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Can anyone guide me toward classic animated shorts that refer in some way
to movies or moviemaking? I'm thinking of cartoons that contain caricatures
of stars, scenes of moviemaking or of Hollywood life, the use of
catch-phrases (how many of us first heard the line "Tell me about the
rabbits,George" in a Warners cartoon?), the cartoon characters referring to
their own status as culture heroes, etc.  Most helpful would be the actual name
of the cartoon, but any leads, as specific as possible, will be appreciated.
 
I hope to write about these for a parallel list that I recently started,
the Self-Referential Movies Mailing List.  Briefly put, the List recommends
and discusses movies that "break the 4th wall" and exhibit an awareness of
themselves AS MOVIES. We've already had postings about "Hollywood Canteen,"
"Son of Paleface," "Jacquot" (Agnes Varda), "Man of 1000 Faces,"
"Hollywood or Bust," "The Sinister Urge" (Ed Wood), "The Wizard of Oz,"
"Jolson Sings Again" and others.
 
Please drop in for a look if this sort of thing interests you. I'm
particularly interested in including academics and scholars, for I suspect
that looking at movies at this meta-level has something to do with semiotics,
structuralism, and/or deconstructionism (I'm sorry to use these terms crudely
and no doubt ignorantly, but I have had a hard time learning about them
since the texts are so impenetrable).
 
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Thanks for any help you can offer re: self-referential cartoons.
 
 
Barbara Bernstein                      email: [log in to unmask]
Kinexis,  San Francisco, CA