Cartoon Ads of 1925

Felix the Cat found a new home in 1925.

The Felix animated cartoon series had been distributed since 1922 by Margaret Winkler. But Pat Sullivan, who owned the studio that made the Felixes, got into a disagreement with Winkler (and likely her new husband, Charlie Mintz) and took his cartoons to Educational Pictures to be released when his contract expired in 1925.

There was another change that year as well. Bill Nolan revived the Krazy Kat series and Winkler handled that as well.

Here are some of the ads plugging cartoons in the trade paper The Film Daily that year. Not all series are here; the Aesop Fables studio under Paul Terry and Max Fleischer’s shorts released by Red Seal aren’t represented. J.R. Bray would get out of the cartoon business within two years and Walter Lantz would find work gag-writing on the West Coast before eventually opening his own studio. Hurd, the co-patent holder on the cel process, moved to the West Coast when sound came in and died employed by the Disney studio in 1940.



Winkler had signed a deal with Walt Disney in 1924 to handle his Alice Comedies, featuring Julius, a Felix knock-off. Felix was arguably the cartoon king of the ‘20s and is still known today. Alice and Julius are long forgotten by all but silent film lovers. However, that Disney chap went on to other things and outdid them all.