Saturday Afternoon Cartoons: Funny Phantoms

2023 / 60min / 16mm

Curator Tommy José Stathes joins Metrograph in late October with Funny Phantoms, a selection of vintage cartoon films that are just what Dr. Frankenstein ordered for the Halloween season. Come enjoy a fabulous frog’s run-in with the Grim Reaper, an animator playing spooky tricks on his cartoon creation, a verbose king’s plight with ghastly subjects, and other assorted chills and thrills. Spanning the 1920s through to the ’50s, this assortment showcases classic characters such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Felix the Cat, Pete the Pup, Flip the Frog, Betty Boop, and more.

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.