''Dinner Time'' (1928) is an American
animated
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...
short subject
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film or ...
produced by
Amadee J. Van Beuren, directed by
Paul Terry, co-directed by
John Foster, and produced at
Van Beuren Studios
The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936.
History
In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...
.
Josiah Zuro arranged and conducted the "synchronized" music score. The film is part of a series entitled ''
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a Slavery in ancient Greece, slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 Before the Common Era, BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stor ...
'' and features the Terry creation
Farmer Al Falfa who works as a butcher, fending off a group of pesky dogs.
''Dinner Time'' was one of the first publicly shown
sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an Analog s ...
cartoons. It premiered at the Strand Theater
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in August 1928 and was released by
Pathé Exchange
Pathé Exchange, commonly known as Pathé, was an American film production and distribution company, largely of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's silent film, silent era. Known for its trailblazing newsreel and wide array of short film, s ...
on October 14, a month before
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...
's sound cartoon, ''
Steamboat Willie
''Steamboat Willie'' is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Animation Studios and was released by Pat Powers (producer), Pat Powers, under the name of Cele ...
''.
''Dinner Time'' was not successful with audiences and Disney's film would be widely touted as the first synchronized sound cartoon.
Commonwealth Reissue
In addition to the stock music cues from Thomas J. Valentino's music library, the 1950s Commonwealth reissue of this cartoon also has a narrator and voice actors. The voice actors spoke the characters' lines, as opposed to the nonsense vocalisations made in the original 1928 version. Some scenes were also reordered.
See also
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Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
In 1919 and 1920, de Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofi ...
*
Sound film
A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...
References
External links
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1928 films
1928 animated short films
1920s American animated films
Aesop's Fables (film series)
American animated short films
Terrytoons shorts
Van Beuren Studios
Films directed by Paul Terry (cartoonist)
American animated black-and-white films
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