Review of Koo Koo Korrespondance Skool

Along with the comedy shorts of Joe Cook, this 1937 short featuring cartoonist Jefferson Machamer is one of the most surreal 1930s American comedy shorts I've seen. Of course, the whole idea of building a short around a working cartoonist playing himself would require an odd premise to be interesting for 17 minutes, and this one has Machamer (who takes time to sketch a few ladies on easels that just happen to be handy)enrolling in a Art Correspondence School-- which magically comes alive lesson-by-lesson in his mailbox at the post office and features lovely women hosting the lessons. Aided by his sidekick "Cloudy" (played by Henry Jines), Machamer (who wrote the short also) free associates his way through the short with all kinds of absurd literalisms and he has a wonderfully engaging screen persona, kind of like a better-natured Dabney Coleman! I saw this about 20 years ago, and just watched it again, and I really don't know what to compare it to. I'm reminded of the 1950s British radio show "The Goon Show" or Monty Python--and of course, Machamer's colleague at Educational Pictures a few years earlier, Joe Cook, and his comic surrealism. Are all of Machamer's comedy shorts this off-the-wall and this well done? This short could have wide appeal today if it were shown on television or made available on DVD. My copy is from an Official Films 16mm print, but unlike many of those, it does retain its Educational Pictures opening credits after the "Official" logo. This is the kind of short that once seen is not easily forgotten. Bravo to cartoonist Machamer for being such a pioneer. Is it too much to hope that someday someone could find all the extant Machamer shorts (the IMDb lists seven) and release them?