Seth MacFarlane Talks Restoring Animated Shorts at TCM Fest
Seth Macfarlane dropped by TCM Fest to talk about his collaboration with Martin Scorsese to restore historical animated shorts in Back From The Ink: Restored Animated Shorts (2024).
"Greedy Humpty Dumpty"
If your a fan of comedy legend Seth MacFarlene you know the guy loves cartoons. Considering he's the showrunner of some of the biggest adult cartoon shows in history that's no surprise, but if you take a look deeper into his oeuvre his appreciation of the art form is apparent in almost everything he touches.
Macfarlane got his start working for Hanna-Barbera before creating and voice acting in his long-running shows Family Guy and American Dad. Not to mention he's quite talented as a jazz singer and songwriter to bat.
What may be oft overlooked due to the cruder nature of his comedy, MacFarlane is actually a super smart, super thoughtful guy. Recently, he worked with Martin Scorsese's archival film project to help restore classic cartoon short films from 1920 to 1940 that otherwise could have been lost.
We were lucky enough to see this shorts block screened at TCM this weekend where Macfarlane introduced the shorts and talked a bit about the restoration process a bit before the premiere of Back From The Ink: Restored Animated Shorts (2024).
Check out the intro below!
Seth MacFarlane Introducing Restored Animated Shorts at TCM
Seth Macfarlane on why he chose these films to restore:
"It's it's it's high art in so many cases. And particularly when it comes to animation, you know, there's there's a there's a philosophy that I think Scorsese you mentioned this at one point.
I maybe attributed it to him at some point. I think it was him that said, look, you know, if there's a film that needs preserving or that he's restoring, and it's not necessarily the greatest film ever made that films like those first.
So, yeah, like Gone With the Wind and my, you know, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the ladder is, is deteriorating that that gets put in the oven for him.
I kind of like that it just kind of so boldly because it's so subjective. You know, everyone has an opinion about the great film. So I always kind of appreciate and respect that, that, that philosophy.
If you're going to say that because some people imagine it was most important to save the most important films were really their own."
