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Lonesome Ghosts

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Lonesome Ghosts is a 1937 Disney animated cartoon, released through RKO Radio Pictures on Christmas Eve , three days after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). It was directed by Burt Gillett and animated by Izzy (Isadore) Klein, Ed Love, Milt Kahl, Marvin Woodward, Bob Wickersham, Clyde Geronimi, Dick Huemer, Dick Williams, Art Babbitt, and Rex Cox. The short features Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck & Goofy as members of The Ajax Ghost Exterminators. It was the 98th short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the ninth for that year.

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30-441: This short marked the first use of one of Goofy's catchphrases, "Somethin' wrong here!". The film features a comedy horror plot. A quartet of trickster ghosts have settled into a haunted house . They are bored because this house has had no visitors for quite some time, and there is nobody around to fall victim to their pranks . They decide to hire a trio of ghost exterminators by telephone, and then amuse themselves by pranking

60-474: A 30-mile stretch of scorched and desolated no-man's-land, vulnerable to outlaws, raiders, and vigilantes. Besides droves of Loyalist rangers and British light infantry, Hessian Jägers —renowned sharpshooters and horsemen—were among the raiders who often skirmished with Patriot militias. The Headless Horseman may have indeed been based loosely on the discovery of such a corpse found in Sleepy Hollow after

90-597: A campaign of harassment against the schoolmaster, plaguing him with a series of pranks and practical jokes. One autumn night, Ichabod is invited to attend a harvest party at the Van Tassel homestead. At the party, Brom tells the story of the Headless Horseman, the notorious ghost of a Hessian trooper decapitated by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War . The Horseman is supposedly buried in

120-504: A character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle. It has been adapted for the screen several times, including a 1922 silent film and in 1949, a Walt Disney animation as one of two segments in the package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad . The story is set in 1790 in the countryside near the former Dutch settlement of Tarry Town , in

150-487: A churchyard in Sleepy Hollow and rises from his grave every night to search for his missing head but is supernaturally barred from crossing a wooden bridge that spans a nearby stream. Katrina rejects Ichabod before he leaves. He leaves the party crestfallen and rides home on a borrowed plow horse named Gunpowder. He encounters a cloaked rider and believes it to be the Headless Horseman. Ichabod rides for his life with

180-432: A secluded glen known as Sleepy Hollow . It relates the tale of Ichabod Crane , a lean, lanky, superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut. Ichabod intends to woo Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, in order to procure her family's riches for himself. He competes for her affection with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy. Unable to goad Ichabod into fighting for Katrina's hand, Brom instead wages

210-533: A violent skirmish and later buried by the Van Tassel family in an unmarked grave in the Old Dutch Burying Ground . According to another hypothesis, Irving could have drawn the figure of the "headless rider" from German Silesian literature, precisely from the Chronicle of Sprottau (since 1945 Polish Szprotawa) by J.G. Kreis, written in the first half of the 19th century. In the 19th century,

240-541: Is a literary , television , and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction . Comedy horror has been described as having three types: " black comedy , parody and spoof." Comedy horror can also parody or subtly spoof horror clichés as its main source of humour or use those elements to take a story in a different direction. Examples of comedy horror films include Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), An American Werewolf in London (1981),

270-465: Is a common element. While comedy horror films provide scares for audiences, they also provide something that dramatic horror films do not: "the permission to laugh at your fears, to whistle past the cinematic graveyard and feel secure in the knowledge that the monsters can't get you". In the era of silent film , the source material for early comedy horror films came from stage performances instead of literature. One example, The Ghost Breaker (1914),

300-501: Is an 1820 short story by American author Washington Irving contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories titled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Irving wrote the story while living in Birmingham , England. Along with Irving's companion piece " Rip Van Winkle ", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of

330-685: Is claimed by many in Tarrytown that Samuel Youngs is the individual from whom Irving drew his character. Author Gary Denniss asserts that while Crane is loosely based on Merwin, it may include elements from Youngs's life. With " Rip Van Winkle ", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is one of Irving's most anthologized, studied, and adapted sketches. Both stories are often paired together in books and other representations, and both are included in surveys of early American literature and Romanticism . Irving's depictions of regional culture and themes of progress versus tradition, supernatural intervention in

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360-531: Is implied that the Horseman was actually Brom. A shattered pumpkin is found near Ichabod's hat where he fell, suggesting that the severed head thrown at him was merely a jack-o'-lantern and that Crane survived the fall from Gunpowder and fled Sleepy Hollow in horror. The story was the longest one published as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (commonly referred to as The Sketch Book ), which Irving issued serially throughout 1819 and 1820, using

390-725: Is the last of the " Legenden von Rübezahl " ( ' Legends of Rübezahl ' ) from Johann Karl August Musäus 's literary retellings of German folktales, Volksmärchen der Deutschen (1783). After the Battle of White Plains in October 1776, the country south of the Bronx River was abandoned by the Continental Army and occupied by the British . The Americans were fortified north of Peekskill , leaving Westchester County

420-591: The Evil Dead franchise (1981–present), Gremlins (1984), Shaun of the Dead (2004), and The Cabin in the Woods (2011). Horror and comedy have been associated with each other since the early days of horror novels. Author Bruce G. Hallenbeck cites the 1820 short story " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow " by Washington Irving as "the first great comedy horror story". The story made readers "laugh one moment and scream

450-767: The What We Do in the Shadows (franchise) , Wellington Paranormal , comedies Todd and the Book of Pure Evil , Shining Vale and Santa Clarita Diet , and cartoons Beetlejuice , Courage the Cowardly Dog , School for Vampires , and Scooby-Doo . More recent examples include The Owl House , Wednesday , Don't Hug Me I'm Scared , Gravity Falls , Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss . The Legend of Sleepy Hollow " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow "

480-584: The actual ghosts out of the house in a panic, knocking off and smashing objects. The ghost hunters stand victorious, having driven the spirits out of the house, although not exactly certain how. Donald smugly assumes the ghosts fled in capitulation to their superior tactics, calling them sissies and laughing. The short was released on December 4, 2001, on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color . Additional releases include: Comedy horror Comedy horror (also called horror comedy )

510-422: The apparition close behind. At the bridge, the Horseman rears his horse and hurls his severed head directly at Crane, knocking him off his horse. The next morning, Gunpowder is found eating the grass at his master's gate, but Ichabod has disappeared from the area, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones. Although the true nature of both the Headless Horseman and Ichabod's disappearance is left open to interpretation, it

540-557: The commonplace, and the plight of the individual outsider in a homogeneous community permeate both stories and helped develop a unique sense of American cultural and existential selfhood during the early 19th century. Sleepy Hollow, New York , as the setting for the story, contains many of the referenced locations, including ones that can still be visited today. Sleepy Hollow, Illinois ; Sleepy Hollow, Marin County, California ; and Sleepy Hollow, Wyoming , have street names that reference

570-495: The exterminators. The Ajax Ghost Exterminators — Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck and Goofy — are hired by telephone to drive out four ghosts from a haunted house that has long been abandoned. Unbeknownst to them, however, they were called by the ghosts themselves, who are bored because nobody has visited the house for a long time (either because none of the locals were scared or they had scared them all away, as one ghost puts it: "Guess we're too good!"). They wish to play tricks on

600-402: The fallen door and go into another. Mickey opens the door, which causes water to pour out of it while the ghosts surf across it on surfboards. The last one comes out on a motorboat that goes in a circle around Mickey until it and the water disappear altogether. Donald, meanwhile, is whacked in the rear with a wooden board and is scared away by the sounds of banging chains and dishes. He punches

630-914: The first commercially successful comedy horror film. Its success legitimized the genre and established it as commercially viable. Some comedy horror movies, such as the Scary Movie series or A Haunted House also function as parodies of popular horror films. Well-known director Peter Jackson began his film career with the comedy horror classics Bad Taste , Meet the Feebles and Braindead . Stree2 , Roohi , Bhoot Police and bhool Bhulaiyaa are some popular horror comedy films in Bollywood . Examples of horror comedy on television date back to sitcoms The Munsters and The Addams Family and more recently include gruesome slapsticks Ash vs Evil Dead and Stan Against Evil , mockumentary

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660-405: The genre and foresaw a cinematic translation. The film included comedic blackface performances and footage of a hurricane for a climactic storm. As an early experiment, the various genres were not well-balanced with horror and comedy, and later films improved the balance and took more sophisticated approaches. Charles Bramesco of Vulture.com identifies Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein as

690-484: The ghost, but it resurfaces and blows water in his face. Goofy runs into a bedroom at the sound of a ghost banging a wooden spoon on a pan. He soon becomes tangled in a dresser after seeing a ghost in a mirror instead of his reflection and stabs his rear with a pin, mistaking his blue pants for a ghost, and is shoved down into the basement. In the end, the three exterminators crash into some molasses, flour and syrup, making them look like ghosts and consequently, they scare

720-405: The ghosts' laughter, the three split up to hunt the ghosts individually. The exterminators are toyed with at every turn; a ghost knocks Mickey on the head and puts its fingers in both barrels of his shotgun when he tries to shoot it and it explodes. Mickey is driven upstairs and tries to open a door that the ghost disappears into, which falls down and the ghosts (forming a marching band) come out of

750-406: The living and do so through a series of inventive, annoying pranks. The exterminators arrive and knock on the front door, which falls down. When they announce themselves, there is nobody to receive them. Mickey decides they should get to work anyway. When entering, the door lifts up and throws them inside before putting itself back in place, making a mousetrap fall shut on Goofy's nose. After hearing

780-443: The next" and its premise was based on mischief typically found during the holiday Halloween . Shortly after the publication of Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein , comedic parodies appeared. Edgar Allan Poe put humor and horror on the same continuum, and many nineteenth century authors used black humor in their horror stories. Author Robert Bloch called them "opposite sides of the same coin". In comedy horror film, gallows humor

810-584: The police counselor Kreis noted that, in the previous century, the inhabitants of this city were afraid to move after dusk on Hospitalstrasse (now Sądowa Street) due to the headless rider apparition seen there. In support of the hypothesis, according to information in Polish Reception of Washington Irving's Work: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism by Zofia Sinko, Walter Scott encouraged Irving to learn German to be able to read stories, ballads, and legends in their native language. Irving, while he

840-914: The pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon". Irving wrote The Sketch Book during a tour of Europe, and parts of the tale may also be traced to European origins. Headless horsemen were staples of northern Europe storytelling , featured in German, Irish (e.g., Dullahan ), Scandinavian (e.g., the Wild Hunt ), and British legends, and included in Robert Burns 's Scots poem " Tam o' Shanter " (1790) and Gottfried August Bürger 's Der Wilde Jäger (1778), translated as The Wild Huntsman (1796). Usually viewed as omens of ill fortune for those who chose to disregard their apparitions, these specters found their victims in proud, scheming persons and characters with hubris and arrogance. One particularly influential rendition of this folktale

870-590: Was an aide-de-camp to New York Governor Daniel D. Tompkins , met an army captain named Ichabod Crane in Sackets Harbor, New York , during an inspection tour of fortifications in 1814. Irving may have patterned the character after Jesse Merwin , who taught at the local schoolhouse in Kinderhook , further north along the Hudson River , where Irving spent several months in 1809. Alternatively, it

900-473: Was based on a 1909 play, though the film's horror elements were more interesting to the audience than the comedy elements. In the United States following the trauma of World War I , film audiences sought to see horror on screen but tempered with humor. The "pioneering" comedy horror film was One Exciting Night (1922), written, directed and produced by D. W. Griffith , who noticed the stage success of

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