Help my mom find this cartoon about a prehistoric eohippus!

May 15, 2023 3:43 PM

Circa 1957, there was a cartoon based on a Dr. Seuss book, titled The Gerald McBoing-Boing show. It included other short cartoons, one of which was about an eohippus (yes, the long-extinct equine animal) who went around boasting to the oth er creatures "I'm a prehistoric eohippus and I'm going to be a horse!" This entry in the "Big Cartoon Database" is the most I could find about it online. My mother saw it once on TV in the '70s, and she wants to see it again! Please help me find this cartoon!
posted by Faint of Butt to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

I can confirm that this film exists, though I've never seen it. I suspect you will not have any luck finding it online. UPI animation has not been especially well archived. A quick search suggests that you can find 16mm prints (kinescopes, I'd bet) on eBay for about $200.

You might hit up the good people at Cartoon Brew about this film. If anyone knows how to find it, they do.
posted by Dr. Wu at 5:15 PM on May 15, 2023

What a concept! Now I want to see it, too. Maybe The Ohio State University’s Cartoon Library and Museum can help. I believe they hold the largest archive of cartoons in the US.
posted by Silvery Fish at 5:18 PM on May 15, 2023

https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2014/08/boing-boing-youre-dead.html says this isn't a big hallucination. And has a bunch of stills/cels.

And has some history. I don't see a straightforward way to watch it though, but I'll keep poking.
posted by adekllny at 6:16 PM on May 15, 2023

And there's more stills at https://artsandculture.google.com/search?q=mcboing
posted by adekllny at 6:17 PM on May 15, 2023

Looks like 15 episodes at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIJLRTet1JNRMJ8yb38vSoyuSocGKi3l2; not sure which one is the eohippus but ...


editing to add that this link looks way too modern to be 195#. Sorry for the red herring. Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ4oWeMmrubHuN8zncthbFhX6Gv5hzqsm
posted by adekllny at 6:23 PM on May 15, 2023

Ohio State’s collection doesn’t have animation.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:23 PM on May 15, 2023

In case it helps with the info already posted, per this link it was the 11th episode.
posted by Saucy Possum at 4:15 AM on May 16, 2023

There seem to be a few copies of one episode posted at archive.org, including: https://archive.org/details/1951Gerald.McboingBoing
posted by delphic at 7:23 AM on May 16, 2023

this link looks way too modern to be 195#

Note that a remake of Gerald McBoingBoing was produced 2005 by the Cartoon Network, but accept no substitutes, the original UPA productions were the best!
posted by Rash at 8:49 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I worked for the company that held the international distribution rights to most of the Dr Seuss films & shorts, including McBoingBoing (which we had discussions about whether there was a space in there or not and any internal capitalization). I recall looking this up on one of my sweeps for animation after a query from a client. At that time (probably 2019) it had not been digitized. So there are tapes out there that were used for broadcast, but no one thought it was worth the money to digitize it for streaming services (certainly not for HD upconversion). I don't think it ever got a home video release either, so it's less likely that there are DVDs or VHS copies floating around.

There may still be super fans who recorded it and have since digitized and put it on a service somewhere.

Again, my corporate info is old and only stored in my brain at this point, so someone might have done something with the intellectual property. The license holder now is probably Paramount Global.
posted by typetive at 10:00 AM on May 16, 2023 [5 favorites]