Editing Mutt and Jeff (section)

==Motion pictures==
===Live-action===
{{Main|List of Mutt and Jeff live-action shorts}}
In early July 1911, during the [[silent film|silent era]] of motion pictures, at [[David Horsley]]'s [[Nestor Studios|Nestor Comedies]] in [[Bayonne, New Jersey]], [[Al Christie]] began turning out a weekly one-[[reel#Motion picture terminology|reel]] live-action ''Mutt and Jeff'' [[comedy film|comedy]] [[short film|short]], which was based on the comic strip.

The ''Mutt and Jeff'' [[serial film|serial]] was extremely popular and after the Nestor Company established a [[movie studio|studio]] in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]], in late October 1911, Christie continued to oversee a weekly production of a one-reel episode.

In the fall of 1911, Nestor began using an alternate method of displaying the [[intertitle]]s in the ''Mutt and Jeff'' comedies. Instead of a [[cut (transition)|cut]] to the dialogue titles, the dialogue was displayed at the bottom of the image on a black background so the audience could read them as a [[Subtitle (captioning)|subtitle]], which was similar to the way they appeared in the cartoon strips. Horsley was very proud of the device and claimed to have entered a patent on it. He advertised the ''Mutt and Jeff'' movies as "talking pictures".<ref>Eileen Bowser. ''The Transformation of Cinema 1907–1915''. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1990. p. 144. {{ISBN|0-684-18414-1}}.</ref>

The first actors to portray Mutt and Jeff in the comedy shorts were Sam D. Drane, a tall man noted for his resemblance to [[Abraham Lincoln|President Lincoln]], whom he actually played in his last movie, ''The Crisis'' (1916), as A. Mutt, and Gus Alexander, whose nickname was "Shorty," as Jeff. When Alexander left the serial, Christie hired the actor [[Bud Duncan]]. Duncan played Jeff in two installments before the serial ended in 1912.<ref>Anthony Balducci. ''Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema''. McFarland. 2009. p. 19. {{ISBN|0-7864-4159-3}}.</ref>

===Animation===
{{Main|Mutt and Jeff animated filmography}}
[[File:Mutt & Jeff in A Tropical Eggspedition (Fox, 1919). One Sheet.jpg|thumb|260x260px|1919 poster for an animated short]]
In 1916,<ref>http://www.filmpreservation.org/userfiles/image/PDFs/MuttJeff_Hanna.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521075415/http://www.filmpreservation.org/userfiles/image/PDFs/MuttJeff_Hanna.pdf |date=May 21, 2013 }} {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}</ref> Fisher licensed the production of ''Mutt and Jeff'' for animation with pioneers [[Charles Bowers]] and [[Raoul Barré]] of the [[Barré Studio]]. The animated series lasted 11 years and more than 300 animated ''Mutt and Jeff'' shorts were released by the [[Fox Film Corporation]], making it the longest continuing theatrical animated movie serial and second longest to ''[[Krazy Kat]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=6 June 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/36/mode/2up |pages=37–39}}</ref>
[[Image:dog-gone crop.jpg|left|thumb|Mutt and Jeff in ''[[Dog Gone (1926 film)|Dog Gone]]'' (1926).]]

In 1971, a feature film was released consisting of eleven redrawn colorized Mutt and Jeff silent films, with the short ''Slick Sleuths'' used as the frame, titled ''The Weird Adventures of Mutt & Jeff and Bugoff'', which added new dialogue and soundtrack songs. In this film, Mutt and Jeff are USA government agents, and they have been assigned to track down SMOGPOO's top secret agent Bugoff, a master of disguise attempting to steal secrets all across the world. Bugoff is the Phantom character in ''Slick Sleuths'', but now he is coloured pink. Radio & Television Packagers, Inc. were the producers of the film, which received a very limited theatrical release, primarily being shown on the [[16 mm film|16MM]] circuit.

In 2005, Inkwell Images released a DVD documentary entitled ''Mutt and Jeff: the Original Animated Odd Couple''; several ''Mutt and Jeff'' animated cartoons are included on the disc.<ref>[http://www.inkwellimagesink.com/pages/cartoons/MuttAndJeff.shtml ''Mutt and Jeff: the Original Animated Odd Couple''] at the Inkwell Images home page</ref> Also, individual Mutt and Jeff cartoons have been mixed with other titles on low-cost video collections, such as the ''Cartoon Craze'' DVDs from Digiview Productions. CartoonsOnFilm has been working on a long-term goal of restoring all surviving Mutt and Jeff cartoons.