ANOTHER FINE MEGABYTE
Laurel & Hardy on CD-ROM
All the information below is now old,we are just leaving it here as an archive.
A great idea from the 'Jitterbugs tent' of Holland. A Magazine on a CD ROM!
On January
9th we released the second edition of the Jitterbugs Tent Megazine. On this
cd-rom some very rare footage can be found. Besides wonderful stories on
the Jitterbugs Tent also great articles on Laurel & Hardy and the Water
Rats, The flying Deuces Campaign book, Collector items, Crane twins and a
full story on THE ROGUE SONG
This IS UNIQUE.!!!!!!!! Not only the story on this lost film with Laurel & Hardy, but also the complete soundtrack, hear the songs, the dialogues of this movie. Besides this you have a chance to see a lot of footage of this film. What to think about the parts that were found in Prague ( over 15 minutes of film footage of Lawrence tibbett and a clip which is known as the Cave scene with Laurel & Hardy in it).PLUS ,many newspaper adds that can be enlarged and if you like you can print them as well, great stills of the movie. you get it as complete as possible.
Watch Lawrence Tibbett in the Rogue song. Thanks to the Inter-Active Megazine that we have you can now watch it, and you can also enjoy the little clip of the boys playing the cave scene in this wonderful and very rare feature.
Besides the text and the film footage and audio clips you can also enjoy the newspaper adds, and press material that was used for promoting this feature with Laurel & Hardy.
The Flying deuces campaign book is also a great subject on this CD-rom. You can turn every page, and enlarge it so it's much easier to read and to have a look at all the photographs/ stills/ and newspaper adds material. At the last page of this subject you can have a look at a variety of lobby cards and order them for a very low price.
Each page can be opened by clicking at the bottom of the page, you select the page you ike to read and press Go! then it opens in your browser. It's really a great way to read your Laurel & Hardy newsletter from now on. See and experience it yourself and get your membership.At the bottom of this page you can sign up for a membership.
As shown above a lot of great stuff for you to read, and a lot to add to your collection too. over 370 MB of information that's not bad!
Here are a few of the comments we got from members around the world on our first edition of the Megazine which came how much and what do you get? NOTE: You obtain this direct from the jitterbugs Tent.
FOOTNOTE, these CD ROMS reached number FIVE before coming to an end.
The information below concerns past CD Rom material. It may not be possible for you to obtain these CD-Roms.
Laurel & Hardy are mainstays on our TV and movie screens on video and film. But who ever thought we'd see them on our computer screens on CD-ROM? In the past couple of years I've come across four Laurel & Hardy-related CD-ROMs, which range in quality from awful to awesome. While this cutting-edge technology doesn't make the films any funnier, some of the discs do bring a new dimension to our enjoyment of the boys.
1) "LAUREL & HARDY" (Rom-Man Industries; Windows/Mac).
This is the first L&H CD-ROM I found and, without question, the weakest. While it's quite a treat to be able to watch Laurel & Hardy films on your computer, the video is shown in a small window on the screen – and the choice of footage is terrible. The disc consists of 40 minutes of public domain video, 10 minutes of it being actual Laurel & Hardy material. It starts with a one-reel version of Stan's solo-- completely incomprehensible since all the titles have been cut out. Next up is a one-reel version of Babe's "Stick Around" (called "The Paper Hanger's Helper"), a pretty good 1925 film with Babe and Bobby Ray doing an early version of L&H. After that comes Stan & Babe's appearance in "The Stolen Jools", followed by a "A Day at the Studio", a cut down version of "Pick A Star" featuring the boys' two scenes -- plus two of the film's musical numbers! It ends with Babe's "Ship's Reporter" interview and a brief clip from the home movie footage of the boys together for the last time (for some reason in black & white) .Sadly, this disc is only for die-hard L&H buffs -- anyone else would be severely disappointed. It seems pretty hard to find now; I don't think anyone will miss it.
2) COMEDY CLASSICS (Questar; Windows95 only).
This disc is a lot of fun, I've used it to completely "Laurel & Hardy-ize" my computer. A great montage of L&H photos is on screen all the time, Babe chides me with "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into" every time I make a computer error, and Mr. Laurel's face is my pointer arrow. If I leave my computer for 5 minutes, Stan and Ollie buzz around the screen in an airplane(from Flying Deuces). You can do the same with photos, sounds, screen savers and cursors featuring Abbott & Costello, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the 3 Stooges -- but why would you when you've got Stan & Ollie?
There's also video footage of every comedian, which plays "full screen" with surprisingly good quality. Again, it's public domain footage, this time from "The Flying Deuces" – a good choice of film, but a poor choice of scene: the frantic runaway plane chase. Why not the more typical suicide scene?
The disc also includes biographies (fairly inaccurate; it says Hardy worked as a character actor throughout the 40's!) and, compared to the other comics, Laurel & Hardy are rather under-represented: There are only 5 photos of the boys, as opposed to 14 for Chaplin. Still, there's plenty of play value here for Laurel & Hardy fans. (You can find out more or order from the Questar website:
I checked the site, but can not find this CD-Rom
3) Laurel & Hardy: Hal Roach Studio Tour (Taurus Multimedia; Windows/Mac).
This is an amazing disc that falls short of being absolutely astounding because of some sloppy mistakes and factual errors. It's put out by Taurus Multimedia in Germany and that's the biggest problem (for me, anyway) -- all the text is in GERMAN! Which is a shame, because it all looks very informative and interesting -- despite representing Vivian Oakland with a photo of Anita Garvin and mistakenly labeling a video clip from "Night Owls" as "Our Wives". It's also a little scant on biographical information: for example, the only co-stars it highlights are those appearing in "We Faw Down", which is shown complete (with a wonderful LeRoy Shield score by the Beau Hunks). So there are bios for Kay Deslys and Bess Flowers, but not Jimmy Finlayson or Mae Busch!
The concept behind the disc is a tour around the Hal Roach studio; as you wander around the backlot you can click on different areas and see a clip actually shot on that location! You can stroll into Hal Roach's office and read his 1927 contracts with Laurel, Hardy, and Leo McCarey, plus his distribution contract with MGM. Or visit the film locker and look at 20 or so video clips, including "At The Ball" from "Way Out West ! Best of all, there must be 1000 or more photos to look at! You can also access reviews, synopsis, and essays from all of the boys' films -- again, only in German! This one has a pretty hefty price tag, so unless you know German you might want to think twice before buying.
BS: You can download a terrific animated screensaver promoting Taurus Video's restored Laurel & Hardy videos by going to
FOR L&H ANIMATED SCREENSAVER Click this link: www.dtgrafic.com/scrw/scrw3.html
4) COMEDY CAPERS (MovieCD; Windows only).
Full-screen video of Laurel & Hardy's "They Go Boom" and Buster Keaton's "The Paleface", playable on your computer. The quality is excellent – almost as good as watching TV. But that leads to the question: Why not just watch the video on TV? Well, the creators of this disc suggest a couple of whys: as a second VCR for the kids, or to watch movies on the road. Fair enough, I suppose!
The makers of MovieCDs seem concerned that consumers will confuse these discs with DVDs, which seems unlikely. The quality is just a notch below VHS, and there's no "extras" on the disc -- just the films. While I was unimpressed by the product, some major Hollywood studios don't seem to share my opinion: recent blockbusters "Dumb and Dumber", "Seven", "The Player" and "The Mask" are just a few of the other films available on MovieCD.
So, even though I consider it a pretty pointless product, I have to admit -- I bought it! (Find out more or order from the MovieCD website: NOTE: LINK NO LONGER WORKING.
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