University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections

This black and white home movie shot at the Matsushitas’ house in Seattle is a testament to the fact that “cat videos” are nothing new! Curl up with your own feline friend and enjoy this cute montage!

About the filmmaker:

Iwao Matsushita was born January 10, 1892 in Japan. On January 22, 1919 he married Hanaye Tamura, a fellow Japanese citizen born March 9, 1898. In September 1919, Hanaye and Iwao emigrated to Seattle, Washington to further Matsushita’s academic studies. Eventually, Matsushita did pursue some of his academic aspirations, but prior to doing so he worked as a cook, a hotel manager and then in various positions for Mitsui and Company, a major Tokyo-based trading firm. Matsushita’s work for Mitsui and Company paid very well, and during his time of employment at Mitsui, the Matsushitas lived a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Matsushita was a member of the Seattle Camera Club.

Special Guest Archive: Oregon State University
Original format: 16mm

Created by William L. and Irene Finley of Nature Magazine. The film depicts the Finleys and their family on a camping adventure with local critters on a remote Alaskan island! From the William L. Finley Papers.

Music: “Supermoon,” by Ikebe Shakedown. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Special Guest Archive: Oregon State University
Original format: 16mm film with DVD narration added

Alaskan pilot and jack-of-all-trades, “Trapper John” Baker (1933–2018), prepares his 1958 Piper Super Cub airplane to fly in cold weather in Southcentral Alaska. He briefly mentions Queenie-the-dog’s story of having survived a 500 to 800-foot fall from another Super Cub piloted by Cliff Hudson of Talkeetna. This clip from AAF-16367 includes aerial scenes of the Alaska landscape, moose, and a remote airplane landing strip. From the John Baker collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Seattle Municipal Archives

An episode of Zoo Parade showcasing animals from the Pacific Northwest and the Woodland Park Zoo. Zoo Parade was an American television program broadcast on NBC from 1950 to 1957 that featured animals from the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

The program’s host was Marlin Perkins, the Zoo’s director. Perkins went on to host the program Wild Kingdom. Jim Wehmeyer has described the show: “A precursor of sorts to the regularly featured animal segments on The Tonight Show and other late-night talk shows, Zoo Parade was a location-bound production (filmed in the reptile house basement) during which Perkins would present and describe the life and peculiarities of Lincoln Park Zoo animals.”

Marcel LaFollette has written, “Production approaches that are now standard practice on NOVA and the Discovery Channel derive, in fact, from experimentation by television pioneers like Lynn Poole and Don Herbert and such programs as Adventure, Zoo Parade, Science in Action, and the Bell Telephone System’s science specials. These early efforts were also influenced by television’s love of the dramatic, refined during its first decade and continuing to shape news and public affairs programming, as well as fiction and fantasy, today.”

The show won a Peabody Award in 1951, and was nominated for Emmy Awards four times.

Seattle Mime Theatre

Footage of the Seattle Mime Theatre performance “The Carnival of the Animals,” at the Lee Theatre at Forest Ridge School in Bellevue, Washington. The program includes short, amusing characterizations of various animals using special movements, masks and costumes. The performance includes an adaptation of the fairy tale, The Story of Troung-Chi. Choreographed and performed by Seattle Mime Theatre Bellevue, Washington. Performers include Richard Davidson, Bruce Wylie, Mik Kulman, and Elizabeth Roth.