Image Entertainment just announced an October 12, 1999 release date for the DVD of Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil – The Special Edition. This tribute to Beany (the boy with the propeller cap) and Cecil (the seasick sea serpent) takes place on their 50th anniversary in show business.

This special edition includes four full episodes from the series and additional clips from Time For Beany, a live program that not been seen since its original airing fifty years ago. Original 35mm kinescope negatives were pulled from the vaults for this special tribute. The show won three of the first television Emmy awards for best children’s program. Devoted followers of the program included Albert Einstein, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Stewart and Frank Zappa. Beany and Cecil creator Bob Clampett and key performers Stan Freberg and Walker Edmiston
recount those years and more in audio commentaries included on the DVD release.

In the early 1960s Beany and Cecil starred in an animated series loved by a whole generation of baby boomers. This DVD Special Edition includes 12 cartoons transferred from original 35mm camera negatives. Beany and Cecil star in a scathing satire of “you know who” in the episode titled “Beanyland,“” bop around the Hungry Island with beatnik painter Go Man Van Gogh in “The Wildman of Wildsville“” and visit the Isle of No Bikini Atoll in “Cecil Meets the Singing Dinosaur.“”

Additionally, there is a wide variety of archival material on the DVD including a section entitled “The Lost Work,“” projects from over five decades that Clampett developed but were never seen by the public. The DVD includes over 550 stills, audio from story sessions and rare behind the scenes home movies to help bring this era alive. Animated menus, created from the original art, help the viewer navigate through the different sections of the disc. Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil – The Special Edition will have a 215-minute running time and carry a
suggested retail price of $29.95.