CUPID GETS HIS MAN
(1936) Van Beuren Studio

With St. Valentine's Day being this week, this offering is a fitting one indeed! General Ulysses D. Cupid and his army are off on a very important mission: to unite a feuding man and woman (who resembles W.C. Fields and Edna May Oliver, respectively) in holy matrimony. One of the best of the Van Beuren Rainbow Parade series, but sadly one of the last, for the studio would close its doors for good the year this film was released. The print featured here, complete with its original RKO-Radio release titles, is most likely an original 35mm Technicolor print, unlike most circulating prints of this cartoon on VHS and DVD.

HAWAIIAN BIRDS
(1936) Fleischer Studios

Among my top favorites in Max Fleischer's Color Classics series. It's a story of a female bird who leaves her Hawaiian boyfriend to seek fame and fortune in the cold and snowy big city. But the boyfriend refuses to take "gone north, good-bye" for an answer! Fleischer's stereoptical setback camera, responsible for the 3-D background effects seen in many Fleischer cartoons during the mid-1930s, gets a real workout in this film!

ALL THIS AND RABBIT STEW
(1941) WB/Leon Schlesinger

A rarely-seen Merrie Melodie cartoon starring Bugs Bunny. What sets this one apart from all of Bugs' other films is that he's pursued by a Stephen Fetchit-type black man. He gets no credit in the opening titles, but Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery is the director of this film, which is one of the "Censored Eleven" Warner Brothers cartoons not seen on TV in nearly 40 years. Find out more about these eleven films on this Wikipedia page.

WINNING THE WEST
(1946) Paul Terry/Terrytoons

Savage Indian felines seek to massacre a band of mice settlers in the Old West. The U.S. Cavalry, led by the likes of General Custer and Buffalo Bill, fails to rescue the mice. Ultimately it is Mighty Mouse that saves the day, as always, and establishes law and order in the West. This clip was taken form a USA Cable Network Sunday-morning airing of Mighty Mouse cartoons in 1993-94. To my knowledge, none of the Terrytoons cartoons have been shown on TV since that time.