The Return of Animato!

Once upon a time, there was no internet. If you wanted to see cartoons, you watched them on TV or (if you were lucky) bought some on 16 millimetre film and ran them through a projector.

If you wanted to read about cartoons, you went to the book store or the library. There, you could thumb through Leonard Maltin’s “Of Mice and Magic” and discover whole chapters devoted to studios you had never heard of. You could pick up a book by Joe Adamson and learn all about an unfamiliar man named Tex Avery who made funny cartoons. Things like this were the building blocks of animation historical research that we, frankly, take for granted these days.

Historians struck the spark. Soon, others interested in old animated cartoons found each other and began writing and sharing. This sprouted fan magazines which collected and revealed things for the first time, such as every cartoon made featuring Scrappy, or the history of Mighty Mouse.

More years ago than I care to remember, I somehow happened upon a little publication called “Mindrot.” I subscribed. I saved copies; they’re ten feet away in my bookshelf. Then I ended up subscribed to something called “Animato!” (there seems to have been a debate about how the word was pronounced). One day I renewed my subscription and the magazine stopped coming. I wrote a letter (no e-mail then) and asked why. I never got an answer. I still don’t know why.

Anyway, “Animato!” was edited for a time by Harry McCracken who has taken time away from valuable Scrappy research to scan and post seven editions he edited on archive.org for, we hope, permanent preservation.

You can link to them right here.

Those of you used to a couple of decades of instant, in depth information about cartoons, their makers and their studios, may think these magazines are a little quaint, bare bones, and perhaps primitive. I wish to point out some of the finest historians of their time wrote for it and anything they have to say, regardless of how much more we know today, is worthy of perusal.

Many of the authors are still writing in one venue or another, and I’m pleased some are even friends on Facebook. It’s worth your time to flip through these editions.