Sound Cartoons the Van Beuren Way

They weren’t well animated, their stories were all over the place, their gags were sometimes indecipherable, but I still can’t dislike the early Van Beuren cartoons.

The Van Beuren studio was simply the Fables studio with a new name for a new decade. It had been making silent cartoons through the 1920s under the direction of Paul Terry. But at the end of the decade moneyman Amadee Van Beuren had a falling out with Terry and fired him. Terry and Frank Moser started their own studio while Van Beuren put John Foster in charge and went into the sound cartoon business. (Van Beuren also made other kinds of sound shorts for release by RKO).

With sound, drastic changes were needed and instantly. Cartoons now had to be timed to the beat of the music. Vocal and sound effects had to be coordinated with the picture. That didn’t seem to be too much of a problem. But stories needed to more structured than in the silent days and Van Beuren’s staff appeared quite happy with just tossing around odd gags until they ran out of ideas and put a cap on the ending.

I think Amadee Van Beuren really was interested in making good cartoons instead of just churning anything out to meet a release schedule. If he wasn’t, there’s no way he would have signed Amos ‘n’ Andy to a contract to turn them into animated characters. The pair were at the height of their popularity and didn’t come cheap. Van Beuren bought the rights to The Little King. He also used popular songs when Gene Rodemich was his musical director; while some studios got them gratis due to tie-ins with their distributors, Van Beuren had to pay. And as his cartoons looked shabbier and shabbier compared to the ‘A’ list studios, he opened his chequebook and hired Burt Gillett from Disney at the height of Gillett’s career.

By the time Amadee Van Beuren spent more money on the rights to Felix the Cat and the Toonerville Trolley characters, it was almost all over. Both could have made strong series, especially with young animators and writers like Joe Barbera, Dan Gordon, Bill Littlejohn and Jack Zander on board, but RKO had enough and essentially closed the studio by signing a contract with Walt Disney in 1936.

Let’s stroll back a bit to 1930. Sound cartoons were about a year old and aroused curiosity from theatre-goers. This unbylined story was syndicated to newspapers and this version comes from February 13, 1930. Frame grabs are from The Haunted Ship, a 1930 Fable that’s one of my favourites.

How Aesop's Sound Fables Are Made
Caught up in the resistless wave of sound motion pictures, animated cartoons which once passed silently on the silver screen have had their production methods readjusted to bring them in line with the needs of the day. Their producers have been taxed to the limit in work, gags, ideas and new effects.
As in the silent cartoons, between six and seven thousand separate drawings are necessary to complete a reel. In the making of Aesop's Sound Fables it was found necessary to augment the staff of animators, tracers and gag-men, and to add to the staff an expert on synchronization, a musical director, an orchestra of twenty-four pieces and seven well trained "effects" men.
The making of a silent animated cartoon was difficult and arduous, but child's play as compared with the making of a cartoon in sound. Technical difficulties are such that the time necessary in production is greater, the cost almost tripled, and despite the enlarged staffs two shifts of animators and tracers are necessary to turn out the laughter-makers on schedule time.

Before the artist starts his work, the musical numbers are selected, and artist, synchronization expert and musical director have had their conference. Seated at a large desk the three figure out mathematically the timing of the cartoons to match with the timing of the music. This work usually requires at least a week before the actual animation by the artist begins, but as a result the artists, synchronizers and musicians are working together. Orchestrations for twenty-four instruments must be made for each musical number, and while the animators are busy making their thousands of drawings the musical director is rehearsing his orchestra, timing all the while with a stop watch.
With drawings, photography and orchestrations completed, the film of the Fable is shown upon the screen of the recording studios before the orchestra and "effects" men. The latter have upon a table before them hundreds of devices designed to imitate the animals in the cartoon. In front of them are four microphones. Another "mike" is used by the actor or actors whose voices will be heard on the film Usually at least ten rehearsals are necessary before sound and effects are recorded. The quacks, barks, growls and cackles must be made in perfect synchronization with the cartoon as it is passed on the screen. Often long experimentation is necessary before the best results are arrived at. Animal effects are simple, but the rushing of water, patter of feet, firing of a gun and the like offer many problems. In the "monitor" room sit two experts who report on the quality of the effects as heard by them through the connection of room with microphones.

Illustrative of the queer pranks made necessary by the recording, a playing card flipped sharply before the "mike" may sound more like the firing of a cannon than the cannon itself. A handful of rice poured slowly upon a bass drum head sounds like rushing water. All these devices must be originated and tested, rehearsed and improved, before the start of the actual recording. Three "takes" are made. Each is looked at on the screen and the best one finally selected. The next time you see Pathe's "Aesop's Sound Fables" it will be interesting for you to try and figure out how the realistic effects were produced.