TOOTS AND CASPER: CASPER’S NIGHT OUT AFI Preservation Showcase

AFl’s latest film restoration/ preservation work includes the only existing copies of three comedies, a 1949 Three Stooges TV film and two movies based on old-time comic strips.

The Stooges film, JERKS OF ALL TRADES, was made for a TV series but never shown on television. It stars Moe, Larry and Shemp as painters/wallpaper hangers who destroy a society matron’s beautiful house when they are hired to redecorate it. The film was donated to AFI in 1998 by producer Phil Berle and Comedy Ill Entertainment, which released the film on video.

CASPER’S NIGHT OUT is a comedy from the FBO TOOTS AND CASPER series, based on Jimmy Murphy’s comic strip about a funny little guy and his beautiful young wife. Toots persuades Casper to hire her as his secretary; his boss, however, wants her for himself.

RUNNIN’ THRU THE RYE is a comedy from the FBO series BARNEY GOOGLE based on Billy De Beck’s comic strip about a ne’er-dowell and his horse, Spark Plug. Barney plans to enter Spark Plug in a horserace but has problems. These 1929 films came to AFI from the Australian Film Archive.

All three films have been preserved with funding from the NEA/AFI Challenge Grant and The Film Foundation. Ken Wlaschin, Vice Chair of AFl’s National Center for Film and Video Preservation, will introduce the program.