That's Opera, Folks

“The dismal turtle”? “The delicious mice”?

Who talks like that, anyway?

It certainly wouldn’t have been Leon Schlesinger, who is being quoted as saying those things in an improbable 1935 syndicated newspaper story.

Equally improbable as the words ascribed to Schlesinger is the concept that his studio was going to produce operatic cartoons. At the time this article saw print, Schlesinger was churning out mild musical shorts starring insects, flowers, animals and kitchenware, along with Buddy shorts. A decision had been made to make a kind of Our Gang set-up with barnyard animals. It doesn’t sound like opera was the kind of direction Schlesinger, who was pretty much a populist when it came to entertainment, wanted to take. Furthermore, the studio’s musical director was Norman Spencer, whose scores (arranged by his son) didn’t get much past popular songs (with a wood block on the off-beat as a cornet played) that jumped into double-time for chases in the last part of the cartoon.

Nonetheless, here is the article. It’s also odd that Schlesinger refers to himself as an animator when in other interviews he categorically states he’s not a cartoonist. I suspect the words came more from the writer than Schlesinger. Oh, and Schlesinger’s name is misspelled throughout.

Pen Art Gets the Chance to Bring Arias to the Screen.
By MOLLIE MERRICK
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 30—The animated cartoon will be the first to bring grand opera to the screen, just as it has been the pioneer in color work for the rest of the film output.
On every hand you hear plans for bringing grand opera seriously to the screen. True, we have had an aria or so, a composite of story and camera and music which has given us an idea of what opera in film could be. Ask any producer today what he considers the next step in his profession’s development and he will tell you the presentation of a grand opera. Ernst Lubitsch will tell you that. So will Irving Thalberg. Hundreds of tests have been made; for it is not easy to find a voice which will record and a personality that is both pleasing to camera eye and equal to the histrionic demands of operatic roles.
Leon Schlessinger, maker of Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies, has a plan for bringing grand opera into his animated cartoon world, a plan that undoubtedly will go far toward popularizing the idea and toward paving the way for the more serious work to come.

"Color in pictures—the idea of color in pictures," says Schlessinger, "was fostered more by the clear fresh color harmonies of our animated cartoons than by any other single thing. Now the entire industry is prepared to launch into color if the initial releases result in the success which is anticipated. The short subject in color seems less outlandish, less nursery material, less imaginative now than it did at the time of its inception. Then, because color was such a departure to the audience minds accustomed to gray and white and black and white, any simple subject was informed with a sense of nonsense, of fairy tale charm. Now, with our audiences accustomed to color and, therefore, watching more closely the action of our figures, we must animate them more carefully than in our initial color ventures and we must watch the progress of our story, and its psychology, more closely. "One reason for the success of the animated cartoon is the really excellent music which has been used to background it. Good scoring, true orchestration, and discriminating taste in choice of musical material have built up a following for animated films whose enthusiasms are largely subconscious. Few people stop to analyze that they are enjoying a full, beautiful orchestration, while they are watching the funny antics of the little owl, the moo-cow schoolteacher, the frisky pair of sealyhams, the dismal turtle, the delicious mice. If they stopped to think—as we animators do—they could tell you just what it is that charms them. But since they are in the theater to be charmed—not to analyze—they merely enjoy the moment without thought of what is behind it.

"We will animate one of the more popular operas. Not only because the idea is timely now, but because we are singularly well equipped to do this proselyting for operatic films. A cartoon lasts seven minutes. Into it go more thought and preparation per foot of film than go into many a straight picture. Choice of colors, clarity of line, the delicate changes of posture which make the animation a true thing as against the old jerky type of former years — all these things have gradually developed thru the years .since the first animated cartoon until we have, at the present time, the ideal entertainment for children as well as adults."
What has struck me in going thru the studios of cartoon workers—notably Disney's and the Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies —is the singular improvement in technique which has marked the progress of the animated cartoon and kept it abreast of its fellow pictures. It had not occurred to me, until Leon Schlessinger called my attention to it, that this branch of the industry had preceded the more serious side of pictures in color work and in building up a public taste for color which soon will be fed with the first perfected color process full length films. If there is a revolution in film work —and color may produce it—we can thank the animated cartoon for doing much in developing this singular change.
Come to think of all the laughs we've had and all the moments of sheer charm, we can thank the animated cartoon for a good deal of our movie happiness.