I’ve had a few regular visitors request to see the legendary porn cartoon from the silent era, Buried Treasure, and how can I pass up the opportunity to post it? Ward Kimball had this to say about its, ahem, conception:
“The first porno-cartoon was made in New York […] by three studios. Each one did a section of it without telling the other studios what they were doing. Studio A finished the first part and gave the last drawing to Studio B […] Involved were Max Fleischer, Paul Terry and the Mutt and Jeff studio. They didn’t see the finished product till the night of the big show. A couple of guys who were there tell me the laughter almost blew the top off the hotel where they were screening it.”
The ever-reliable Wikipedia credits the four animators of this masterful film as George Stallings, George Canata, Rudy Zamora, and Walter Lantz (Woody!). Spliced onto the same reel was a collection of various pornographic gags, their origin, I do not know, and apparently, none of the other silent researchers know either. Milton Knight says that the sex machine was probably the very early work of Jim Tyer. It’s pretty obvious the Krazy Kat studio did the finally gag too. Beware of manholes indeed!
Oh, and this isn’t safe for work. NSFW. (Ah, finally, a four letter word absolves all responsibility!)
[wpvideo wk018Pi2 w=400]
(Thanks to Tom Stathes for the transfer.)
Awesome stuff. I’ve never seen the “The End” credit before on any of the prints floating about the Internet, those copies always end a few frames early. I’ve definitely never saw those opening gags, which I like better than the short, to be honest.
Someone named Dennis on alt.movies.silent claimed that he ran a local show that aired silent films, and once at 4 AM he ran “Buried Treasure” as well as the opening “Out of Order”, etc. gags. Now, a decade later, I finally know what “Out of Order” is. Better late than never, I suppose.
“I’ve definitely never saw”? Oh yeah, I’m all kinds of smart.
Gotta love that Rube Goldberg fuck machine. XD
That’s amazing!!!!
Makes you wonder what cartoons would have been like if censors hadn’t existed.
Hey, those gags were hysterical! It’s good to know that boners are funny in any era.
Whadda find!
Thanks for posting this.
I love it. I have a poor print of it. It is always a crowd pleaser!
Leave it to you and Tom…!
Does anybody know which part Walter Lantz animated? These guys would have fit into the 60’s-70’s underground comix movement just fine.
The part where Harton sucks on the breast looks like it was done by the Mutt and Jeff studio.
With no real historical observations to add, I’m left with—
Woman at 0:57: “Hey! I sprayed for disembodied pricks last week!”
“I see your Schwartz is as big as mine…let’s see how well you use it!”
Wouldn’t it be great if all cartoons ended with a gloryhole gag. Haven’t seen this in years thanks for posting.
Back in 1971, when I interviewed Walter Lantz at his studio on Seward Street, I asked him about Buried Treasure. Here’s our exchange about that cartoon (Tim Walker and my wife, Phyllis, were present, too):
Barrier: Speaking of censorship, there was a cartoon made back in the late ’20s, called Buried Treasure, which supposedly was made to show at a dinner honoring Winsor McCay, and all the cartoonists in New York at the time contributed portions of it. It was an extremely wild, pornographic cartoon, and supposedly you were one of the animators who contributed part of that.
Lantz: I was called about that, a month or so ago. Some attorney from San Francisco, representing an exhibitor–a woman–who was showing this cartoon at a theater in San Francisco. As I recall, this picture was made by George Stallings, a great animator; he was the only one in the industry who could draw such beautiful women. It wasn’t done for any dinner for Winsor McCay, either. As I recall–gee, I was only a kid, I was only about 17 or 18 years old–this cartoon was made…in fact, I don’t even remember anything about it, it’s so long ago. This woman called up, and I wouldn’t even talk to her; I didn’t want to be involved in anything like that.
Barrier: Do you know what the cartoon was made for, if it wasn’t made for this dinner?
Lantz: I don’t know what it was made for; I think it was just an animator made it for his own amusement. All the boys at some time during their career liked to let their hair down. I used to have one fellow here–I finally had to lay him off–he used to make animated…you know, just for his own amusement, just to flip and see if he could do it. He’s animating now in Australia, I won’t mention his name.
That was as much as Walter wanted to say about what was clearly an uncomfortable subject for him, maybe especially because Phyllis was present. I’ve never tried to pin down the name of the mystery man who moved to Australia, but it should be possible to identify him if someone wants to make the effort.
I have a photocopy of a detailed account of the film’s genesis that Milt Gray gave me about a year after I interviewed Walter. There’s no author credited, but Milt told me later that Lee Mishkin wrote it. Mishkin’s account says the film was intended for a 1928 stag dinner in McCay’s honor but wasn’t actually shown there. “The project was organized and partly animated by George Stallings. … There was no storyboard but other animators who worked on it were given a character model sheet of the lead character (Eveready Harton) and told to animate the filthiest scene they could imagine.” The animators in addition to Stallings are listed as George Cannata Sr., Rudy Zamora, Raoul Barre–and Walter Lantz.
Thanks, Mike! I can imagine that recounting that cartoon would be disturbing to Lantz at that point in his career, when he had become a “wholesome showman.”
Thanks!
All I ever saw were two different prints previously transfered on the internet (one white, one yellow, one was missing some parts, all were without the opening). The opening made it even more disturbing! I’m sure there’s stronger stuff around, but it’s age give it something.
3:21 — well, now we know why a penis is called “the third leg”
[QUOTE]Wouldn’t it be great if all cartoons ended with a gloryhole gag.[/QUOTE]
If it were a cartoon that looked like a kids’ cartoon, but wasn’t, then…yeah. But do you know of any writers who can make it work?