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.)
