Get ready for an early morning unless you got a recorder, because on National Silent films day, September 29th, Turner Classic Movies is airing (at 6AM and 7AM) two new collections of silent classics from Tommy Stathes. First up is another Century Showcase of Animation, which will likely be in the vane of the one from last year, but with classic 1923 cartoons this year. After that, will be Walt's Early Wonderlands, likely a collection of classic silent Disney cartoons. Looking very much forward to both shows!

I'd love to watch these, but it's unlikely they'll be available in my "region", as the website puts it (I'm in the UK). I'd love to hear all about these from people here, once they've aired.

I'm excited to hear what titles are selected for Walt's Early Wonderlands, it would be great if some true rarities are shown.


Last year was the 100th anniversary of the Laugh-O-Gram fairy tale cartoons and this year is the 100th anniversary of the Disney Studio so if there was ever a good time to highlight some of the pre-Oswald films it'd be now. I've been kinda disappointed that I haven't seen much official recognition of the very early shorts in the "100 Years of Wonder" promos so far.

Full disclosure, I had a minor role in assisting on these programs and can guarantee they will absolutely be worth watching. I believe Quest has a license to use TCM content, but I don't know if this program will end up there. If I can find availability in the UK for you, I'll let you know

Thank you, that's really kind :)

I did read that Quest has a licence to use TCM content, but Quest is channel which doesn't show movies or animation so I really doubt these shows will pop up there any time soon. TCM stopped airing in the UK this July and even the website bring up an unavailable in your region message nowadays.

I know you won't want to spoil any susrprises, but I'm really looking forward to reading all about the content of these shows, once they've aired. Cheers 🙂

Some sneak peek images of cartoons featured from the first show. Cartoon Research will be devoting Thursday to a more accurate description of the two shows. Again, I helped on this, and think you all here will really enjoy it if you can watch it.

Tommy Stathes has written a detailed column on Cartoon Research  detailing tomorrow's shows, and lineups. As well as a full trailer for both programs, seen below

Very excited to read about these and especially to learn that the featured cartoons will eventually be available on Blu Ray (looks like I won't be able to access TCM in the UK).

Regarding the Disney selection, I'm really pleased to see that there's some extremely rare footage in some of these versions. The end title to Newman Laugh-O-grams (revealing it's No. 5 in a series) and the original opening to Alice Loses Out especially are big news to me! Also some of these films I've only ever seen in bad quality so I'm looking forward to seeing these far superior presentations.

Many thanks to everyone involved. Just reading about these has made my day. 🙂