Alvin's Solo Flight--thanks to CARTOON BREW!

Remember my semi-recent post on the second of the two early '60s "Little Lulu" animated shorts?

Here's the first (and better) one, based on an early John Stanley "Lulu" story, "Alvin's Solo Flight."  This story appeared in the last of the "Four Color" try-out issues of Little Lulu (#165) in 1947.

The Paramount cartoon crew scuttled a great deal of Stanley's original story. Admittedly, at 22 pages, it's a bit long for a six minute animated short. What they kept stays surprisingly faithful to Stanley's work.

Of course, being Famous Studios, they just had to make the balloon vendor into a stereotyped-a Italiano-a kinda-a fella-a. As in Stanley's original story, Lulu is topless at the beach. I find it amusing that Seymour Kneitel and staff chose to put a shirt on Tubby. One just shakes one's head in silent wonder at such artistic choices.

Still, this adaptation works a whole lot better than Frog's Legs, which you can see (and compare the original story it's based on) HERE.

I'd "reprint" "Alvin's Solo Flight" in this post, but, as said, it's 22 pages. It can found in the fifth volume of Dark Horse's black and white Lulu collections, Lulu in the Doghouse.

"Alvin's Solo Flight" was also the lead story in the breathlessly titled 100-page 1953 best-of set Little Lulu Tubby Annual. You can download a decent digital scan of this great mega-comic HERE, if you'd like to see it in living color.

Thanks again to Jerry Beck, co-moderator of the internet's leading newsblog on animation, Cartoon Brew. I check CB daily, and I hope you do, too.