would have never been if not for George Pal.
Watch all his films and 'Puppetoons', It's well worth it!!!!
Rating:
Summary: George Pal...Genius
Review: I can't believe anyone would be offended by George Pal, a true pioneer in the animation field. A great friend of Walt Disney and Walt Lantz, many of their characters appeared in the backgrounds of scenes of pictures he produced.
I grew up on pictures like, 'Jasper and the Scarecrow', 'The 500 Hats of Barthalamew Cubbins' and 'To Think I Saw it All on Mullberry Street'.
Ray Harryhausen worked for George very early on.
Gene Roddenberry met George Pal before there was a 'Star Trek', of course it was Lucy Ball that gave the "Go Ahead" for 'Trek', but it would have never been if not for George Pal.
Watch all his films and 'Puppetoons', It's well worth it!!!!
Rating:
Summary: The movies good, then a golden surprise!!
Review: I have a few Puppetoons on the cheap UK PAL VHS tapes sold from public domain prints and I liked the price so I bought this DVD...
What a revelation, the actual movie by Mr Leibovit is good; the puppetoons are showcased well and he doesn't flinch from showing the commercial origins of some. The additional animation is OK I guess..they like sugar in the USA but....having watched the movie and liked it, I find in the Extras an interesting talk by one of George Pal's animators, AND a wedge of unedited puppetoons so they can be watched title to tail as all films should.
These films are simply exquisite in the detail and effort that went into, say, a cinema advert for Horlicks; this is a disc I shall be returning to almost as much as my Iwerks and B/W Mickey Mouse....they are all perfect works of art in themselves. The subtle humour and emotion expressed in stop motion puppets is out of this world and something that won't be seen again. I have always adored the clean modern style of the late 1930s and the advertising films reflect their time superbly. The golden age of style and superlatives.
(Actually having a 1938 Philips when I was a boy, cost me 1/- (5 new pence) and sold it for a couple of quid doesn't influence me much...oh no)
Buy this. It will repay every cent you spent on it
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wonderful.
Review: I'm a big fan of stop motion animation, and anything that bears the name George Pal, for that matter. This is a great collection of small puppet films, many of them advertising for "Phillips", it seems. However, I do miss one particular of these rare "Phillips" films. -It involves a laughing man going to a fairground attraction, trying everything; shooting, hitting, rollercoaster, etc, finally ending up in his armchair watching TV. It's a marvellous piece of work, with probably more puppets moving than in any of the others. Perhaps collector of this production Arnold Leibovit can clue me in, why it wasn't included. Stop motion is truly high art, and much more atmospheric than cartoons. It deserves more attention and respect, than I feel it gets. It can be a million times more scary and eerie than any form of hand-drawn animation, in my opinion. -Could this be the reason movies and television prefers the "safer" cartoons ?. We're drowning in cartoons !. The world needs a puppet channel !. Thank God for people like Pal, Zeman, Trnka, Quay, Svankmajer, Park, Starewitz, etc, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wonderful.
Review: I'm a big fan of stop motion animation, and anything that bears the name George Pal, for that matter. This is a great collection of small puppet films, many of them advertising for "Phillips", it seems. However, I do miss one particular of these rare "Phillips" films. -It involves a laughing man going to a fairground attraction, trying everything; shooting, hitting, rollercoaster, etc, finally ending up in his armchair watching TV. It's a marvellous piece of work, with probably more puppets moving than in any of the others. Perhaps collector of this production Arnold Leibovit can clue me in, why it wasn't included. Stop motion is truly high art, and much more atmospheric than cartoons. It deserves more attention and respect, than I feel it gets. It can be a million times more scary and eerie than any form of hand-drawn animation, in my opinion. -Could this be the reason movies and television prefers the "safer" cartoons ?. We're drowning in cartoons !. The world needs a puppet channel !. Thank God for people like Pal, Zeman, Trnka, Quay, Svankmajer, Park, Starewitz, etc, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Cute, but....
Review: It could have been more satisfying! There, of course, is the requisite "Tubby the Tuba", but just ONE piece featuring the Screwball Army! There were NUMEROUS Pal Puppetoon productions featuring these comical takes on fascism! Where's the Dr. Seuss "Mulberry Street" short? The short with the clarinet playing woodchopper? The other "Punchy & Judys"? (I wonder if the creators of "Little Lulu" ever commented on those!) And why so many from the thirties?? Most of Pal's best output of these little gems was in the forties and fifties.... Pal's Puppetoon work had a singular artistry to it. The figures moved unlike most other stop-action animated units, who generally just try to put across the tableau across as plainly as possible. Pal's creations REACTED like cartoon characters...wild takes, feature distortion, ambient movement...all very idiosyncratic. The only other animation to be that generous with detailed movement were the Warner's Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies made between 1940 and 1955. Most of them were funny, charming and quirky and embraced the art deco aesthetic like nothing else I've ever seen in animated art. What Pal's people could wring out of simple geometric shapes was amazing, and you'll notice, that's about all that they used...no weird freehand polygons are visible in the animation work...just spheroids, cones, rods and other distinct geometric solids. The only exception to this seems to be the "Punchy & Judy" bits. His animation team must have suffered from gawrsh-awful cases of carpal tunnel syndrome and writer's cramp, because this was all incrementally implemented BY HAND to give the illusion of fluid movement. They just don't make them like that anymore...and this DVD should have featured fewer of the movie house adverts for Philips radios and Horlock's malteds and more of our old afternoon cartoon show favorites!
Rating:
Summary: Cute, but....
Review: It could have been more satisfying! There, of course, is the requisite "Tubby the Tuba", but just ONE piece featuring the Screwball Army! There were NUMEROUS Pal Puppetoon productions featuring these comical takes on fascism! Where's the Dr. Seuss "Mulberry Street" short? The short with the clarinet playing woodchopper? The other "Punchy & Judys"? (I wonder if the creators of "Little Lulu" ever commented on those!) And why so many from the thirties?? Most of Pal's best output of these little gems was in the forties and fifties.... Pal's Puppetoon work had a singular artistry to it. The figures moved unlike most other stop-action animated units, who generally just try the tableau across as plainly as possible. Pal's creations REACTED like cartoon characters...wild takes, feature distortion, movement...all very idiosyncratic. The only other animation to be that generous with movement were the Warner's Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies made between 1940 and 1955. Most of them were funny, charming and quirky and embraced the art deco aesthetic like nothing else I've ever seen in animated art. What Pal's people could wring out of simple geometric shapes was amazing, and you'll notice, that's about all he uses...no weird freehand polygons are visible in the animation work...just spheroids, cones, rods and other chartable geometric solids. His team must have suffered from gawrsh-awful cases of carpal tunnel syndrome and writer's cramp, because this was all incrementally implemented to give the illusion of fluid movement. They just don't make them like this anymore...and this DVD should have featured more of our favorites!
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