Joe Siracusa Movies
- 1988
This television documentary chronicles the career of Spike Jones, a talented musical satirist who had audiences of the '50s rolling in the aisles as he and his City Slickers committed inventive forms of musical murder on some of America's most beloved songs. Archival footage from performances during the early '50s, coupled with interviews of former band members and Jones' family, round out the show. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1959
1001 Arabian Nights was the first animated feature film produced by the "progressive" UPA cartoon firm. The studio had originally planned to feature its star attraction, the nearsighted Mr. Magoo, in an adaptation of Don Quixote scripted by no less than Aldous Huxley. But Columbia, UPA's distributor, didn't think that a Quixote film would sell to the kiddie trade, so the studio settled on the oft-used "Aladdin's Lamp" story. It might have worked better had Magoo portrayed a bumbling genie; instead, the Myopic One is cast as Aladdin's uncle, a wholly extraneous character who has no bearing on the plot or its outcome. Beyond its script shortcomings, 1001 Arabian Nights boasts an attractive production design and color scheme, as well as some pleasant voicework by Dwayne Hickman, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Hans Conried and Herschel Bernardi. Many of the character designs seen in Arabian Nights were reused on UPA's weekly 1964 TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Backus, Kathryn Grant, (more)
