I can swear that the guy from UC Davis said that they had the cylinder.
Besides which, I’ve been listening to cylinder records quite a bit lately, and I recognized the audio charactaristics of an acoustic recording, compared to electronic recording.
Sunday night, the 14th, starting at 10:00p.m.:
Children Who Labor (1912)
Concerning $1000 (1916)
Exhibition Reel of Two-Color Film (1919)
The Flute of Krishna (1926)
Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1924)
International News: Volume 8, Issue 97 (1926)
Now You’re Talking (1927)
There It Is (1928)
Clash of the Wolves (1925)
Lotus Blossom (1921)
What Happened on 23rd Street, New York City (1901)
A Bronx Morning (1931)
At the Foot of the Flatiron (1903)
New York City Ghetto Fish Market (1903)
From Leadville to Aspen: Hold-Up in the Rookies (1906)
“Teddy” Bears, The (1907)
As I found out last week, these are not necessarily the proper running orders, so you have to tape the whole thing. From TCM’s web site on my hero:
Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (ca. 1925)
This early sound short, unforgettably odd, captures a certain Gus Visser singing and goosing (if that’s the term) his duck in an act unlike anything since the death of vaudeville. The accommodating duck and Gus make a duet of Sidney Clare and Con Conrad’s “Ma (He’s Making Eyes at Me),” which had been introduced in the Broadway revue The Midnight Rounders of 1921. The filmed performance seems to have been part of a more elaborate touring vaudeville act from “Visser and Company, with Elsie Gelli” that incorporated acrobatics and dancing under the title “The Original Singing Duck” - suggesting competition from other opportunistic musical ducks! By 1926, Gus Visser’s act was typically part of a live opening stage show before a feature silent film, a harbinger of the ultimate supplanting of vaudeville by the movies. As entertaining and unforgettable as is Gus and his duck, such sound films as this did not lead anyone to predict the death of silent filmmaking.
–Next time I’m at Lincoln Center, I must look up their Gus Visser files.
Again, if anyone can just throw a tape in their VCRs and record this for me, I would be incredibly grateful. (I don’t get TCM as part of basic cable in Miami.) You can record all the shorts, I don’t mind–some others might be entertaining as well. I’ll send you a new blank videotape, or money for the same and reimbursement for shipping, whatever you want. But I’d love to see the singing duck! 
I’d do it, if you’ll promise to return it to me–I will loan Gus Visser and His Singing Duck, but I could not possibly give away Gus Visser and His Singing Duck.
Eve, you would be my hero. I’ll e-mail you my address, and know that your tape would be in good hands. I ship things all the time, and they know me by name at the post office, so have no fear you will get it back safely and in a timely fashion.
I’ll have to wait after the 21st, and you’ll get two Sundays’ worth of AFI shorts.
Off the WANTED poster…
Hey, infamy’s better than nothing!
Gustave Visser
21 Jan 1894
Sep 1967
Last resided in North Bergen, New Jersey
R.I.P.
Eve will leading the memorial service at his grave. Followed by a 21-quack salute.
Where did they bury the duck?
Under a large pile of sauce, right next to the mashed potatos.
*A la * one of the NJ Oranges.
For the NJ-trivia-challenged, there’s a cluster of NJ “Oranges” – South Orange, West Orange, East Orange, and just plain Orange, all located to the north and west of Newark.
Omigod, North Bergen? I can get there in, like 15 minutes by bus! There had better be a huge, duck-shaped memorial to him, or I’ll have to have one built myself. (After I take care of Nora Bayes’ and Florence LaBadie’s unmarked graves . . . )
Upon Googling him, I came up with a paper on Social Justice, Integrated Development Planning and Post-apartheid Urban Reconstruction, by Gustav Visser.
Of course, his points, while well-made and impeccibly researched, were somewhat undercut by the fact that he interrupted his talk to sing “Ma! He’s Makin’ Eyes At Me!” with his hand up a duck’s ass.
OK, got my VCR set, tape in, and I’ll stay up to watch the first hour (have to get to bed 11-ish for work tomorrow), hoping fervently Gus & Duck show up early.
T minus 11 minutes to Gus Visser and Duck!
Did the duck have a name?
That was worth struggling through The Lotus Blossom and The Flute of Krishna for!
Aw, dang it, I must have missed it. Some western is on now. Not that I won’t watch the rest of these shorts…
Wow, not only did Gus Visser have his hand up a duck’s ass, he sang * in Yiddish dialect*!. Now, that’s the 1920s!
Little Lilly was so silly and shy,
and all the fellows knew,
she wouldn’t bill and coo.
Every single night some smart fellow would try,
to cuddle up to her, but she would cry:
Ma! He’s makin’ eyes at me,
Ma! He’s awful nice to me,
Ma! He’s almost breaking my heart,
I’m beside him, mercy, let his conscience guide him!
Ma! He wants to marry me, be my honey bee.
Every minute he gets bolder, now he’s leaning on my shoulder,
Ma! He’s kissin’ me!