Squiggly Fears

An old animation trick to show fear was to draw characters with wavy outlines and alternate the drawing with another with smooth outlines.

Here’s an example from Van Beuren’s The Bully’s End, a 1932 cartoon directed by Harry Bailey.



The animation is vastly inferior to the average Fleischer cartoon made across the street from Van Beuren. The story has some structure, though. A runty duck takes on an arrogant, abusive rooster. The hero duck wins by cheating!

Gene Rodemich sticks “Hold That Tiger” in the background behind the fight scene.