Shorts for May 19-20, 2016

TCM has a short that I think is new to me not only in the sense that I haven't seen it before, but in the sense that I don't think I've even heard of it. Sure, I haven't seen all the Traveltalks shorts or the Riple's Believe It or Not shorts, but if one of those shows up on the TCM schedule, it's usually pretty obvious what sort of short is on the schedule. But today a little after 5:30 PM, or just after Crisis (3:45 PM, 96 min), TCM is showing Spotlight No. 3. This one, produced in Canada by a company called "Associated Screen Studios" per the IMDb credits, apparently has four vignettes about interesting things in Canada. I'd never heard of the studio, and IMDb doesn't list any other production company distributing the short, but then by this time the US studios no longer ran the theater chains, too.

Tomorrow morning at about 10:59 AM, there's another chance to catch Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow. This one showed up a couple of weeks ago, and I also mentioned it a year and a half ago when I did a post on some of the RKO-Pathé shorts of the 1950s showing up on TCM. I find all of the RKO-Pathé shorts to be worth at least one watch, just for the historical value even if they turn out to be boring.

In between, there are several of the promo/featurette type shorts. The one that I've mentioned before is The Bounty Sails Again!, which you can catch tomorrow at 8:35 AM. There's also a short on Ice Station Zebra following Wild in the Streets a little after 3:00 AM, and one on Oliver! following Three in the Attic, around 4:50 AM.