Spooky Cartoons #1

So with Halloween coming up today we are going to look at some Halloween and Spooky themed cartoons.

Our first cartoon today is a silent film. This short stars Jerry the Troublesome Tyke. Jerry was the first animated character to be created in Wales. He was created by animator Sid Griffiths and stared in at least 41 films from 1925 to 1927. The character never made it into talkies. However this does not effect that his films are still highly enjoyable today. This short is a "spooky" one about Jerry's encounters with spook. So enjoy Spoofing a Spook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYgtbn26Nz4


Next up comes a pure Disney classic and one of the most famous spooky cartoons of all time. This is The Skelton Dance. This 1929 short was the first cartoon in a new series. This was the Silly Symphonies. While almost anyone else would be happy to just make Mickey Mouse cartoons, Walt Disney wanted to expand his horizons. The idea itself came from the musical director for Walt at the time, Carl Stalling. Stalling not only had the idea to make a series of cartoons based around music, but also came up with the idea for The Skelton Dance himself. Walt loved the idea and work on the film began soon. Walt's main animator at this time was Ub Iwerks, who handled most of the animation. Also animating on this film was Les Clark and Wilfred Jackson. Les Clark would state that he animated the scene where a skeleton plays another skeleton's ribs, however he is also sometimes credited with animating the opening scene instead. On the other hand it is known that Wilfred Jackson animated the rooster crowing, because it would be reused in the 1931 Silly Symphony The Cat's Nightmare where documents let us know he animated it. After he parted with the Disney studio, Ub Iwerks would direct a remake of this film for Columbia called Skelton Frolics (1937). My fellow silent film enthusiasts may also be interested to know at this movies premiere at the Carhty Circle (June 10, 1929) it played with one of the all time lost gems in Cinema history, F.W. Murnau's 4 Devils. Unlike the Mickey mouse cartoons this film is a mood piece. There is not much in the way of comedy or story here, but there is a lot of atmosphere. This however is done so great that you hardly miss the comedy or story. The film pulls you into its brilliant atmosphere and never let's go.

Next up comes a cartoon that actually takes place on Halloween. This is a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon called Betty Boop's Halloween Party. Betty Boop's cartoon career started just two years earlier in a cartoon called Dizzy Dishes. That film starred the Fleischer Studio's main star of the time Bimbo. Since Bimbo was a dog in that cartoon Betty was a dog also, but a very human looking one. It wasn't long until she would become human, however Bimbo would remain her boyfriend. Her design was created by animator Grim Natwick and much of her personality was based on a singer named Helen Kane. Betty Boop's Halloween is a highly entertaining short with a lot to recommend it. This film shows what the Fleischer studio was best at during this time period. That means the film was full of brilliant imagination. The gags are surreal and fun, and there is no mistaking this for a cartoon from any other Hollywood studio. This cartoon is also a pre-code film (if you don't know what that means I direct you here), so there are a some risqué jokes that would not fly if this cartoon was made later.

  

Last is our only made for TV cartoon on this post, Spook A Nanny. This cartoon first aired in 1964 on The Woody Woodpecker Show. For the most part this show was made up of classic theatrical cartoon shorts with new bridging sequences. Spook A Nanny was the only cartoon made for this show. While it may not be as good as the Woody Woodpecker shorts of the 1940's there is still quite a bit to recommend here. The short is rather entertaining in its own weird way, and the song is really really catchy.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series by J.B. Kaufman and Russell Merritt

The Animated World of Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay is easily one of the most important, and most talented pioneers of animation. Contrary to some stories you might hear though he is not the first filmmaker to use animation (Emil Cohl, J. Stuart Blackton, Charles-Émile Reynaud, and Segundo de Chomón beat him to it).  However his importance to the history of animation can not be underestimated.

 Winsor McCay had already enjoyed much success before entering the field of animation, as creator and writer of the newspaper comic strips, Little Nemo in Slumberland, and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. These comic strips were the highlight of the comics page back then. They transcended what comic strips had been know for through their abundance of imagination, and expert drawing style. It is only natural for a man who created this to be attracted to the art form of animation.

His first film was Little Nemo (Also called Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics) based off his own comic strip. Released in 1911, animation was still a novelty, and McCay took full advantage of that. This film in fact starts out in live action with McCay betting he can make drawings move (although he incorrectly credits himself as the first to do this), and his friends respond with laughter and disbelief. The live action segment of this film is very clever, and humorous. The highlight of the live action portion though is seeing McCay draw his characters before the animation starts. This is when you know you are watching a great talent at work. The animation segment itself is very well done and entertaining, but it is a little dated. It is obvious he had not yet figured out what to do with animation, and that leads to a lack of understanding our characters, and therefore a lack of personal involvement. However this animation is expertly done. It is very appealing and still looks very good by today's standards. This entire segment was hand-drawn by one man, Winsor McCay himself. He drew four-thousand drawings all by himself for this one short segment of the film. The early color was achieved by hand painting the 35mm film itself after it was complete. this was also done only by McCay.



The most famous film Winsor McCay made is easily Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).  This film was actually a vaudeville act before it was in theaters. The act consisted of Winsor McCay talking to his animated dinosaur Gertie. He would tell her what to do and Gertie would do it (most of the time). This was translated to theaters by having an off screen narrator, who speaks through intertitles (since this was a silent film). This film has often times wrongly been called the first cartoon ever made. While this is not true (It isn't even McCay's first cartoon, it is his third), its place in animation history is still extremely important. The reason for this is Gertie, herself. She is one of the first animated characters that the audience was allowed to see think. Unlike the characters in Little Nemo, Gertie does not seem like she is just moving drawings projected on a screen, but instead like a real character that we know and relate to over the course of the film. This was the beginning of character animation, and probably the first successful attempt at it. Like Little Nemo this film begins in live action. Winsor McCay bets his fellow cartoonists that he can make a dinosaur come to life and boy does he.



  Despite the great success of Gertie, McCay decided to do something complete different with his next adventure into the world of animation. His next film was The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918). This was not only the first completely serious cartoon that Winsor McCay made, but also the first animated documentary. For a cartoon to approach such a serious event as the sinking of the Lusitania was unheard of at this time. For the animation McCay knew he needed to achieve much more realism in his animation. The amount of detail in the animation still remains an unbelievable feet. Due to this different style it took much more work and time than anything that had been before. Yet still the entire film was animated solely by Winsor McCay. This film remains a masterful and moving piece of patriotism and probably one of the greatest propaganda films ever made.



















-Michael J. Ruhland

Animated Feature Films Before Snow White

Though I cannot deny that the Disney animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a milestone in film history and a great movie, it is not the first animated feature film ever made. Why it is sad that this is often believed is because some of the animated features that came before are really good and definitely deserve more attention. That is why today we are going to look at these films.






El Apostol
1917. Director: Quirino Cristani. Writer: Quirino Cristani. Animator: Quirino Cristiani. Character Designs: Diógenes Taborda. Models: Andrés Ducaud.

El Apostol is believed to be the first animated feature film made. This was a silent film from Argentina. Unfortunately this film is lost today due to a fire in 1926. The film was a political satire about Argentinian president Hipolito Yrigoyen, and the film ran around 70 minutes.

Sin dejar rastros1918. Director: Quirino Cristani. Writer: Quirino Cristiani. Animator: Quirino Cristiani. Producer: Federico Valle.

Sin dejar rastros (or in English Without a Trace) was a silent movie from the same country and director of El Apostol. It is based on a true story of Baron von Luxburg and how he affected Argentinian history. It is unknown if any copies of this film exist today and the film is considered lost.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed1926. Director: Lotte Reiniger. Technical Director: Carl Koch. Animators: Walter Ruttman, Berthold Bartosch, Walter Turck, Alexander Kardan. Titles: Edmund Delco.

This German silent film is the earliest animated feature available for viewing and it is a delight. Through expert film making and subtle but extremely expressive character animation, this film tells a simple story in the best way possible. Director Lotte Reiniger started directing animated films in 1919 and specialized in a style of animation called silhouette animation. This was achieved by cut out figures made from cardboard. Each limb of these cardboard figures had wires attached, creating the onscreen illusion of these characters moving of their own will. The rest of the crew working on the film had amazing film careers themselves. Carl Koch would for instance be a co-writer for Jean Renoir's 1939 classic The Rules of the Game. Walter Ruttman and Berthold Bartosch would direct some films themselves. Ruttman would direct the 1927 classic Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and Bartosch directed one of the most brilliant animated art-house films ever made with the 1932 short The Idea. In The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Ruttman and Bartosch animated mainly on the special effects. Because of this Animation Historian Jerry Beck has referred to them as "the world's first effects animators". When originally made it was hard for the film to find a distributor in Germany. However a composer named Wolfgang Zeller got permission to book a showing at a concert hall with his own  music. Reviews from this showing were extremely positive and the film was picked up for a year at a theater in Paris. This was followed by the film playing all over the world.

  Peludópolis1931. Director: Quirino Cristiani. Music: José Vázquez Vigo.

Peludópolis is believed to be the earliest sound animated feature. This is another film from Argentina and directed by Quirino Cristiani. Unfortunately like his earlier features this one is assumed lost. It is another political movie, this time about Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen and how a group called The Radicals were trying to overthrow him.

The New Gulliver1935. Director: Aleksandr Ptushko. Writers: Aleksandr Ptushko, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Grigori Roshal. Cast: Vladimir Konstantinovich Konstantinov, Ivan Yudin, Shaolin Santiago. Cinematographer: Nikolai Renkoi Renkov.

This stop motion/live action hybrid was the first Russian feature to make extensive use of animation and the first mostly stop motion feature film released. This movie takes Jonathan Swift's famous book Gulliver's Travels and turns it into soviet propaganda. While this film's combination of stop motion and live action is well ahead of its time, it is really only of interest to film buffs with a special interest in the history of animation, or those who want to see soviet propaganda. All others will surely find this movie just boring.

The Adventures of Pinocchio Directors: Raoul Verdini, Umberto Spano.


This is a debatable film to put on this list because it was never actually finished. The film had production trouble from the start and simply seemed to be fated not to be. If released when it was planned to (1936) it would have been the first cell animated feature and the first animated feature from Italy. It would have also beat Walt Disney's animated adaption of Collodi's book by four years.

The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda1936. Director: Mikhail Tsekhanovsky.

Based on a poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, this was the first hand-drawn Russian feature film. Sadly due to a fire only six minutes of this movie still exist today as the rest was destroyed in a fire.

The Tale of the Fox 1937. Directors: Irene Starevich, Ladislas Starevich. Writers: Irene Starevich, Ladislas Starevich, Roger Richebé, Jean Nohain, Antoinette Nordmann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Voices: Romain Bouquet, Claude Dauphin, Sylvain Itkine, Léon Larive, Robert Seller, Eddy Debray, Nicolas Amato, Pons, Sylivia Bataille, Suzy Dornac, Jamie Palma, Marcel Raine. Music: Vincent Scotto. Cinematography: Ladislas Starevich. Animators: Irene Starevich, Ladislas Starevich. Editor: Laura Sejourné.

This was the first French animated feature, and the first feature to be completely stop motion. It is only appropriate that one of the directors was Ladislas Starevich, one of the pioneers of stop motion animation and one of the first filmmakers to prove animation was art and not just a novelty. Not surprisingly this film is a pure work of art and one of the all time great animated features. Sadly this is the only animated feature film he worked on. The film was originally finished in 1930, but it there were problems with its original French soundtrack. This film ended up being released in Germany and in the German language in 1937, and wouldn't play in France or French until 1941.

Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons1937. Cartoons directed by Wilfred Jackson, Burt Gillett, Dave Hand..

With no new animation and simply being some short films put together and released as a feature, it is very debatable to include this here. This film is made up of five of the Disney studio's Silly Symphonies cartoons (Flowers and Trees (1932), Three Little Pigs (1933), The Tortoise and the Hare (1934), Three Orphan Kittens (1935), The Country Cousin (1936)). It would be released in 1966 with four cartoons added (The Old Mill (1937), Ferdinand the Bull (1938), The Ugly Duckling (1939), Lend a Paw (1941)). Naturally as these short films are all great the feature film is a lot of fun to watch, but there is nothing new offered here, which leaves it out of most lists of Disney feature films.

The Seven Ravens
1937. Directors: Ferdinand Diehl, Hermann Diehl. Writer: Paul Diehl. Cinematographer: Alfonse Lufteck. Music: Walter Pepper. Animators: Ferdinand Diehl, Hermann Diehl.

This stop motion animated feature from Germany just barely makes this list as it was released earlier the same month as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This movie is based off of a story by the Brothers Grimm.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources UsedThe Animated Movie Guide edited by Jerry Beck
Animation Art edited by Jerry Beck 

Walt Disney's Alice Comedies

Hello again fellow animation fans. I feel it is fairly safe to assume that many of you who would read an animation blog are also Disney fans. If you are a Disney fan, I feel it is more than worth your time to know about Walt Disney's work before Mickey Mouse or even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. That is why today we are going to look at Walt's first series with reoccurring characters, The Alice Comedies. So enjoy as we look at three of these great films.

This series was a purposeful and not too subtle reversal of what Max and Dave Fleisher were doing with their Out of the Inkwell series. That series involved the animated Ko-Ko the Clown escaping into the real live action world. In the Alice Comedies a live action little girl named Alice would enter an animated cartoon world. Our first film today is the first film of the series 1923's Alice's Wonderland. Before this Walt Disney was making a series without reoccurring characters called Laugh-O-Grams. These were fairy tale parodies set in the modern day. They were made at the short lived Laugh-O-Gram studios. When Alice's Wonderland was being made this studio was having finical. Before the film was ever released to theaters the studio went bankrupt. Walt did find a distributor in Margret Winkler though. Winkler at this time was also distributing the silent era's two most popular animated series, the aforementioned Out of the Inkwell series as well as the Felix the Cat cartoons. Because of this Walt moved from Kanas City to LA to make his cartoons. This was the last of Walt's cartoons to be made in Kanas City. The live action little girl is played by a very charismatic four year named Virginia Davis. The animation is provided by Hugh Harmon, Rudolph Ising, Ub Iwerks and Carmen Maxwell. The short was directed by Walt Disney himself.

Our second film might be my favorite of the series, 1924's Alice's Wild West Show. Despite this being of the series' best outings it does not feature as much animation as the first film did. This is instead a live action short subject with some animated inserts. There is however a reason for this however. After moving to LA, Walt left behind the animators he had worked with earlier. This left Walt to do much of the animation himself. Walt while a talented animator had little confidence in his animation. Walt was also hardly as fast at this as were the animators he worked with earlier making the animation part to take longer to produce. Because of this at this time Alice comedies relied more and more on live action. This would soon change when Walt would get Ub Iwerks to move west with him. Ub was one of the greatest and fastest animators of all time and because of this when he came west animation would play a much more prominent part in the series. This film in many ways feels like one of the silent Our Gang shorts. This was very common for an Alice comedy of this period, as Alice was given a group of friends who resembled the classic comedy team and went on similar adventures. This is an excellent film full of fun and energy. So enjoy.

 
Our last film for Today is 1925's Alice Solves the Puzzle. One thing you may notice about this short is that Alice is no longer played by Virginia Davis. Virginia Davis had to leave the series and for the rest of the shorts Alice would be played by different little girls. This is the first one not to feature her. Here Alice is played by Margie Gay. Don't worry about Virginia though her film career did not end here, as she would appear in such films as Three on a Match and Weekend in Havana. She would audition for the voice of Snow White in Walt Disney's landmark first feature, though she would not land the part. However she would end up voicing some of the boys in the Pleasure Island scene of Pinocchio. She would also work as a live action reference for the Donald Duck cartoon Mr. Duck Steps Out by doing a Jitterbug dance. This short would also introduce a new cartoon character. This would be Pete who would later become Mickey Mouse's rival. Here he is called Bootleg Pete. So enjoy.




-Michael J. Ruhland


Resources Used Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age by Michael Barrier

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/in-her-own-words-virginia-davis/