Seth MacFarlane teams up with Scorsese to save cartoons

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has teamed up with a seemingly unlikely collaborator — Oscar-winning movie legend Martin Scorsese — to save some cartoons. 

The Seth MacFarlane Foundation and Scorsese’s The Film Foundation are funding The Film Foundation’s first-ever restoration of a “curated selection of historically significant animated shorts” from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Included will be nine films from animation legend George Fleischer, the creator of icon Betty Boop, among many other characters.

A program of the restorations, titled Back from the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts, will premiere during Turner Classic Movies’ 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival at its Hollywood Boulevard location on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. PT, with an in-person introduction by MacFarlane.

Seven shorts directed by Dave Fleischer will be screened, including Koko’s Tattoo from 1928; 1935’s Little Nobody; The Little Stranger and Greedy Humpty Dumpty from 1936; and 1937’s Peeping Penguins.

Also screening will be a 1939 Terrytoon production called The Three Bears and 1944’s Two-Gun Rusty from animator George Pal. 

Oddly, the former came to a new audience a few years back thanks to the Spaghet meme.

“I’m so grateful to Seth MacFarlane for his enthusiasm and his support on these restorations,” said Scorsese in an announcement.

“What an astonishing experience, to see these remarkable pictures that I experienced for the first time as a child brought back to their full glory,” the filmmaker added. “The films now seem as fresh as they did when they were newly made.”

MacFarlane expressed, “The work Martin Scorsese and his Film Foundation have been doing is essential cinematic preservation. I’m honored to partner with them in restoring their first-ever collection of storied animation.”

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