Saturday Afternoon Cartoons: Are You Fooled?

Director: Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs, Multiple Dirs

2023 / 60min / 16mm

Saturday Afternoon Cartoons is New York City’s prime theatrical showcase of early and classic animated cartoons, shown in vintage 16mm film prints from the personal archives of historian Tommy José Stathes. Beginning over 20 years ago as a casual effort to find and see early cartoons that were unavailable on home video, Stathes’s collection has grown to become perhaps one of the largest of its kind. It includes many titles and “orphan films” that are difficult to access or view elsewhere.

Curator Tommy Stathes joins us on the first day of April with “Are You Fooled?”—a selection of early cartoon films featuring all sorts of silly pranks, superstitious sneaks, and jolly jokesters, with plenty of valuable lessons learned along the way. Spanning the 1920s through the ’50s, this seasonal assortment showcases classic characters such as Betty Boop, Popeye, Felix the Cat, Koko the Clown, Porky Pig, Mutt and Jeff, and more.