...In The Balcony presents a special website devoted to those wonderful theatrical short subjects of the Golden Age of Hollywood...

Welcome to the SHORT SUBJECT DEPARTMENT at inthebalcony.com. This is the area where we'll be posting articles, reviews, photos and memories of those wonderful theatrical short subjects that ran along with the feature films back in the day. After visiting us here, check out our Message Board! Stay tuned -- the best is yet to come! For Info about EDGAR KENNEDY, click HERE.

Oh, c'mon... EVERYBODY loves the Little Rascals! This week, Genius Products is releasing a beautiful set of restored, uncut Little Rascals films in chronological order from their first sound film, Small Talk (1929) through Hide and Shriek, their final Hal Roach-produced film in 1938. That's 80 beautiful, uncut Little Rascals comedies, plus a wealth of bonus material in this, one of the most prized DVD releases of the year.

For an overview of the Our Gang/Little Rascals series, click on that DVD cover over there. G'head, Butch 'n' Woim won't hurt ya!

Retour de Flamme is a series of French DVDs produced by Serge Bromberg and Lobster Films that preserve our cinematic treasures by restoring and remastering rare short subjects of the past to "save them from the flames". In Europe, six DVDs offering a total of more than 12 hours worth of fascinating films are available, and here in the U.S., Flicker Alley has a boxed set with many of these films.

In The Balcony, we've got all of the various releases, and will spotlight them on an ongoing basis here in our Short Subject Department.

This month, we've got Laurel & Hardy, nude women on the streets of Paris, fun in the surf at Coney Island, Nazi puppets, and the first episode of a sensational serial, The Flight Around the World. Click on the DVD cover at left to revisit those thrilling days of yesteryear...

Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard went to work for Columbia Pictures in the spring of 1934, and the Three Stooges became fixtures around the lot for the next quarter-century, producing easily the most popular series of short subjects of their era...

Unfortunately, for years Columbia's DVD releases of the Stooges were, to be kind, a mixed bag at best. Now, Sony is finally committed to doing right by "The Boys" with chronological sets of Three Stooges 2-reelers. The first four volumes are available now, and cover Columbia releases of Stooges shorts in the calendar years 1934 through 1945, dozens of slapstick 2-reelers, beautifully restored and remastered. You can read our "lost liner notes" that didn't get included with the first set by clicking on either DVD cover. Meanwhile, the Stooges series ran until the late 1950s, so there are plenty more volumes to come, folks!

In The Balcony is also proud to present a look at the best USA release of a restored, remastered MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS starring Laurel & Hardy -- at last, the film gets an edition that's worthy of it!

Give Mother a Goose and you can... that is, click on Mother Goose on your left and go to LAUREL & HARDY'S FUN HOUSE for all the thrilling news!

Hey, want more Columbia Fun!?! SURE you do! Click HERE to read about the comedy team of Gus Schilling & Dick Lane, and click HERE to read our review of the earlier Three Stooges DVDS!

VCI Entertainment's partnership with Kit Parker films has been a goldmine for fans of obscure noir and sci-fi oldies, and now they turn their attention to rescuing a wealth of silent films from the Weiss Brothers, starring both well-known and obscure slapstick comics, plus a few surprises -- and all in gorgeous prints from beautiful 35mm masters.

For our In The Balcony review of this 2-disc set, click the DVD cover on the right! 

KRAZY KAT and IGNATZ MOUSE! For some of us, those names mean nothing. For most of us, though, we recall either the chintzy TV series of the early 1960s, or maybe if we're old enough the "lost" Paramount cartoons of the 1930s or the silent 'toons of the 1920s. If we're lucky, we're familiar with the great comic strip by George Harriman, too, one of the most unusual and interesting of all classic comic strips. Harriman created a series of short-lived, unsuccessful comic strips, including The Dingbat Family. The Dingbats had problems with a goofy, asexual cat and a feisty mouse, though, and by 1913 the pair had been spun off into their own series, which lasted until Harriman's death in 1944.

The fine folks at Inkwell Images (inkwellimagesink.com) offer a terrific DVD called Krazy Kat Kartoon Klassics, featuring an in-depth, fascinating bio of cartoonist Herriman, the first popular black cartoonist, and a review of all the Krazy Kat animated antics. The disc includes such hard-to-find cartoons as Krazy Kat Goes a Wooing (1916), The Great Cheese Robbery (1920), and many more. "A great package, well done" says cartoon historian Jerry Beck, and we agree with him 100%.

We advise each and every one of you to hustle over to Inkwell Images at this LINK and purchase your own copy.