As of recent, I have been digging into old film booking magazines from the 1920ies and 1930ies for cartoon research. Thankfully, many of those have been uploaded on the Internet Archive during the last decade or so. One magazine that I recently read more closely is "Harrison's Reports", which was a weekly publication, usually with just four pages per issue, but eight issues per year had a special section with film booking information ("blue pages"). All in all, "Harrison's Reports" superficially looks like a fanzine, but in reality, as per Wikipedia, was a professional and highly regarded publication from 1921 until 1962, and apparently special care was made that the booking information of the "blue pages" was correct.

The "blue pages" of the October 7, 1933, issue have an interesting tidbit. In the short films section, the first films for release by Vitaphone (i.e., Warner Bros) for the 1933-34 season are announced, which was when Leon Schlesinger stopped working with Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising and set up his own animation plant to produce Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies on his own. The LT short BUDDY'S DAY OUT was announced for a release on September 9, 1933 (Vitaphone booking number 8101); also announced is BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS (booking number 8102) for release scheduled for October 21, 1933. Now that is a Looney Tune I've never heard of. The November 18, 1933, issue of "Harrison's Reports" contained the next "blue pages" section, and sure enough, there are BUDDY'S DAY OUT (Sep 9; No. 8101) and BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS (Oct 21; No. 8102) again, plus now BUDDY'S BEER GARDEN (Nov 18, No. 8103). The next two "blue page" issues (Jan 6 and Feb 17, 1934, respectively) don't mention any Schlesinger cartoons. The April 7, 1934, issue, has BUDDY'S SHOW BOAT listed as earliest available Looney Tune (order no. 8103 that earlier was attributed to BEER GARDEN; release date: Dec 9, 1933), followed by BUDDY THE GOB (no. 8104; Jan 13, 1934), and BUDDY AND TOWSER (no. 8105; Feb. 24), as in the animation history textbooks.

Curiosity got me and I found another contemporary mentioning of BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS, only one: The Film Daily, Sep 23, 1933, issue, has a "short film production chart", and in the Vitaphone section the first three Looney Tunes (for the 1933-34 season), out of 13 planned, are listed as: BUDDY'S DAY OUT; BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS; and BUDDY'S BEER GARDEN (no release dates given). Other contemporary fim magazines do not mention HIGH JINKS; Motion Picture Herald, for example, provide a release schedule for Looney Tunes, with BUDDY'S DAY OUT as first and BUDDY'S BEER GARDEN as second short (no release dates given) (Nov 11, 1933 issue).

Web searches for BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS only find the Harrison's Reports entries, and other search engines end up empty also for spelling variants (like HI-JINKS or HIJINX etc.).

Now, we know that the production of the inital Buddy shorts by the Schlesinger studio were troubled. If Wikipedia tells the truth, the first two shorts were rejected by Warner Bros. (Friz Freleng was then hired to contain the damage.) To me it looks like BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS was one of the cartoons that got axed; however, it seems that production was near-finished, at least far enough to announce its immanent release. (I'd wager that the other Buddy short in question was BUDDY'S DAY OUT, which actually, and possibly contrary to the WB execs' wishes, was released, and the production deficits are easy to see when watching the short, e.g. on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection 6).

Now what happened to the apparently abandoned BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS? I assume it was reworked into a subsequent Buddy short but it's impossible to say, which one. It is also conceivable that it was entirely put aside, but then I would expect that some footage or production material had shown up over the years, given the short was nearly finished, or it would have been mentioned somewhere in books on cartoon history. It would be interesting to get the opinion from Looney Tunes experts of this board. Anyone can chime in?

Bob Clampett stated in his interview with Michael Barrier that Buddy's Day Out had to be reworked three times before receiving Warner's approval, and it's entirely possible that Buddy High Jink was the name temporarily assigned to one of the first versions of this short. But it's also possible that Buddy High Jink was the title of another, completely different cartoon, which unfortunately never saw the light of day due to the dismissal of Tom Palmer, who had until then been the director of the new production team.

I've been thinking about this one quite a bit over the past week, great find wundermild! Here's a look at every possibility at the situation with this title, since it was clearly was something the team was working on (Full disclosure, I'm assuming this is a Tom Palmer title, which given the story of the character and his films, isn't hard to believe)

-Cancelled or unreleased: Its possible after the disaster of Buddy's Day Out and perhaps a workprint preview of this cartoon, they did nothing with it, and didn't release it despite how close it may of been to being finished. The studio did not have a very big backlot as the studio was formed in a bit of a rush, which would be why another title didn't take the place of the release. But, given the other story I've heard, there are other possibilities

-Reworked with BUDDY'S DAY OUT: I've heard before (but cannot cite the source) that BUDDY'S DAY OUT was reworked from two Buddys by Palmer. Now, if this is true, BUDDY'S HIGH JINKS is probably the cartoon reworked with the rough cut of DAY OUT. Unfortunately, since I can't prove this is actually what happened in the end, I can't confirm it.

-Held back and reworked into a later Buddy: This is unlikely. No other Buddy shows signs of Palmer's weak direction, at least with the animation itself. The story itself could of been, but this was before the studio itself had a formal story department, so I doubt it was developed in a way that would've made it available to be retooled. Plus, given the story behind BUDDY'S DAY OUT, I doubt Palmer story material would be usable

I'd say the first two are the most likely for several reasons, but I need to know more before coming to a better conclusion, particularly getting a source on the second one

I looked through those tradepapers. Another possibility is that it could be misinformation from that time. I’ve seen a few other listings from different years that misspell or provide incorrect titles. Sometimes these were corrected in later issues, presumably when the writers were provided with more accurate information. But who knows for certain?

It was cool to see that they listed features and shorts by seasons.

Thanks for the info! I'm currently researching this stuff for a big history of the Golden Age I'm writing. What are these things you're finding again?

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