Every year around this time, the National Film Registry announces 25 films selected for preservation and conservation. The program, which began in 1988, looks to save our motion picture history, and films from the silent era to modern times (including Modern Times) are designated for preservation in the Library of Congress.
Among the 25 films selected this year were such classics as Dirty Dancing, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Up in Smoke (essentially a triple feature at the drive-in), and – to my pleasure – a Fleischer Studios short that honored the legendary Inkwell character, Koko the Clown.
The film, Koko’s Earth Control, features the “Inkwell Imps” – Koko and his pet dog – as they cause cataclysmic havoc. Trust me, this is the Flesicher Studio at their wildest and most surreal.
This makes Koko the Clown the third major Fleischer Studios character to receive preservation into the National Film Registry, joining Betty Boop (whose 1933 film Snow White was accepted into preservation in 1994) …
And Popeye the Sailor, whose full-length 1936 film Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor entered the preservation library in 2004.
Now you’re thinking, “Hey, Chuck, your blog title said that Dave Fleischer has FOUR films in the National Film Registry, but you only listed three here. Who’s the fourth?
Well, it’s a short film, less than a minute in length, that Fleischer directed in 1957. It was accepted for preservation in 2000. And you know it mostly by its sing-along title.
This film.
So, yeah. Dave Fleischer now has four films preserved in the National Film Library, and honestly those are four good choices.
And if they ever decided to add a fifth Fleischer film to this list…
I’d certainly nominate this one.
Chuck The Writer 