The Lasting Legacy: Post-Modern Examples of Rubber Hose

Despite being largely abandoned by the late 1930s, rubber hose animation remains commonly tributed and occasionally even employed.  

Why does rubber hose style animation continue to be used once in a while? It certainly has not been the norm since the mid-1930s. But there is something appealing about the free form movements, exaggerated expressions, fluid simplicity, and bizarre plotlines of early American cartoons. Some of the longest running cartoon series and most famous characters originated over 70 years ago, and still continue to influence pop culture today (i.e: Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Popeye, Mickey Mouse). Animators John K and Michael Sporn, although having differing tastes, have often praised the early innovations (and boundless creativity) of old cartoons, on their blogs. Likewise, these older cartoons are becoming more commonly seen again, after being taken off of TV airings for many years, thanks to video sharing sites on the internet, such as Youtube and Blip. Rubber hose may be outdated or be deemed primitive, but when used creatively it can still prove entertaining. For this reason, animation today continues to make references to the style, and certain modern TV series and movies draw great influence from it as well.

Of course, most modern examples of rubber hose are done purposely to invoke nostalgia and for appealing to animation junkies. Recent episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama have parodied the style. The lead characters in The Animaniacs (1993-1998), were 1930s cartoon stars who had been locked away in the Warner water tower for many years, and were initially created to replace WB's bland character, Buddy. Foxy, Roxy, Bosko, Honey, and Goopy Geer were also featured in another Warner Brothers cartoon, Tiny Toon Adventures (1990-1995), in the episodes "Two-Tone Town'' and "Fields of Honey." Reboots of long lasting cartoon characters, utilizing a more retro rubber hose style and modern sensibilities, have also been made. The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat (1995-1997) was certainly a far wilder take on the franchise than the more kiddy '60s cartoons. Disney has recently produced two productions based off of the classic version of Mickey Mouse: "Get a Horse" (a short in the vein of the character's original cartoons), and a new TV series, blending rubber hose with newer styles, set to premie on Disney Channel.

The Animaniacs's lead characters were inspired by early cartoon characters, and the show combined classic conventions with modern humor. 

Recently, Disney announced that it will be releasing new Mickey Mouse shorts more in vein of the character's original interpretation.

Not all studio output consists of simply tributes or reboots of old theatrical shorts, however. Sometimes rubber hose animation may be used for humorous effects. Elastigirl from The Incredibles (2004), has the superpower of being extremely stretchy and is able to contort her body in a wide variety of odd ways. While being based on comic book characters such as Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four and Plastic Man, Elastigirl certainly owes some of her movements to the tradition of the loose limbed animation from yesteryear (as does the anime character, Monkey D. Luffy, from One Piece). Spongebob Squarepants, being a well...sponge can also sometimes move his body in weird ways and has noodly arms and legs. Perhaps the best known of example of 'modern rubber hose', would be Adventure Time. All of the show's characters possess tube-like limbs and are simply drawn. Adventure Time's frequently bizarre, sometimes rather unsettling storylines also seem to be heavily influenced by the works of the Fleisher Brothers and Ub Iwerks. Due to Adventure Time's popularity (and perhaps as a way to make animation fluid enough for TV but keep the budget under control), several other recent series have adopted the usage of rubbery physics, including Regular Show, Sanjay and Craig, and the upcoming Wonder Over Yonder.

Strange and loose limbed, Adventure Time is clearly influenced by the physics of rubber hose. 

In the independent film making crowd, rubber hose has also been utilized by many different people. Sylvain Chomet's The Triplets of Belleville (France, 2003), featured a memorable sequence in its beginning were the titular characters and certain period singers and stars are drawn in an old fashioned black and white style, which is perfectly appropriate given that the triplets were music hall singers from the 1930s. The ska band Squirrel Nut Zippers made an excellent homage to the Fleisher Brothers in their music video for the song, "Ghost of Stephan Foster" (1999). A short by animator Fernando Miller, "Flea and Fly in City Troubles" (2012), was made to look like an old, worn print of a theatrical cartoon for a rather different purpose. It is used to boldly portray the real world issues of poverty and homeless childern living in the streets of Brazil. Nina Paley also seems to like rubber hose animation. The lead of her film, Sita Sings the Blues (2008), seems to be modeled off of Betty Boop. Sita also sings Annette Hanshaw jazz numbers in a similar way to how many 1930s characters incorporated popular songs into their plots.  

If the above don't scream retro, nothing does.

Rubber hose animation hugely impacted the development of anime, particularly through Osamu Tezuka ('the God of Manga'), who brought us such classics as Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo, Princess Knight, Black Jack, and Phoenix. Tezuka had a fondness of creating young characters with large eyes and small noses, and sometimes wrote rather strange or wacky storylines to counterbalance his more dramatic and serious ones. These elements remain fairly common in modern anime today. Tezuka even outright tributes and plays with the audience's perception of film reality in his experimental short, "Broken Down Film" (1980). The influence of American cartoons on Japanese animation can be seen from very early on. For instance, the anime shorts "Ugokie Ko Ri No Tatehiki" (1933) and "The Routing of the Tengu"(1934), show a unique glimpse at the blending of Western and Eastern artistic styles. The video game character Sonic the Hedgehog seems to be heavily based on Western funny animals, having arms and legs that move with little regard to articulation, large conjoined eyes, white gloves, and shoes. Even Hayao Miyazaki acknowledges his love for Fleshier Studios and considers its existence one of his inspirations for becoming an animator. Miyazaki distributed the company's last film, Mr. Bug Goes To Town (1942), through the Studio Ghibli Museum library and his Laputa robot owes a lot to the Superman short, "The Mechanical Monsters" (1941). In Porco Rosso (1992), Miyazaki makes a tribute to Fleshier's rubber hose fare, when Porco is watching a cartoon in a theater that could easily be mistaken for a 1930s short.

Osamu Tezuka was clearly influenced by the style of early American cartoons.

Miyazaki is a huge Fleischer Brothers fan. Here, he tributes them in a clip from Porco Rosso. 

Technicolor Realism: The Decline of Rubber Hose and Emergence of the Golden Age

How did animation go from this to...

...this within eight years?

During the 1930s, animation began to evolve as artists gained more experience and companies were allowed to make cartoons on a larger budget as the medium continued to grow in popularity. With the adoption of the Technicolor process in the earlier half of the decade, Walt Disney decided to push for more realism in the medium of animation, which had practically been unseen since the earlier work of Winsor McCay. His studio was thus the first to abandon the weightless, 'more cartoony' style of rubber hose and adopted several technical innovations to allow for a sense of realism (i.e.: the multiplane camera, detailed backgrounds, refinement of the studio system). Other companies soon followed, some reluctantly, others shamelessly copying in order to survive. As a backlash to the Disney style, 'wise-guy' and wacky, slapstick cartoons also became common, such as Looney Tunes's Daffy Duck and Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker. Short comedic cartoons were also common outside of Disney due to the financial risks that other companies faced in making feature length animated productions.

Disney Leads the Way

"The Tortoise and the Hare" (1935), was made only a year after "The Goddess of Spring," but is far superior technically and story-wise. 

While Disney's Mickey Mouse shorts became hugely popular due to their use of sound, his Silly Symphonies series had a harder time standing out as they did not feature a consistent cast of characters, each installment being based on a different popular story or folktale every outing. In order to garner more viewers (and to deal with the loss of animator Ub Iwerks), the company bought out the exclusive rights to have their cartoons filmed in Technicolor for several years. Disney's decision proved to be a wise won, as their first three-strip Technicolor short, "Flowers and Trees"(1932), won the first ever Academy Award for a Animated Short Subject. The use of color added a splash of realism unseen in any productions before. This pushed the company to begin focusing on more believable character animation. "The Three Little Pigs" (1933) put great emphasis on creating distinct personalities and featured heavy use of character interaction through dialogue, which no doubt contributed to its off the charts popularity. Equally important was "The Goddess of Spring" (1934), Disney's first, if rather awkward, attempt at realistic human animation. Within a year, Disney had improved their draftsmanship drastically. So much that the short, "The Tortoise and The Hare"(1935) was practically not rubber hose anymore! Perhaps the best Silly Symphony short that demonstrates this is "The Old Mill" (1937), which made great use of the multiplane camera to create a sense of depth and further believability of the cartoon's environment. Animation at Disney had become fully evolved and was ready for its next stage, feature film.

"The Pointer" (1939) marks the first appearance of Mickey's 'modern' design.  

Although animated films had been made before, none of them had been made by a major Hollywood studio or filmed in color. At Hollywood, many believed that no one would be able to sit through a long cartoon, as it was thought that audiences would grow bored of slapstick gags and get annoyed with the lack of realism. So when Walt Disney announced that his studio was going to produce a film based on the fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, critics dismissed it, stating that Snow White would ruin his career and dubbed the film, "Disney's Folly." Fortunately the critics proved wrong. When the movie premiered in 1937, after three long years in production, it was widely praised for its marriage of cartoon physics and realism. Snow White proved that animation could be used to tackle a wider range of subjects than previously thought and set the trend for all other animated features to follow. Disney's projects then became even more ambitious. Pinocchio (1940) refined everything that was done previously in Snow White. It is definitely a stronger film: its animation still holds up remarkably will today, featured a more complex plot, and is widely considered to be one of the company's finest productions. Within the same year, Fantasia was released. It experimented with a wide range of animation styles and artistic influences, separated by different musical interludes. Unfortunately, neither of the two films did very well financially due to the outbreak of WWII. Thus Bambi (1942), was the last true feature length animated film released by Disney up until 1950.

A Trailer for Pinocchio (1940).

And Others Follow

In order to stay competitive we must copy Disney! 

Disney's success certainly did not go unnoticed by other studios. After the Silly Symphony shorts started to become commercially and critically successful, many companies began to put out their own suspiciously similar cartoons. Ub Iwerks, after leaving Disney for personal reasons, produced his Comicolor Cartoons from 1933 to 1936, which, while bland, did have artistic merit. Van Beuren, however, was largely ignored for its Rainbow Parade Cartoons (1934-1936), which largely came off as blunt Disney ripoffs and made a rather disappointing attempt to revive Felix the Cat. Harman and Ising perhaps made the most expertly crafted cartoons outside of Disney after leaving WB. Their Happy Harmonies (1934-1938) failed to be successful, but still have small sect of appreciative fans to this day. The Fleischer Brothers were reluctant to enter the 'Silly Symphony' fray, but did so with their Color Classics (1934-1941) due to executive meddling. Columbia Pictures is perhaps the most forgotten Disney imitator, as their Color Rhapsodies (1934-1939) tended to be very low budget, and the company lacked any longtime talented directors.

Of course, not all cartoon series released at the time outright copied Disney. However, every animation studio did begin to train their staff to animate more realistically and abandon rubber hose principles. An excellent example of this would be the artistic evolution that took place in Porky Pig's Looney Tunes shorts. Early on, his appearances were marked with less articulated character movements. Porky was initially a very fat young child, not the slimmer adult pig that he later became known as. His redesign increased the character's appeal and believability. Because Porky debuted in 1935, his cartoons rapidly dropped the physics associated with rubber hose, but still utilized exaggerated movements for humorous effects. Another example of a character's evolution towards 'realism' would be the Walter Lantz version of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Lantz first redesigned Oswald to be cuter, have more detailed attire, and a personality more in line with that of Mickey Mouse. By the 1940s, the rabbit became completely unlike his former self. He was aged down considerably, lost his black and white color scheme associated with the outdated rubber hose style, and drawn with consideration to realistic weight and proportions.  

Walter Lantz's Oswald from the mid-1930s. 

A more rabbit-like Oswald from the early 1940s. 

Resistance to the Movement & The Screwballs Emerge

Popeye refuses to be like one of those 'bland Mickey cartoons' !

Not every animation studio was quick to abandon the wackiness of rubber hose, in favor of the 'cutesy,'  detailed style embraced by Disney. Ub Iwerks did adopt color for his Comicolor Cartoons and pioneer the usage of the multiplane camera (which Disney later adopted). However, the characters in his shorts retained their exaggerated yet simplistic style, and the cartoons themselves were less sentimental and idealistic than Disney's Silly Symphonies were. The Fleisher Brothers held out longer than Iwerks did. Even though they abandoned Betty Boop after the implantation of the Hayes Box Office Code, the company kept making Popeye shorts which continued to perfect its own brand of rubber hose. Likewise, Fleisher's Superman series (1941-1942), while certainly different from Popeye, approached animation with a more graphical style than Disney, focusing more on fast paced action and drama. On the other hand, Looney Tunes began to increasingly refuse to make Disney clones. Instead, they opted for cartoons focusing on slapstick, parodying the cute animal character archetype common at the time. Daffy Duck (1937), Bugs Bunny (1940), and Bob Clampett's early incarnation of Tweety Bird (1942) all followed this trend. 

"I'm wooking for wabbits."

Other companies soon did the same due to WB's success with zany and smart aleck funny animals. After leaving for MGM, Tex Avery gave us Screwy Squirrel (1944), a short lived, literally 'nuts' character who frequently messed with his antagonists' (and the audiences') minds when he broke the fourth wall. Avery also made many one shot cartoons, most notably "Blitz Wolf" (1942), which was a parody of Disney's "Three Little Pigs" and the war against Nazi Germany, and "Red Hot Riding Hood" (1943), which similarly parodied fairytale cartoons popular at the time, by updating one for modern audiences. Avery's only consistent recurring character was Droopy Dog (1943), whom Avery loved to use to contrast deadpan humor with other worldly gags. Also at MGM, William Hannah and Joe Barbara created their comedic duo, Tom and Jerry, who first appeared in the 1940 short, "Puss Gets the Boot." Walter Lantz likewise replaced his cute star, Andy Panda, with the zany Woody Pecker, who debuted in "Knock Knock" (1940). Columbia also jumped on the bandwagon when they hired a Warner Brothers employ, Frank Tashlin, to create The Fox and the Crow in 1941. Even Terrytoons, the "Woolworth's of animation," managed to create a few icons such as Mighty Mouse (who started out as a funny animal parody of Superman), and Heckle and Jeckle, two wise cracking magpies.

Tex Avery was the opposite of Disney: wacky, over the top, and sometimes sensual.

What Happened to the Feature Film Outside of Disney?

Why was this film the last major American animated film to be released outside of Disney for many years?

Back in the late 1930s, the only animation studio rivaling the power of Disney was Fleischer Studios. Once Disney met great success with the release of Snow White, Fleischer decided that ir had enough resources and the capabilities to do the same. Fleischer first released three Technicolor Popeye Specials between 1936 to 1939, each running around 15 to 20 minutes. The specials had elaborate animation and gorgeous backgrounds that where at the level of what Disney produced at the same time. The experience gained allowed Fleischer to produce its first true animated feature, Gulliver's Travels (1939). Gulliver proved to be financially successful even though it relied very heavily on the use of the rotoscope in order to animate its lead. Encouraged by their success and nomination for two Academy Awards, the Fleischer Brothers put out a second feature in 1941. Mr. Bug Goes to Town is now generally recognized as being the stronger film. It had the artistic merit equal to any of Disney's features, relied far less on the rotoscope, and had an original storyline to boot. Sadly, Mr. Bug proved to be the death knell of the studio despite all of it improvements over Gulliver. It was released two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. This lead to the film being a financial disaster and the rest of its market was cut off overseas. Fleischer Studios could not deal with the debt and thus was shut down. It was bought out by Paramount and then replaced with the lower budget Famous Studios in 1942.

Before the tragedy of Fleischer Studios, several other animation companies considered making feature films. However, they became too scared after what happened to Fleischer, many had to deal with impending production costs, and their was that little issue called WWII. (The later resulted in many propaganda cartoons being made up until 1945.) Thus, competing studios adapted by making more anarchic/humor based shorts than Disney. To say that American cartoons during the 1940s-50s were nonexistent in feature film outside of Disney is not entirely correct though. Popular characters from short subjects did make the occasional cameo in live-action film (in a similar manner to Disney's Song of the South [1946]). Jerry made a memorable appearance when he danced with Gene Kelly in Anchors Awiegh (1945), and would later appear alongside Tom in Dangerous When Wet (1953). Bugs Bunny similarly popped up in a dream sequence in Two Guys from Texas (1948) and in the following year in My Dream is Yours alongside Tweety Bird. Woody Woodpecker appeared in cartoon within Destination Moon (1950) due to producer George Pal being a friend of Walter Lantz.

Most non-Disney cartoons were reduced to cameos in feature film.

The only exception to this rule during the early 1950s was the stop-motion feature Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy (1954) which remains little known today, and sort of a cult oddity. Non-Disney American animated movies did not really start to appear again until 1959 (with the release of the Mister Magoo film, 1001 Arabian Nights) and did not really become common until the 1980s-90s (thanks to Don Bluth and the Animation Renaissance). Foreign features were slightly more common. China garnered much attention with Princess Iron Fan (1941), which while technically simplistic to American features of the time, greatly influenced future anime directors. Several European features were made as well, such as: Tintin's The Crab with the Golden Claws (Belgium, 1947), The King and the Mockingbird (France, 1952),  Animal Farm (Britain, 1954), and The Snow Queen (Russia, 1957). It is also worth noting that Japan released its first significant animated production, Hakujaden, during this period in 1958, hinting at the country's future in the industry.  

Overseas, a few quality animated films were made during the 1940s-50s. 

Spaghetti Limbs, Bouncy Movements: The Age of Rubber Hose

What is Rubber Hose?

What is rubber hose? Oswald the Lucky Rabbit will demonstrate for us.

The first standardized animation style to be adopted by Hollywood studios is still quite recognizable today. Rubber hose animation refers to the bouncy, rubbery way that characters were animated primarily in American cartoons during the 1920s to approximately the mid-1930s. It was not only adopted for its efficiency, but also to avoid the issue of stiffness. These cartoons featured stars with noodly limbs having little to no articulation. They had many sight gags and frequently utilized surreal plot lines. Several of these early cartoons had a good dose of adult humor (i.e: prohibition and sex jokes, mild profanity) as the Hayes Box Office Code was not fully adopted until the later half of the 1930s. Theatrical cartoons were not originally intended just for childern. Sound rubber hose cartoons also were commonly synchronized with popular music of the time. Although most were produced in black and white to keep down production costs, color began to be used in animation beginning in 1930 with the Flip the Frog short, "Fiddlesticks." It became standard by the end of the 1930s as rubber hose gave way to realism.

The Cat That Kept on Walking

Perhaps the first cartoon series to popularize the rubber hose style, was Felix the Cat, created by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer. Debuting in 1919 in the short "Feline Follies", Felix was the biggest cartoon star of the silent era. The character's happy-go-lucky but short tempered personality, ability to use his wits (or magical tail) to get himself out of difficult situations, and fourth-wall jokes made him a hot commodity. So hot, in fact, that other funny animal characters modeled after him became the norm. Felix eventually became overshadowed by other series, however, due to difficulties switching over to sound. By 1930, audiences had moved on. Felix, however, would arise to popularity again when he was re-invented (made more 'kid friendly') for TV audiences in 1959. The cat may be a former shadow of his glory days, but still regularly appears on merchandising.

In 'Feline Follies' Felix is far more angular. He was designed to be cuter and easier to draw by Bill Nolan in the mid-1920s.

Some sketches of Felix's later design. 

The Fleischer Brothers

Another major Hollywood player was Fleischer Studios. Although the company eventually went under due to financial troubles in the early 1940s, its importance to the animation industry can not be stated enough. The two Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave, made their first big break with the character Koko the Clown in their Out of the Inkwell series (1918-1924), which was notable for its very surreal humor (which became pretty much a norm for all rubber hose Fleisher productions) and use of the rotoscope. The Fleischers were also among the first of animation studios to experiment with musical interludes in their Song Car-tunes and Screen Songs (1924-1929), and invented the 'follow the bouncing ball' technique.

The company's first major sound cartoon character was Bimbo the Dog (1930), a rather foolish character who often wound up in bizarre or life threatening situations and had a weakness for attractive women. Speaking of which, Bimbo would quickly become eclipsed by his girlfriend, Betty Boop, who was modeled off of the popular flapper persona of the time. After Betty Boop's cartoons were forced to tone down their innuendos and humor by the Hayes Code, she in turn was eclipsed by another star: Popeye the Sailor, who first appeared as a guest character in 1934. In this regard, Fleischer Studios was rather unique, as their biggest stars were not funny animals, but human characters.

Betty Boop and Bimbo in 'Snow White' (1933). It's perhaps the best example of how bizarrely creative rubber hose animation could be at times. 

"I yam what I yam."

Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks

Walt Disney and his partner Ub Iwerks first entered the animation business in 1921 when they opened their Laugh-O-Grams Studio located in Kansas City. However after facing financial difficulties, the two men left for Hollywood. Here Disney and Iwerks continued to produce their successful shorts, The Alice Comedies until 1927, which featured the adventures of a live-action girl (portrayed by Virginia Davis) in 'Cartoon-land.' Alice was then replaced by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who proved to be even more successful, but Disney lost the rights to the character after less than a year, due to conflicting interests with producer Charles Mintz.

Neither of the men were discouraged. Iwerks drew up Mickey Mouse for Walt, and Disney decided to synchronize the third Mickey cartoon with sound (Steamboat Willie, 1928) and let's just say the rest is history. Shortly after, Disney began producing Silly Symphonies, which relied less on dialogue and more on musical interludes to tell various stories, many of which were based off of popular childern's stories or fairytales. The Silly Symphonies were stand alone shorts and became the first major Hollywood cartoons to utilize Technicolor beginning in 1932, with "Flowers and Trees".  

Disney may have lost his rabbit, but his mouse ended up doing better anyway.

 Ub Iwerks's 'Hell's Bells' (1929) shows how Disney mastered synchronizing sound to its cartoons.    

However, Ub Iwerks would later leave Disney for a period of time, due to conflicting interests with Walt and feeling overburdened with work. On his own, Ub was less successful, but still managed to produce some memorable series, such as Flip the Frog (1930-1933) and Willie Whooper (1933-1934). Ultimately, Iwerks lost finical support and did contract work for other studios before making amends with Walt and returning to Disney. To this day, Iwerks remains largely overlooked for his enormous contributions to animation.

Ub Iwerks's expresses his dissatisfaction at Disney in this drawing.  

               

Oswald, Walter Lantz, & Charles Mintz

Meanwhile...what happened to Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? Charles Mintz ultimately ended up handing over the character to Walter Lantz at Universal Studios. Walter Lantz long had been in the animation industry, beginning in 1924 when he made his half cartoon / live-action Dinky Doodle series at Bray Studios. Lantz's Oswald, by Mintz's demand, was far more cheaply produced than Disney's version. Initially, Lantz put Bill Nolan in charge of the Oswald shorts. Nolan's Oswald was the most surreal version of the character and also included a young Tex Avery on its staff. After his Pooch the Pup failed to garner audience's attention, Lantz would take over the Oswald series himself. Lantz's version of Oswald changed the character even further from his original incarnation. The rabbit largely lost his mischievous streak, was aged down, and given a more childlike persona.

Walter Lantz's 'cuter' version of Oswald.

Charles Mintz likewise went on to produce several series for Columbia Pictures before he passed away in 1940. Although not the first to adapt the comic-strip character Krazy Kat to animated form (there were numerous earlier attempts), Mintz's version is perhaps the best known. Mintz inherited Krazy Kat's film rights from Winkler Pictures in 1929. His Krazy Kat was the first to utilize sound and ran for ten years, but was criticized for being to much like Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse, and unlike the original strips. Mintz also hired three former Fleshier animators (Sid Marcus, Art Davis, and Dick Huemer) in 1930. The first project given to the men was to create another funny animal character. Toby the Pup was the ill-fated result. The series only generated 13 shorts, half of which are lost today. Perhaps, this was because Toby failed to stand out from the crowd, resembling Fleischer's Bimbo, and even starring in a cartoon suspiciously similar to Disney's Steamboat Willie. However, Toby's cartoons were expertly crafted and are highly sought out by collectors today.

Fortunately, the threesome did manage to hit the nail with their next project, Scrappy, which managed to run for just as long as the Krazy Kat cartoons. Scrappy, although largely forgotten today, was rather unlike any other popular cartoon series of the 1930s in a few ways. Instead of an animal, its star was an average human boy. (Well, average expect for the fact Scrappy had a massive head.) Scrappy was frequently about Great Depression related problems, but put in a humorous light. Likewise, his cartoons were one of the very few series made at the time that focused on a child's perspective of the world.

The first and most famous Scrappy short, "Yelp Wanted" (1931).

Warner Brothers Gets Looney

When most people think of Looney Tunes, they think of the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Tweety Bird. However, the series's history goes all the way back to 1929. After seeing the success of Disney and others, Warner Brothers decided that they should jump into the fray and use animation as a way to promote their musical library. The company hired the duo Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, who formally worked for Disney and Mintz, to create them a star to rival the fame of funny animals belonging to other companies. Harman and Ising went the other route at first, with Bosko, a caricature of an African American boy. Although Bosko may not be very politically correct in some regards today, he was a generally positive character who was capable of solving his own problems. (Harman and Ising also replace his stereotypical 'blackface' voice, with a falsetto one in later cartoons). Bosko's series was so popular that his creators quickly abandoned their Mickey look-alike, Foxy, after only three cartoons. Harman and Ising's other, less frequently featured characters created for Warner Bros were Piggy (a short lived replacement for Foxy), and the one-shots, Goopy Gear and Freddy the Freshman.

Bosko was Warner Brother's first cartoon hit.

Unfortunately, for the rest of the Warner Brothers staff, Harman and Ising left the company in 1933 and took the rights of Bosko with them. After a dispute over budget costs with Leon Schlesinger, the two left for MGM. The company attempted to deal with their major loss in the meantime by producing cartoons staring Buddy up until 1935. Buddy was basically a bland, whitewashed version of Bosko and is largely forgotten today. After Buddy failed to appease audiences, long time employee Friz Freleng directed the cartoon, "I Haven't Got a Hat." It introduced the studio's meant-to-be new star, Beans the Cat. However, a certain stuttering pig stole the show, and Beans was retired after only nine cartoons. The pig's name? Porky, of course.

This Porky Pig short ('The Blow Out', 1936) demonstrates a time when animation lay between rubber hose physics and more realistic animation, starting to shift towards the later.

Paul Terry and Van Beuren

Paul Terry had a very long career in animation, spanning from 1915 all the way up to 1955. Like many early animators, Terry began work as a newspaper cartoonist, and became inspired to bring his work to life after seeing Winsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914). In 1916, he was offered a job at the Bray Studios, were many of the other people in this article also began their careers. Here, Terry created his most enduring character, Farmer Al Falfa, a cranky and bumbling old man, who often fell victim to ridicule of the antics of barnyard animals or while trying to impress women. Terry's early work was of exceptional quality for its time. He pioneered the usage of cels in order to speed up production and keep costs down, and even a young Walt Disney admired his work.

However, Terry was unhappy with his tenure at Bray Studios and left after producing only 11 cartoons.  In 1920, he entered a partnership with Amadee J. Van Beuren. Here the two began a series called, Aesop's Film Fables, which stared Farmer Al Alfa and a wide menagerie of cartoon animals. Initially, each cartoon would end with a moral that often had little to do with the rest of the film (which became sort of a running joke). While the series was popular early on, the production costs of the studio began to slide and Terry's work began to look less refined in comparison to other cartoons of the period. In 1928 Terry directed "Dinner Time", the first sound cartoon, released a month before Disney's "Steamboat Willie." However, "Dinner Time" was widely dismissed by critics (and Disney himself) due to its cruder animation and poorly synchronized sound. Ultimately, Terry and Van Beuren split their relations in 1929 and Terry would go on to create cheaply produced, but often fondly remembered series such as Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle.  

   

The sad thing about Paul Terry is that he made high quality shorts early on, but then resorted to producing cheaper cartoons in order to survive. 

 On its own, Van Beuren Studios did not last as long. The first series the studio made stared Waffles the Cat and Don the Dog, who came off as generic funny animals, with little personality of their own, and acted as vehicles to take the audiences on odd adventures to far off lands. They were quickly replaced by Tom and Jerry (1931-1933), which tended to come off as a low budget version of Bray Studio's earlier Mutt and Jeff cartoons (1916-1925). Pretty soon, Van Beuren realized that in order to stay competitive, they would have to increase the quality of their cartoons. Eventually, Cubby Bear (1933-1934) emerged as the company's new star, before he too was replaced in order to make way for Hollywood's newest novelty, color cartoons. This reflects American animation's next phase: an age of 'Technicolor Realism' pioneered by Disney.

Although a bit of a Mickey Mouse ripoff, Cubby Bear was definitely an improvement over Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry (No not the more famous cat and mouse duo.) 

Animation Before Hollywood (1900 - 1918)

How did the industry begin?

Animation has become such a huge industry in recent years, that it can be a bit baffling to look back at the medium's extensive history. Some of the earliest cartoon films date back to the dawn of cinema itself. Arguably, the first significant animated short was 'The Enchanted Drawing' (1990). Directed by J. Stuart Blackton for Edison Studios, it was little more than a trick film, involving a man drawing a picture to life on a canvas and interacting with it. Audiences became entranced with the notion that drawings could be brought to life on screen, and Blackton followed up his success with the slightly more sophisticated short, 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' (1906). Likewise overseas in France, Emile Cohl, partially inspired by Georges Melies, began producing several experimental films of his own, most notably Fantasmagorie (1908). Fantasmagorie, although seemingly crude by today measures, was the first animated film to involve a wider range of character movement and relied significantly less on live-action footage than Blackton's films.

'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' (1906) is one of the oldest surviving pieces of animation.  

However, the one person who made the biggest impact of all these early innovators, was, without a doubt, Winsor McCay. McCay was a very talented comic strip artist and political cartoonist. Due to all of the experience he had gained drawing a wide variety of subjects for his strips Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905-1923) and The Dream of the Rabbit Fiend (1904-1925), McCay's artistic skill surpassed all other animators of his day, and perhaps even most of them today. McCay's most memorable short films were: 'Little Nemo' (1911), which included a memorable hand-colored sequence, 'Gertie the Dinosaur' (1914), his most famous work, and 'The Sinking of the Lusitania' (1918), which was his first major film to utilize cels and is largely considered his opus magnum.

A page from the comic strip Little Nemo.

A segment from McCay's animated version of Little Nemo.

McCay's expertise made animation more popular than ever before and thus caught the eye of the newly forming Hollywood. However, McCay was a very meticulous worker and a perfectionist. He often drew out his films single handily or only with a very small group of animators. Thus, his films took several months to complete. This was incompatible with the Hollywood work model, so other artists began to adopt cheaper methods and to work in larger groups. It was not until much later, with the artistic evolution within large companies like Disney, that the art of animation would begin to approach the level of sophistication that McCay displayed. McCay himself was dismayed at the scarifies that Hollywood made in order to churn out cartoons more quickly. He was rather dismissive of how many companies began to switch over to less serious subject matter starring funny animal characters.     

Early History of Animation Blogathon Begins!

Hi all. I have been pretty busy recently preparing for exams and writing papers. However, I soon plan to do a bunch of posts relating to the artistic evolution of animation up until the beginning of the Golden Era (meaning primarily American animation up until the late 1930s - early 1940s). In particular, I will be looking at the rise and fall of the use of 'rubber hose' animation in Hollywood and how the style still has some lasting influences today.

Bill Nolan's rubber hose animal drawings. 

I will be covering the following:

1. Animation Before Hollywood (1900 -1918)
2. The Age of Rubber Hose Animation (1919 - mid 1930s)
3. The Decline of Rubber Hose Animation and The Slide Towards Realism (late 1930s - early 1940s)
4. Contemporary Examples / Uses of Rubber Hose

The Point! (Review)

Director: Fred Wolf

Company: Murakami-Wolf Productions, ABC

Year: 1971

Country: USA

What happens when a rock artist decides to tell a childern's story in animated form?

Although it is largely forgotten by the general public, The Point! holds an interesting place in animation history. The television movie premiered as part of the ABC Movie of the Week lineup which ran from 1969 to 1976, making The Point! the first U.S. animated special to air during prime time. The animation was provided by Jimmy Murakami and Fred Wolf. Murakami would later become known for his adaptions of the British childern's books The Snowman (1982) and When the Wind Blows (1986). Wolf is best remembered for animating the famous Tootsie Pop 'How Many Lick's' commercials, and his work on various TV series and specials (such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ducktales). The Point! itself is based off of a childern's story conceived by the folk rock artist Harry Nilsson, who performed such hits as "Everybody's Talkin'", "Without You", and "Coconut". Nilsson decided to write The Point! and compose music to it after he was inspired by a drug trip, as he describes it below.   

"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, "Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it."

Yep, now I'm certain that I am watching a cartoon made in the early '70s.

The film's plot is fairly simple. The Point! is told as a frame story when a father (first voiced by Dustin Hoffman, and later Ringo Star in subsequent releases) decides to read his son a book in order to detach the boy from the TV set. The father then acts as the narrator for the rest of the film. Our hero of The Point! ironically is born 'pointless.' Unlike all of the other residents of The Land of Point, Oblio is born without a triangular shaped head. Oblio's head is perfectly round. To try to get him to fit in, Oblio's parents give their son a pointed hat to wear. Oblio is also given a pet dog, named Arrow, to keep him company. Oblio is generally liked and accepted by his peers. But one day, Oblio angers the greedy Count's son after he beats him in a game of triangle toss. The Count thus banishes Oblio to the Pointless Forest. Lost in the forest, Oblio and Arrow come to learn that the area's seemingly odd inhabitants do have points to their behavior after all, even if they are not at first apparent. Oblio then realizes that being different is not something to be ashamed of or to hide, and that change can, in fact, be beneficial to society.  

Likewise, the animation itself is not very complex and generally suits The Point! fairly well. The style of The Point! resembles childern's drawings. (It also sports some bizarre imagery, including naked, fat, bouncing ladies. Yes, you heard that right.) While watching The Point! one can not help to think of The Yellow Submarine (1968). The characters don't move much in certain places of the film. Being a TV production, The Point!'s age definitely shows. The awkward movements and splotchy cell coloring in this film can come off as a bit unsightly. It could be due to the age of the film's print, but the color saturation is very bright at times. The character designs are quirky, in their own charming sort of way. Many of The Point!'s inhabitants look like they would be right at home in shows such as Phineas and Ferb, Adventure Time, or some of Nickelodeon's recent cartoon output.

The Pointless Forest, not so 'pointless' after all.

Because the film was conceived around Nilsson's musical narrative, most of The Point!'s score is pretty good. Of course in order to enjoy the music, you have to be a fan of the country-rock ballads popular during the late 1960s - early 1970s. The music segments allow for the animation to go off in some rather experimental and odd directions (most notably the psychedelic sequence for the song, "Are You Sleeping?", which is only interconnected to the plot via a dream Oblio has). The movie's most successful song, no doubt, was "Me and My Arrow", which went on to become something of a breakaway hit. (It was even referenced in a recent The Simpsons episode, "To Cur With Love", about Homer's childhood pet dog.) However, not all of The Point!'s songs are as memorable. "Think About Your Troubles" was a miss. It's a rather weird and monotonous number about dying, bodies decomposing, and the food chain. The Lion King certainly covered such themes about birth and death in the nature song, "The Circle of Life", much more effectively.

Nilsson's best known song made for this production is "Me and My Arrow." 

The message of the movie is an important one being about accepting diversity, following one's own intention, and realizing that everyone in society has a unique role to play. However, the execution of the way in which the story is told is where this film suffers the most. The Point! drags on for too long. Because the film's story is relatively simple and to the point (no pun intended), The Point! would work far better if it only ran half an hour to forty-five minutes versus an hour and ten minutes in length. Because the animation was made on a tighter budget, much of the unnecessary time used up is spent listening to extra lines of dialogue or on the film's song sequences. This time could have been used to flesh out some of the characters more. Or if the film was shorter, the animation itself could have likely been made on a higher budget.

In the end, The Point! while an interesting experiment, turns out to be a fairly average viewing experience. The Point! occupies an odd niche. It's a become something of a cult film given its counterculture influences, music by Harry Nilsson, and unique art style. But like certain cult films, The Point! has some definite problems in terms of its narrative flow and ability to hold its audience's attention. It's a bit of a shame because you can see that there was some thought put into this production, but it just doesn't quite deliver. Almost but not quite.

Oblio gets the point, literally.  

Rating: 3/5

Early Versions of Famous Cartoon Characters (Disney Edition)

Designing a memorable and believable cartoon personality takes a lot of work and time. Unlike actors, each design for a character must be drawn up and invented on the spot. It is quite easy to overlook all this, as a well defined characters just seem so natural on screen. Listed below is a small glimpse at the formation of several Disney icons from over the years. (For those of you who enjoyed this article, I highly suggest you visit the website the 50 Most Influential Disney Animators.)

1. Snow White

Grim Natwick's first and finalized drawings of Snow White.

At first look, this early sketch of the heroine of Disney's first animated feature looks an awful lot like Betty Boop. This was because Snow White was designed and animated by Grim Natwick, a long time employ and animator for Fleisher Studios. Natwick would later refine Snow White, giving her a more realistic appearance needed for the film.

Besides animating Snow White and Betty Boop, Natwick also contributed to several other projects. He redesigned Woody Wood Pecker for Walter Lantz, animated Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, and helped with Robin William's ill-fated The Thief and the Cobbler, just to name a few. Natwick's contributions can not be understated. Since 2010 there has been a animation festival named after him, which is held an annually in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.

2. Jiminy Cricket

Early, more cricket-like sketches of Jiminy by Kimball.

Pinocchio (1940) was the second Disney feature film after Snow White and thus a lot of anticipation surrounded the project. Fortunately, the film proved to be just as, if not even more memorable than its preceder. This was due to its vastly improved animation, more complex plot, and fuller characters. Arguably, Jiminy Cricket is the best example of the later. The cricket originally appeared briefly in the story that the film was based off of, giving advice to Pinocchio only to be squashed. (Although, the cricket did appear later as a ghost.) Walt Disney saw potential in the character and decided to expand the his role and for him to act as Pinocchio's conscience.

Ward Kimball was given the job of designing Jiminy in order to make the cricket more appealing (and as sort of an apology from Walt for cutting a scene that Kimball animated for Snow White). Kimball, who would later become one of the most famous and respected animators who ever lived, found it very difficult to make such an 'ugly insect' cute. Kimball ended up settling with a character that hardly even looked like a real cricket, and more like a small man. Never the less, this did not matter. Kimball's excellent animation of the cricket, the character's appealing design, and portrayal by Cliff Edwards made Jiminy an unforgettable Disney icon.  

3. Aurora 

Early sketches of Aurora based off of Audrey Hepburn by Tom Oreb.   

Mark Davis's finalized look for the character.

To many, Sleeping Beauty (1959) represents the pinnacle of hand drawn animation during the Golden Era at Disney. It had complex, varied animation and an uniquely inspired angular style, blending modernism with Medieval paintings (which was largely due to the genius of the background artist, Eyvind Earle). However, the film was not very well received when it first released. Although Sleeping Beauty was nominated an Academy Award for its score, the film drastically underperformed at the box office (only earning about $7.7 million for its six million production costs!) and the critics found it to be lacking in character development (To be fair, Disney leads, up until fairly recently, have generally been less interesting than the supporting cast.) Due to these factors, Walt would stitch completely over to the Xerox process developed by Ub Iwerks to keep costs down for the rest of his films, and Disney would not make another fairytale feature again until The Little Mermaid in 1989.

The development of the princess Aurora (from the Latin word for "dawn", the same name used in Tchaikovsky's ballet) helps make sense of some of the difficulties Disney's ambitious, but troubled film. The original drawings for Aurora by Tom Oreb were heavily modeled off of Audrey Hepburn, who was at the height of her popularity at the time. Marc Davis, who had experience previously animating Cinderella and also animated Maleficent for Sleeping Beauty, modified Oreb's original idea so that Aurora could better fit in with Earle's stylized backgrounds, while still maintaing her willowy frame. Marc Davis's wife, Alice, designed Aurora's final costume and live action footage of actress Helene Stanley was used for reference purposes. Visually Aurora worked well in her film, but she had very little personality. Then again, Aurora is asleep for the vast majority of the film, only having screen time for about eighteen minutes, so this is not too surprising.

4. Cruella De Vil 

Cruella as she appears in the original book. Yes, there was a book.

Sexy Cruella?!

Now we are getting a bit closer.

Cruella in action, as we know her today. 

Arguably one of Disney's most famous villains, Cruella De Vil was another crowning achivement of Marc Davis's Career.  No doubt, her presence and the modern setting of 101 Dalmatians (not to mention the puppies themselves), helped the film become a major success. This was especially relieving to the Disney staff after what had happened with Sleeping Beauty. Cruella Devil shows Marc Davis's skill at creating diverse and memorable personalities. Although Cruella is a villain like Maleficent, she is very different. Cruella is far more dramatic, flamboyant, vain, and in-your-face, whereas Maleficent is far more composed, cruel, and reserved. Cruella is so caricatured that she is very easy to laugh at, but also can come of as freighting if needed. And of course, the more nasty and ugly Cruella is, all the more cute and innocent the dalmatian puppies seem. Looking at the evolution of Cruella De Vil's character, it is certainly interesting to see how her design goes from being a cold and fashionable women, to being outright haggard and crazy! 

"Cruella De Vil. Cruella De Vil. Just try to get this out of your head, you never will." 

5. Prince John



Ollie Johnston's tiger Prince John.

Early drawing of the cast by Ken Anderson.

Prince John doing what he does best.

Robin Hood, for better or for worse, was the first Disney film to not be approved by Walt (and the second to be produced without him, after The Aristocats), as he had died seven years earlier in 1966. Granted Walt did influence the production of the film by the decision of making a film related to, but not directly about the folk character Reynard the Fox (due to Walt finding Reynard too cruel to be likable). Reception for Robin Hood was initially mixed and the animation itself was made on a tight budget (resulting in retracing of several scenes from earlier Disney films) Today, the film has garnered a better reputation for its brand of humor and excellent performance of Prince John by Peter Ustinov.

Like in the Reynard tales, Disney's fox version of Robin Hood faces off against an inept ruler who happens to be a lion. Ollie Johnston originally planed for John to be a tiger, but his since his brother was King Richard 'the lion hearted', the idea was dropped. Prince John isn't even depicted with a mane like a healthy adult male lion. This is likely done as a knock on his inefficacy to rule, and his immature behavior. Interestingly enough, the film's climax was going to be different and would have made John somewhat more of a threat. The surviving storyboards, drawn by Ken Anderson, reveal that Prince John actually attempted to stab Robin Hood after he fell down into the moat.

Robin Hood's alternate ending!

6. Gurgi

Milt Kahl's suggestion for Gurgi.

Mel Shaw's apish Gurgi.

Andreas Deja's cleanup model of Gurgi.

The Black Caldron is widely regarded as one of Disney's biggest disappointments. It lacked interesting or relatable characters, scared away leery family audiences, and failed to capture the spirit of the books from which it was based off of. The film was meant to mark a major turn for Disney and was an early attempt of the studio to renew itself (which would not happen successfully until the late '80s with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Little Mermaid.) The Black Caldron holds an interesting place in history however, as it marks many developments that would later be met with better results in Disney's subsequent films. It was the first Disney movie to use computer generated special effects and to receive a PG rating (which was truly a big deal back in the 1980s). The Black Caldron was one of the earliest Disney films to have no direct involvement from the famous Nine Old Men, thus an entirely newly crop of animators used the film as their training ground.

Andreas Deja, who would later become one of Disney's most acclaimed Renaissance era animators (He also has an excellent blog on animation history!), was given his first major assignment for The Dark Caldron. He animated Gurgi, the ever hungry, comedic canine-like creature and sidekick of the film's hero. Deja with some help from senior animator, Milt Kahl, managed to create some truly memorable scenes with this little misfit dog-man, in an otherwise fairly dull movie. From Kahl's original drawings and Mel Shaw's suggestions, Deja took the initial design of Gurgi and refined the character making him 'cuter' and more of his own vision. 

7. Ariel

An early sketch by Dan Haskett.

Another Haskett drawing. It's closer to the current design.

Glen Keane's Ariel, as we know her today.

An animated adaptation for The Little Mermaid had long been on Disney's back burner. But the idea did not catch on until long after Walt's death. Needless to say, the wait to get the story on the screen did not turn out to be a bad thing. The Little Mermaid ushered Disney into its second golden age and broke box office records. The movie required some of the most detailed and expensive animation sense Fantasia (1940), and the end of the film was the first to use the CAPS digital coloring system (which was developed alongside Pixar, hinting at the future dominance of CGI in American film.)

The heroine of the film was designed by Disney's most famous living animator, Glen Keane (who left the company about a year ago). Ariel came into being when co-director Ron Clements decided that the character from the original story had to be rewritten to suit the film's audience. Dan Haskett's initial idea for Ariel was then handed over to Glen Keane to refine. Glen Keane apparently based Ariel's looks off of his own wife and the actress Alyssa Milano. Interestingly enough, Ariel was going to be blond, but it was ultimately decided that red would work better to stand out against the film's backgrounds and her green fins. Although the reception of Ariel's personality has been mixed, (some seeing her as a rebellious role model for young girls while others see her as a ditzy, lovestruck, and naive), the character has always been popular with audiences.  

8. Jafar

Thank heavens they didn't settle for this one.

Jafar continues to evolve...

Concept art by Daan Jippes.

Deja shows off Jafar's various expressions.

Directors Ron Clements and John Musker struck gold again with Aladdin (1992), and Andreas Deja also meet great praise for creating Jafar, easily one of Disney's most recognizable Renaissance era villains, alongside Scar (whom Deja also animated). Like all of Aladdin's other characters, Jafar's angular look was inspired by a distinct geometrical shape. (Speaking of angular, the fact that Deja over exaggerated Jafar's long face certainly leant to the character having many funny expressions!) Unlike the rest of the cast, however, Deja chose not to base Jafar of off the caricatures of Al Hirschfeld, in order to create a sense of contrast. Jafar's lean figure and pointed features were more similar in appearance to Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty and Zigzig from The Thief and the Cobbler. (Jafar also bears an uncanny resemblance to the villain Jaffar, played by Conrad Veidt, from the 1940 film The Thief of Baghdad, which was a major influence on Aladdin.)

9. Jane Porter

Siepermann's initial sketches.

  

Another of Siepermann's drawings.

Ken Duncan's Jane is far less reserved! 

Tarzan (1999) is widely regarded as the last major film of Disney's Renaissance era. While the film's lead was animated by Glen Keane, Tarzan's love interest, Jane, was not interestingly enough. Some of Jane's earliest concept art was provided by the talented and late Harald Siepermann. Ken Duncan, who previously supervised the animation of Thomas from Pocahontas (1995) and Meg from Hercules (1997), was in charge of animating Jane Porter. His female leads are quite distinct from Glen Keane's girls. Their faces are far more angular, their eyes aren't so large, and they are overall more 'cartoony' than Keane's more youthful figures. (Duncan's ladies also seem to be a bit more vocal than Keane's female characters.) Apparently, much of Duncan's visual inspiration comes from studying popular female actresses of the 1940s. Notice how Jane's appearance changes over the span of these drawings from being snobbish / aloof to being more playful and goofy.    

10. Stitch 

Stitch in 1985.

Bulldog Stitch?

Stitch gets a bit cuter.

Stitch's model sheet.

For a Disney film, Lilo and Stitch (2002) was rather unconventional. Chris Sander's movie was not based off of a fairytale or popular childern's book. It was an entirely original concept. Lilo and Stitch was also set in present day, utilized water color backgrounds, and all of the major character designs came from Sanders himself. Stitch himself has a longer history than many people realize. The idea of a mischievous little alien becoming part of a family dates back to 1985, when Sanders attempted to pitch the character as an idea for a picture book. It was later decided for the film to take place in Hawaii because no other animated feature had been set there before. Chris Sanders even voiced Stitch himself. He would later leave Disney following a stint over the feature American Dog (which would eventually become Bolt [2008]), and go on to direct How To Train Your Dragon (2010) and The Croods (2013) for Dreamworks.