Tomorrow, the Central Coast Film Society is providing local residents the opportunity to spend their Saturday morning watching classic cartoons the way they were meant to be watched: On the big screen. From “Looney Tunes” to “Betty Boop,” to “Gumby” and “Popeye the Sailor Man,” the Parks Plaza Theater in Buellton will be hosting a screening this Thanksgiving weekend to provide a morning of nostalgic entertainment for adults and for their kids, introduce them to these famous cartoons and their classic characters.
In an interview with the News-Press, Central Coast Film Society executive director Daniel Lahr expressed excitement at the opportunity to show these cartoons to children and their parents in a theater setting.
“What’s fun about this is that it’s introducing kids to the classic cartoons in the way that they were meant to be seen,” he said.
While subsequent generations first experienced “Looney Tunes” and other cartoons from the golden age of Hollywood when they were played on television, at the time they were created in the 1930s and 1940s they could only be seen in the cinema, where they along with news reels accompanied feature films. These days, kids who do manage to come across these cartoons are likely to view them via streaming services on digital devices.
Because of the proliferation of streaming sites in recent years as well as the fast rate at which original content is produced for them, Mr. Lahr commented that the youngest generation has so many cartoons both current and from previous decades to consume. By holding this screening, he hopes the film society can help ensure that cartoons of the old days don’t get “lost in the shuffle” in the current plethora of available content. As he loves these cartoons that were created years before he was born, Mr. Lahr believes they can still make an impression on each successive generation. While the creators of his favorite cartoon of the era “Bugs Bunny” were relatively limited in the technology they had at their disposal, he stated that they made up for that with “classic comic storytelling”
“I think they’re still entertaining and they’re still fun,” he said.
Tickets for tomorrow’s cartoon screening are $5.00 and can be purchased at centralcoastfilmsociety.org. The screening will begin at 9:00 a.m. at the Parks Plaza Theatre located at 515 McMurray Rd in Buellton.
