The Hays Code was initially created in 1930 and began being enforced four years later. The code was meant to help reduce the amount of violence, sex and other 'anti-social' behavior onscreen. It was adopted due to conservative concerns about film content and controversy surrounding several off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars.
However, many artists and filmmakers felt heavily restricted by the Code's rules which stated that films could not show such actions as: illegal drug trafficking, onscreen nudity or sex, profanity, 'white slavery', and ridicule of the clergy. Additionally, any crime shown on the screen had to be punished and couples could not be depicted sleeping in the same bed together. (Due to competition from other studios and changing social norms, the Code was eventually replaced by the film rating system we have today in 1968. While certainly not perfect, the MPAA's use of ratings does not rely on censorship, and thus allows more artistic freedom.)
A photo taken by A.L. Schafer that symbolically protests the Hays Code. It depicts several elements banned by the Code.
As a result, filmmaking in Hollywood changed drastically. Theatrical cartoons were not exempt. Despite that old animated shorts are often considered to be 'wholesome' / 'safe for the entire family,' many Pre-Code cartoons contained quite a few bizarre and sometimes unsettling scenes. If you don't believe it, then prepare to be enlightened by the ten shorts below.
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. 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. Pinocchio is definitely a stronger film: its animation still holds up remarkably will today, it featured a more complex plot, and it 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 it 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 led 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 Yoursalongside 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 compared 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.
Not all cartoons are instant hits. For certain reasons, some characters fade into the obscurity of time. During the Golden Age of Animation (1930 - early 1960s), theatrical shorts featuring funny animals were all the craze. Several later-to-be-famous animators initially had trouble standing out of the crowd or establishing successful series. Below are five cartoon characters that never managed to be widely successful, but are never the less important to the history of animation.
1. Foxy (1931, 3 shorts)
It's Mickey and Minnie Mouse! ....No, wait.
Early on, the Looney Tunes had a hard time competing with the likes of Disney and the Fleisher Brothers. Their first mildly successful star was Bosko, who is rarely seen today due to being a caricature of an African American boy. He was created primarily to showcase popular songs in the Warner Bros. library, and to be animated in synchronization to the music.
In 1931, ex-Disney animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising drew up a new potential star, Foxy. The series's first cartoon, "Lady Play Your Mandolin", was the first cartoon in the Merrie Melodies canon. Foxy and his girlfriend looked almost identical to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, save for their bushy tails and pointed ears. Foxy was far more boisterous than Mickey however. He had a noticeably deeper voice and was shorter tempered. His second cartoon "Smile Darn Ya Smile" is notable for having its theme tune featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). Foxy's last cartoon, "One More Time", was his best. It featured an original story with Foxy as a traffic cop in a crime ridden city.
Just smile, dagnabbit!
Foxy was retired in less than a year. His failure to be unique enough from other cartoons at the time taught Warner Bros an important lesson: Don't copy other companies if you want to stand out. He was later replaced by Porky Pig (1935), and other more popular Looney Tunes characters soon followed. Foxy and Roxy would later appear, along with Goopy Geer, as guest stars in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Two Tone Town", in 1992. They also acted as the basis for the main characters in the Animaniacs (1993).
2. Pooch the Pup (1932 - 1933, 13 shorts)
This was the cartoon that was meant to save Lantz's studio.
Walter Lantz is best remembered today for Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy. His studio at Universal was actually established many years earlier, in 1929, when he inherited Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks) from Charles Mintz. While Oswald continued to be successful enough to keep Lantz's staff busy, Walter wanted to create his own original character in hopes of striking gold. Thus, he put Bill Nolan in charge of the Oswald cartoons and began to direct a new series, Pooch the Pup.
Pooch the Pup did not have too much personality of his own. He was sort of the everyman character common at the time, acting as a vehicle for sight gags and Hollywood parodies. Pooch's appearance would change drastically over his ill fated career, perhaps in an attempt to try to save the character. In his earlier cartoons, Pooch was depicted as a small white terrier. Lantz would later redraw him to be more generic, resembling his own Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and, even more so, Fleischer Studios's Bimbo. Currently, only two of his cartoons have been released on video so far, "King Klunk" and "She Done Him Right", making him practically invisible to audiences today. Although Pooch never became popular, Lantz and his crew (including a young Tex Avery) gained valuable experience while working on the series and would move on to create bigger, better things.
Pooch's best known cartoon is a parody of King Kong.
3. Gabby Goat (1937, 3 shorts)
Porky Pig's original comedic foil.
As mentioned earlier, Porky Pig was Warner Brother's first run away hit cartoon character. In 1937, Bob Clampett created Porky a sidekick for the cartoon "Porky and Gabby" (which is notable for being directed by Ub Iwerks). Gabby Goat, voiced by storyboard artist Cal Howard, was a very temperamental and grumpy character whose personality constantly clashed with Porky's mild manners. Despite his constant complaining about others, Gabby proved to be very incompetent, often causing his own problems. Gabby's second cartoon, "Porky's Bedtime Story", was the first Looney Tunes short to be directed by Clampett and was successful enough to be remade in 1944, as "Tick Tock Tuckered" (with Daffy Duck instead of Gabby). Gabby's final appearance was in "Get Quick Rich Porky", although it was originally planned for him to appear in "Porky's Party" (1938).
Gabby's last cartoon.
Gabby Goat was scrapped because audiences failed to find him funny. Some were even offended by his abrasive nature. Daffy Duck was used as his replacement and would later go on to become Bugs Bunny's rival. Apparently, Gabby is rumored to be returning on The Looney Tunes Show, but that is yet to be confirmed.
4. The Fox and the Crow (1941 - 1950, 24 shorts)
An uppity Englishman encounters a smart arse con artist. What could possibly go wrong?
Not many people remember Columbia's Screen Gems cartoons, which is understandable because many of them were very bland and low budget in comparison to the output of other studios from the same time. However, Frank Tashlin managed to give the studio its saving grace. He created Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow as a comedic duo for the cartoon, "The Fox and The Sour Grapes". The short proved to very successful, so much so in fact, that the Fox and the Crow soon became Columbia's biggest stars. Animator Chuck Jones was particularly impressed. He used the short as an inspiration for his Roadrunner and Willie Coyote cartoons. The fox's hellbent intent to steal the grapes and his wacky schemes certainly reflected in the coyote's personality. The short was also one of the first to use creative blackout gags.
Tashlin's "The Fox and the Sour Grapes."
The next twenty shorts, while somewhat variable in quality, managed to be entertaining enough. (Perhaps this was because Tashlin did not return to direct, leaving Bob Wickersham mostly at helm.) The series's strength came from its leads with opposing personalities. While Fauntleroy remained as gullible and cheerful as ever, his refined personality could just as easily break down into maniac rage after being pestered by Crawford. Crawford Crow would not always win in every cartoon, though, which made the the series very funny and unpredictable. Arguably, the best cartoons from this point of the characters's career were "Woodsman Spare the Tree" (1942), "Room and Board" (1944), and "Unsure Runts" (1946).
Yet, the success of The Fox and the Crow was not enough to save the Screen Gems cartoons. Eventually, the studio was shut down in 1946 and Columbia replaced it with a new studio established by Disney strikers, UPA. The Fox and the Crow was handed over to UPA in order to test its abilities. UPA took the bold approach of using stylized, limited animated animation contrasted with detailed backgrounds for their cartoons, launching the 'cartoon modern' era, which remains influential to this day. Long-time veteran John Hubley directed all three The Fox and the Crow shorts that UPA produced for Columbia, "Robin Hoodlum" (1948), "The Magic Fluke" (1949)", and "Punchy de Leon" (1950). UPA's venture proved to be fruitful. Their first two The Fox and the Crow shorts were even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. However, the duo was ultimately abandoned by UPA, in favor of using their own non-antromorpic characters. The Fox and the Crow was left to the comic book realm, were it persisted for several more years, until 1968. Truly it is a shame that these short lived but very influential cartoons remain rather obscure to the general public today and all have yet to be been released to home video.
Hubley's "Punchy de Leon."
5. Screwy Squirrel (1944 - 1946, 5 shorts)
He's the nuttiest cartoon character ever created!
After co-creating Bugs Bunny and making several other contributions to Warner Brothers, Tex Avery left the company in 1942 establishing his own cartoon studio at MGM. He made several innovative one shot cartoons characterized by positively zany, fast-paced humor, some of which would probably alarm more conservative parents today. He meet his biggest success with the cartoon, "Red Hot Riding Hood" (whose protagonist would later be the model for Jessica Rabbit), and his Droopy Dog series, notable for its deadpan witticism. In hopes of replicating his success with wacky cartoon animals like he did at Warner Brothers, Avery came up with the idea of a literally insane character for the cartoon "Screwball Squirrel."
Screwy Squirrel was about the most anti-Disney a cartoon could get in the early 1940s. Screwy was loud, brash, and could be quite violent at times. He often antagonized Meathead and other dogs with little to no provocation. In his debut, he even beats up a stereotypically cute squirrel, stating to the audience, "You wouldn't have liked that cartoon anyway." Screwy was often very unpredictable and frequently broke through the fourth wall. In "Happy-Go-Nutty," Screwy's cell door is left open and he walks out, looking around the mental ward. However, he then closes the door and saws his way out. For his last three cartoons, "Big Heel-Watha", "The Screwy Truant" and "Lonesome Lenny," the squirrel was redesigned to look even goofier and given a more lanky appearance. The later was particularly notable for being a parody of George and Lenny, from Of Mice and Men. It also ended with the implication that Screwy was crushed to death by the dull witted dog based off Lenny. ("I used to have a little friend, but he don't move no more.")
Screwy Squirrel being, well, screwy.
Screwy Squirrel was killed off as joke, because Avery apparently wasn't that fond of him. He was ultimately abandoned in favor of Avery's other, slightly more sane characters. However, Screwy has gained somewhat of a cult following recently. This is likely due to changing tastes in humor over the years and the fact that the character's cartoons played frequently on Cartoon Network for a while. As an April Fool's Day joke in 1997, Cartoon Network even ran the short, "Happy-Go-Nutty," twenty-four seven. Screwy was also mentioned in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and acted as a template for the character Slappy Squirrel on the Animaniacs.
A little known series by the man who (actually) created Mickey Mouse.
Animation owes a lot to the genius of Ub Iwerks. He first began working in at Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio in Kansas city where he met Walt Disney in 1919. The two newspaper illustrators quickly became good friends. In 1922, they entered their first joint animation venture and established Laugh-O' Grams-Studio. Unfortunately, the company lasted just over one year before filling for bankruptcy. But neither Walt or Iwerks were deterred. They moved to Hollywood in 1924 and started to become quite successful. The first cartoon series created by Walt and drawn by team of animators led by Iwerks was The Alice Comedies, which was notable for integrating a live action film star with cartoon characters and hand drawn backgrounds. In 1927, Walt and Ub made a deal with Universal Studios to distribute cartoons under Charles Mintz. Thus, Ub drew up a new cartoon star for Walt, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was memorable for for his mischievous, carefree nature and tendency to (barely) avoid trouble.
Sadly, Disney and Iwerks fell into a major disagreement with Mintz. Both of them wanted to improve the animation for the Oswald series, but Mintz wanted to slash costs. Since Mintz owned Oswald, Walt and Ub were forced to leave their jobs and start fresh without any other animators. However, Walt and Ub had a secret weapon up their sleeves. In 1928, Ub drew up several funny animal character ideas, and Walt decided he liked a certain mouse best. At the suggestion of his wife, Walt named the mouse Mickey and the rest is history. Contrary to popular belief, Mickey's first cartoon was not Steamboat Willie, but a silent cartoon called Plane Crazy. (Both cartoons were animated single handedly by Ub within a couple of months!). Plane Crazy failed to appeal to test audiences, perhaps because it was too similar to other cartoons at the time. Thus, Steamboat Willie was created utilizing a new novelty in film, synchronized sound. (Although animation had experimented with sound before, the results were rather crude.) As animator Ward Kimball put it, "You have no idea the effect that sound had on film. People went crazy for it."
Before their was a mouse, there was a rabbit.
Ub's original ideas for Mickey's design.
A layout from Steamboat Willie.
Besides creating Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, Iwerks came up with the cartoon characters Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar. He also directed several of the first Silly Symphony cartoons while at Disney including Springtime, Hell's Bells,and Arctic Antics. His animation for The Skeleton Dance (1929) was, and still is, remarkable for its realistically drawn human skeleton characters and contained many great visual gags.
The complex animation in The Skeleton Dance holds up remarkably well.
Ub was great at creating dramatic lighting.
After 1930 however, Ub had a major falling out with Disney. Disney felt that Ub was not welling enough to allow him to retime Ub's work nor would Ub allow other artists to draw in-betweens for his animation. On the other hand, Ub felt overburdened with work and felt like he was not getting enough credit for his contributions at Disney's studio. When Pat Powers offered to distribute cartoons made by Iwerks, Iwerks left Disney to establish his own studio. Shortly afterwards, Iwerks attracted attention for creating the first fully color animated short, Fiddlesticks, two years before Disney would release the Technicolor cartoon The Flowers and the Trees (1932). For this cartoon, Iwerks created Flip the Frog. In this cartoon and his earlier cartoons, Flip was very much like a more 'realistic' looking frog living in a forest (well, for a funny animal anyway). Later on, Flip's design would become more abstract and anthropomorphic. His second cartoon, Flying Fists, was also filmed in color, although no surviving color print is known to exist today. Iwerks's remaining Flip cartoons would be filmed in black and white in order to keep down costs.
Originally, Flip was be portrayed as an adult character with happy-go-lucky nature frolicking among other woods animals. In an effort to standout from the Silly Symphony cartoons, Iwerks restructured the style of his series. He began to star Flip in cartoons more akin to the style of Mickey Mouse. He even gave Flip a girlfriend frog (sometimes a cat) similar to that of Minnie Mouse and a mule similar to Horace Horsecollar. Iwerks also moved Flip to a more urban setting, and gave his character a speaking role. While these early Flip the Frog cartoons were technically sound, they lacked in humor and in originality. The only exception to this was The Cuckoo Clock Murder Case (1930) which featured Flip as a detective inspecting a haunted house, only to nearly meet 'Death' itself.
While rather bland, Fiddlesticks is notable for being the first full color cartoon.
Flip later switched to black and white due to budget concerns.
The last half of Flip the Frog's career changed drastically and for the better. In late 1931 starting with The New Car, his design loosened up and became more abstract, his cartoons no longer resembled Disney castoffs, and quite a few of them were genuinely funny. He was shown to be frequently out of work or constantly trying at (and sometimes failing at) starting up some sort of business, in reference to the Great Depression. Other times, Flip was portrayed to be a young boy dealing with school related problems or trying to win the affection of a popular girl (which is kind of weird sense he is a frog, not a human boy!) A wide array of characters began to populate the series, most predominately a mean, old, man-hungry spinster who acted as Flip's boss and Flip's affectionate but troublesome dog. Additionally, Orace the Mull was fleshed out and given a dull-witted and somewhat short-tempered personality, acting as the perfect foil to the more optimistic and curious Flip.
A model sheet of Flip's newer, more boyish design.
Hey, what are you boys looking at?
Oh wow, don't expect to see this anytime soon in a Disney cartoon kids!
But despite all of the modifications Iwerks made to try and improve his cartoons, Flip was retired in 1933, after his last cartoonSoda Squirt. So what happened to Iwerks's short-lived, 38 episode series? Why did it fail? Part of the reason was, as mentioned before, Flip's earlier cartoons offered audiences nothing new and came across as 'just another unfunny Disney wannabe'. By the time Flip began to star in more innovative shorts, audiences had likely already moved on. Also, the market had become oversaturated with cartoon animal characters (such as Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, Cubby Bear, Mickey Mouse, Bimbo, etc) by the time the Flip cartoons came into full swing. Flip was also abandoned just before 1934 when the Hays Box-Office Code was implanted. This implies that perhaps Iwerks was worried that the code would censor some of his show's more bawdy humor and, thus, he abandoned it altogether. It should also be noted that Ub Iwerks was painfully shy, and likely lacked the skills to advertise himself as well as Walt Disney, a born salesman. Flip the Frog would not gain further recognition until playing on TV rerun programs in the 1950s-1970s and later video releases. To this day, he remains a rather obscure character, only widely known among animation enthusiasts.
Perhaps these scary dolls made people avoid the series.
Spooks (1931) is often regarded as one of Flip's best cartoons.
After canceling Flip the Frog, Ub Iwerks would have even less successful ventures at his studio. He first created a series about Willie Whopper, centering around a young boy who told outlandish tall tales about his fictionalized adventures. MGM dropped distribution of Iwerks's work and replaced him with Harman and Ising, so Willie was abandoned in 1934 after only 14 cartoons. In a last ditch effort, Iwerks switched over completely to color and got funding from Pat Powers again. Iwerks produced 25 Comicolor Cartoons between 1933 to 1936. The cartoons were typically based of off popular fairy tales or childern's stories. Whereas the series lacked good timing and gags, it was lovingly drafted. Iwerks invented the multiplane camera, built from the parts of an old Chevy automobile, to create a sense of realism and depth. This invention would become vital to creating many iconic scenes in several Disney feature films. Eventually, Iwerks lost finical support and was forced to look for work elsewhere.
The even shorter lived cartoon that replaced Flip.
A typical ComiColor cartoon.
From 1937 to 1939 Iwerks produced two Looney Tunes cartoons staring Porky Pig and Gabby Goat at Warner Brother and did contact work for Columbia Picture's Screen Gyms. He eventually made his way back to Disney. There, he came up with other advances in technology including a matte system, to allow the easy combination of live-action and animation (as seen in The Three Caballeros and Mary Poppins), and the xerox process (first utilized in One Hundred and One Dalmatians). In addition, he contributed to several of DisneyLand's theme park projects. Iwerks also did special effects works for other studios. Most famously, he provided animation and camera work for Alferd Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) for which he was nominated an Academy Award.
Despite having mixed success in his career, there is not doubt that Ub Iwerks was an extremely talented man. His influence is felt everywhere from John K to Osamu Tezuka. Many other artists acknowledge Ub's expertise including Chuck Jones and Walt Disney himself. Someday, hopefully, the greater public will acknowledge the contributions of one of animation's most important figures.
