Tuesday 23 May 2017

Fleischer Suburbia

Wonky or worn-out cityscapes highlighted many a cartoon from the Fleischer studio in the early 1930s. By the end of the decade, the Fleischer shorts were being set in cleaner suburbs with lawns and so on, perhaps reflective of New Yorkers leaving the dirt of the city for little homes on the outskirts.

Here are some of the suburban backgrounds in The Hot Air Salesman (1937), featuring the arm-swinging Wiffle Piffle.



The cartoon opens with a layered, 3D background. As usual, the artist isn’t credited.

By the way, is it my imagination, or did Fleischer cartoons eventually start ending with a lot of destruction?

2 comments:

  1. Rathern than 'suburbia' suburbia, a lot of the homes in the backgrounds look as if they were based on Forest Hills, the 1920s planned community in central Queens, which by 1937 was a subway ride away from the Fleischer Studios in Times Square (though the well-to-do folks in Forest Hills would never have allowed a trolley to run through their neighborhood...)

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  2. The way his feet move in very similar to Popeye, that was just the fliescher style

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