Fractured Flickers

We were all familiar with that Jay Ward-Bill Scott sense of humor when FF made its debut in the Autumn of 1963. After all, just about everybody watched ROCKY & FRIENDS, which became THE BULLWINKLE SHOW for Sunday evening colorcasts on the NBC Television Network. It was an instant success with our crowd, and we tried not to miss it.

It is understandable why Silent Film Purists would pan FF. It was quite irreverent to the well known,but now in Public Domain, Silent Film actors. Each fracturing made use of the most outlandish comments and sound effects. They were added to absurd story lines. The end result was as fast a moving half hour as was on the small screen, ever.

The "fracturing" of each film made the names of such luminaries of the silent screen as John Barrymore,Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, et al.,now familiar to a new generation. The titles of the great works of the era were also brought to the forefront. After a season of FRACTURED FLICKERS, we were all given a sort of class in the Silent Cinema. I can testify that our family, as well as other kids in neighborhood, were interested in the "Old Time Movies" after that season. We were interested to either rent or buy copies.

We suppose that it was like taking a little honey or maple syrup to get the medicine down.

I've only seen a single show since the originals ended in 1963. It featured rewrites of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (which became Dinky Dunstun, Boy Cheerleader) and The Hands Of Orlak (Hands Across The Fee,) and a couple of other bits. The guest "star" was Annette Funicello, who introduced Hunchback.

The writers of this show literally destroyed the original story lines of these films and replaced them with wildly funny scripts using the Jay Ward stable of sound effects, and the talents of Bill Scott, and June Foray.

The show I saw had a tag for "next weeks show" featuring the "Adventures of Harry and Ozziet" using footage from silent classics.

I'd like to see these shows again. I believe they were ahead of their time.

UPDATE: 9/12/2009:

I have just purchased a set of these shows from Amazon. The transfers look great. BUT, only episodes 1-6 are really good. After #6, they didn't do parodies of an entire movie again, like what they started doing at the beginning. I hate to say it, but, some of the episodes just aren't funny. Towards the end of the series, they tended to use the same snips of film over and over again.

I'd almost bet that someone in the higher-ups at Desilu told Jay Ward to 'tone it down a bit.' For this, I am sorry, as they had a good thing going there.

Yes this IS the best. As a child I laughed so hard I still remember. Curley of the 3 stooges made me smile as a child, but FF made me laugh uncontrollably. The universal appeal would still apply today...if they would only release it.

This was the funniest program ever on television. We used watch it lying down so we wouldn't have any place to fall. My stomach would hurt from laughing after every half hour show. My favorites were: Two German Shepherds in "Froth and Foam: King of the Mad Dogs"; Stan Laurel (before he teamed with Oliver Hardy) as Sherman Oaks in "Minute Mysteries"; and the salute they made to a different U.S. city in each show. Some of their car commercials were hilarious, too. Hans Conreid was a perfect host for this, and very funny himself.

I would really like to see this program come back (as reruns). I hear a lot of criticism about TV shows from the 50's and 60's, but this show was much funnier than anything on now, or in the last twenty years.

I caught this little gem very briefly on Ha!, what would become Comedy Central, in the early 1990's, weekly at the ungodly hour of 2 AM on Mondays. But, I made sure to watch it as long as they showed it. Which wasn't long, but, I still remember it today.

If you're familiar with What's Up Tiger Lily, Dynaman, Samurai Pizza Cats, Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, or Tokyo Pig, the premise will be familiar. They take old silent pictures and recut them for comedic effect, with new soundtracks provided by some of the best voice actors of all time. Even the series host was one. In the final analysis, a show such as this must rest on whether the scripts are funny. And, with writers from such shows as Rocky And Bullwinkle and Get Smart, it succeeds. Thankfully, I was able to tape some of my favorite shorts when Ha reran them. Mine are the same as most everyone else who remembers this series: the one about Zorro, the one with the Applegate murders, with an unlikely list of suspects, including a monkey and a surprised and infuriated looking Hans Conreid.

So, it's hard to find, but, if you know someone who has these, beg, borrow, or steal their tapes. You can sure do worse with 30 minutes of your time, by far!