More Rainbow Parades

Over at the Cartoon Research website is the very pleasant news that Thunderbean Animation is ready to start sending out copies of its The Rainbow Parades, Volume 2 Blu-ray collection.

It’ll be a treat to see these in a form other than faded copies of public domain DVDs.

I doubt restoration will make me like any of these cartoons, but the Thunderbeaners have done an excellent job. The animation is very good in Felix the Cat Meets Old King Cole, especially the effects. Here are some frames from Felix the Cat Meets Bold King Cole (1936). Felix is riding a tree branch in a thunderstorm. There’s a zap, the branch gets away from him and Felix is riding a lightning bolt.



I’ll take the silent Felix, thanks. He was a rounded character, ingenious one minute and scheming the next. Van Beuren’s version could easily be played by Mickey Mouse. Molly Moo-Cow could be played by Pluto (now with her blackface scene fully restored), while Parrotville is a place where you wait and wait and wait for something to happen.

RKO thought so little of these shorts that it decided it didn’t need cartoons from a studio it had part interest in and released real Mickey Mouse and Pluto cartoons instead. Van Beuren got out of the cartoon business but still released travelogues for another year.

However, praise should again go to Thunderbean for the hard effort on behalf of those of you who want an improved look at these Technicolor shorts. And, like any good release, there are interesting extras on the disc.

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You

A hiatus is defined as a pause or break in activity.

The Tralfaz blog has been on a hiatus several times, mainly because other things in life take up a great deal of time.

However, it will be coming to life again with new posts for about three weeks starting this weekend.

To hold you over, here’s a neat drawing of my favourite silent cartoon character, Felix the cat. This is from Exhibitors Herald, December 26, 1925. The first post will be about some silent cartoons, pre-Felix.

Duck, Duck, Rabbit

Morphing gags are funniest when they come out of nowhere.

Here’s one I like in Romeeow, a 1930 sound cartoon starring Felix the cat.

Felix is serenading his girl-friend by radio. A duck drowns him out by constantly quacking. The cat puts a stop to it by tying a cloth around the duck’s bill.



In the next scene, the duck get some help freeing his beak. In the process, the cloth turns into a rabbit which hops out of the cartoon.



The characters are attractively drawn and the animation is good for 1930.

Boom

The makers of silent films didn’t rely on the theatre pit orchestra to provide sound effects. Like title cards to make the plot understandable, words would appear on the screen to indicate sounds.

Here are good examples in Felix Turns the Tide, a war picture released not too many years after fighting in the trenches of France and Belgium. The word “BOOM” is formed as a cannon is fired by a rat and lands in a trench filled with cats. The cartoon depicts non-comedic death as the cat soldiers are thrown into the air by the bomb blast.



As a side note, “BOOM” appears on rare occasion in sound cartoons. Tex Avery's Blitz Wolf (1942) is one. A really late example is the opening of Rocky and His Friends (1959).

The visual highlight of this short may be the depiction of the war. There are silhouettes, black and white cards in between the action to give a flashing effect, alternating black and white backgrounds, and an animated explosion where the smoke fills the screen. Unfortunately, the versions of these films on-line are murky, as if an old print was recorded onto a VHS tape.

Felix was a huge star and deserves better treatment.

Moving Picture World of Jan. 13, 1923 opined that, even then, “many will be able to anticipate” the ending of the cartoon.

The short was released on Oct. 15, 1922. Felix was distributed on a States Rights basis by Margaret Winkler. There were new Felixes every two weeks. The others around this time (from the Motion Picture News):

Felix Gets Revenge, Sept. 1, 1922
Felix Wakes Up, Sept. 15, 1922
Felix Minds the Kid, Oct. 1, 1922
Felix on the Trail, Nov. 1, 1922
Felix Lends a Hand, Nov. 15, 1922
Felix Gets Left, Dec. 1, 1922
Felix in the Bone Age, Dec. 15, 1922
Felix the Ghost Breaker, Jan. 1, 1923
Felix Wins Out, Jan. 15, 1923

Other than Winkler and Pat Sullivan’s names, there are no credits.

Felix the Cat, By the Numbers

At the start of 1927, E.W. Hammons’ Educational Pictures offered theatres a brand-new cartoon every week, with two different series alternating each week. One was the quite forgotten “Life” cartoons from the man who was later behind the misbegotten sound series Buster Bear—John R. McCrory. The other series was far better remembered—Felix the Cat from the Pat Sullivan studio.

Felix was one of the great cartoon stars of the 1920s. He quickly became a has-been by the end of the decade as everyone wanted to hear cartoon characters talk. Felix didn’t, unless you include the falsetto muttering added to the soundtrack of silent cartoons made by Copley Pictures for any theatre that would take them.

In 1927, Felix still had an audience, and was still talked about in the public press. Here’s a story chock full of trivia. It’s possible Educational sent out this information to newspapers; most versions of the story I’ve found don’t have a byline. This is from The Oregonian, March 20.

Felix the cat, famous black feline star of the movies, has just completed an inventory at the studios where his boss, Pat Sullivan, puts him through his paces. And Felix was so surprised at the amount of material used in making his one-reel cartoon comedies that he let out one long, loud “me-e-e-ow.”
He discovered that four animators, two inkers, three tracers and one cameraman are employed at the Sullivan studios in New York making the Felix the Cat cartoons, which are released to the movie houses every other week, by Educational Film Exchanges. Sullivan and four assistants do the original pencil work, which is then inked in by the studio inkers. From 250 to 300 drawings are made daily by each of these five men. Tracers fill in the non-moving portions of the cartoon scene and blacken the parts supposed to appear black in the picture. Then the scenes are ready for the cameraman.
Drawings are made on bond paper, cut a little larger than the usual letter head size. Felix estimates that enough paper has been used since Mr. Sullivan began making Felix the Cat cartoon comedies to stretch in an unbroken path 12 times around the world.
His figures show that a fire pail full of ink is needed for every one reel picture.
Enough erasers are used during a year’s time in producing animated cartoon comedies to supply a fleet of flivvers with “shoes.”
The wood in pencils used up in sketching Felix would lay a deck on Old Ironsides, while the lead in a year’s time would make a lead conduit extended from America to Liverpool and back.
Blotting paper consumed since the studio started is sufficient to dry up the Atlantic ocean.
Approximately 200,340,000 sheets of paper have been used since the studio started.
Electricity used at the Sullivan studio is great enough to flash a message to Mars.
Enough gray matter was employed on new ideas to supply all the colleges of Siam.
If all the Felix cats drawn at the studio were joined paw to paw, it would make a solid string of black cats from New York to Shanghai, and what a howl they would make on a fence.
The question “Where do you get the ideas?” was asked about 1,740,285 times.

How many colleges WERE there in Siam then, anyways?

Perhaps the tallest yarn in these figures is the one about Sullivan doing any work at all. It’s generally conceded he did little than collect profits; Otto Messmer and artists such as Al Eugster did all the work. Sullivan wasn’t even in New York at one point. In November 1927, he took an extended trip across the U.S. then to Vancouver, where he boarded the Aorangi for Australia.

Other newspaper stories—and we’ve transcribed some here—pushed Sullivan’s claim his wife invented Felix. It wasn’t quite that cut and dried, either.

Though Felix disappeared from screens until the TV version in the late 1950s, several cartoons at Van Beuren excepted, he continued his career in the newspaper comic pages. Below is his debut on May 9, 1927.

The first comic strip story is based on the second Felix cartoon released in 1927. Here is the list from the Motion Picture News of the Felixes in the first half of the year, and their release dates by Hammons’ Educational Pictures.

Felix the Cat Dines and Pines, Jan. 9
Felix the Cat in Pedigreedy, Jan. 23
Felix the Cat in Icy Eyes, Feb. 6
Felix the Cat in Stars in Stripes, Feb. 20
Felix the Cat Sees ‘Em in Season, Mar. 6
Felix the Cat in Barnyards [sic], Mar. 20
Felix the Cat in Germania [sic], Apr. 3
Felix the Cat in Sax Appeal, Apr. 17
Felix the Cat in Eye Jinks, May 1
Felix the Cat As Roameo, May 15
Felix the Cat Ducks His Duty, May 29
Felix the Cat in Dough-Nutty, June 12
Felix the Cat in ‘Loco’ Motive June 26

Dines and Pines is one of my favourite Felixes, full of imagination in the nightmare scenes. Let’s leaf through the News and read the reviews of all 13 of these Felix films.

"Felix the Cat Dines and Pines"
(Educational-Sullivan Cartoon — One Reel)
“DR. CALIGARI'S CABINET" in an animated cartoon; that is what results in this Pat Sullivan when his protege, “Felix," eats not wisely but too well. The dream that results would satisfy the most exacting, futuristic impressionist. Before this he has worked out a most ingenious progressive dinner. The illegal drink that should precede all dinners (with apologies to Volstead) he secures by sucking the contents of a punch-bowl in a convenient window through a bit of spaghetti. The soup is gotten by wringing the beard of an old gentleman who vociferously inhales his. The chicken problem is unsolved because the descendants of the fowl intended for consumption come to their mother's aid and rout "Felix." It is because of this that he descends on a refuse heap and consumes an old shoe, and then the nightmare which might have been staged by a German movie director. "Never Again!" is the logical vow of "Felix" in the matter of indiscriminate meals.
Snappy stuff and out of the usual run and so should score.— PAUL THOMPSON.

"Felix, The Cat, Is Pedigreedy"
(Educational-Pat Sullivan Cartoon — One Reel)
FELIX wishes to go to an extremely swanky night club. Pedigree rather than the size of the bankroll seems to be what counts. (Needless to state, the locale of the animated cartoon is not in New York). Thrown out once because lacking a pedigree, he returns to tell the awe-inspired club members and the employees a tale of his ancestry. Associated with Noah as navigators and life-savers, with Rameses, the king, not the cigarette of Egypt's royal family, as the originator of the Charleston and finally with Columbus as a demonstrator of the round-earth theory his predecessors on the family tree are all that the most exacting can ask. Does he get the job, pardon me, membership? He sure does.
Some highly entertaining and amusing ideas are thus incorporated in this Pat Sullivan conceit. It will keep up the deservedly high reputation the series enjoys.— PAUL THOMPSON.

"Felix the Cat in Icy Eyes"
(Educational-Pat Sullivan Cartoon — One Reel)
ALAS for unrequited affection! Felix sees what he thinks is his ideal but she turns him down cold. And then, man-like, to get her attention he undertakes some fancy skating before her unappreciative eyes. He even rescues her from an icy plunge through the ice. But even that nets him no smiles or appreciation. But when he solves a jewel robbery and recovers the gems and has become famous and wealthy she relents. Alas, it is too late; she has become fat and unattractive, so that the critical Felix spurns her with eyes that are just as icy as hers had been earlier in the reel when both were younger and she was slender and svelte — whatever that quality may be.
Felix is alright as a sleuth but not so strong as a suitor. His shortcomings here are a merit and Pat Sullivan tells a tale with a moral that he who runs or skates can read. — PAUL THOMPSON.

"Felix the Cat Stars in Stripes"
(Educational-Pat Sullivan Animated Cartoon — One Reel)
AND all because he was trying to act the role of a good Samaritan and amuse a baby Felix lands at the rock pile. Hard lines, but humanitarians often get stung that way. Felix's imitation of Charley Chaplin, I thought, was very good, but the crying baby he was trying to get to sleep evidently did not share my critic's viewpoint. Accordingly the obliging cat tries a stick of candy and then what looks to the child like a larger stick of candy, a barber's pole. Result, arrest, conviction and stripes and the rock pile. Foiled once in an attempt to escape, the second time he and a fellow crook succeed. They bore their way to freedom. .A horse converted into a zebra facilitates the escape afterward, but the horse pays the penalty, because of the artificial stripes, by taking Felix's place behind the bars.
An amusing tale that will bring laughs rather than tears at the woes and tribulations of the long-suffering cat that owns up to a Pat Sullivan parentage.— PAUL THOMPSON.

"Felix Sees 'Em in Season"
(Educational-Sullivan — One Reel)
A MILDLY amusing effort is projected in this latest Sullivan cat cartoon, which deals with the cartoonist's observance of the arrival of spring through the eyes of Felix. Coincident with the coming of this season is the period in which everyone is afflicted with that mysterious malady known as spring fever. The greater portion of this reel is devoted to pen and ink impressions detailing the efforts of birds, beasts and fish to battle the ennui superinduced by the disease and their failure to overcome it. Felix fares no better, even to the extent of tolerating a mouse. — HAROLD FLAVIN.

“Felix the Cat in Barn Yarns"
(Educational-Sullivan Animated Cartoon — One Reel)
VERY materialistic this creation of Pat Sullivan; very little of the spiritual. Always his object in life sems to be food. This issue differs not a whit from many of its predecessors in its motif even if the treatment is varied. Temporarily discouraged from stealing a diner's food by a dose of pepper, Felix pursues a duck as a possible meal. To the edge of a pond he follows on. Onto the pond goes the daring cat. Of course the duck swims but Felix does not. He sinks but is rescued by the conscience-stricken decoy. The latter wins the cat's undying friendship. The first proof of this is when Felix inserts a piece of pipe in the duck's throat so that the farmer's axe has no effect. Then the farmer attempts to drown Felix, but he is rescued by three fish. To repay them for their kindness the cat unhooks worms from the farmer's line. It is good fun. — PAUL THOMPSON.

"Felix the Cat in Germ Mania"
(Sullivan-Educational — One Reel)
THIS is one of the most amusing numbers of the "Felix" series yet screened. Though viewed in a projection room without the aids of music or the festive spirit of an audience to help the risibles it nevertheless caused a continuous chuckle. Felix wanders into a scientific laboratory and starts some experiments on his own hook, playing around with fluids with alleged enlarging and contracting faculties; he incurs the enmity of a microbe and the usual chase ensues with Felix emerging the victor. — HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat in Sax Appeal"
(Sullivan-Educational — One Reel)
ANOTHER amusing number of the Felix series and this time the poor cat is deprived of his sleep by the wailing notes of a saxaphone [sic] played by his boss. The composition of these cartoons reveals great ingenuity on the part of the artists who must lay awake nights planning stunts for the cat. In this number, Felix, having stolen the sax from his boss, buries it, but a burrowing mole discovers the mouthpiece and as a result Felix is regaled with underground music. This is only one of the many entertaining bits of business introduced in the reel.
It is to laugh long and loud.— HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat in Eye Jinks"
(Educational — One Reel)
FELIX in an occulist's store undergoes the same experiences as the well-known "bull in the China shop." He is hired to exterminate the mice but they prove one too many for him numerically and intellectually, making him the butt of a series of mousy jokes which annoy him and should amuse the spectators.
This is worth-while seeing. — HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat as Roameo"
(Educational — One Reel)
THESE cartoons become more entertaining and ingenious with each succeeding issue as the artist's bag of tricks seemingly has no bottom; he never appears to be at a loss in devising new antics for Felix to perform. This week we see the cat as the great lover who travels from country to country leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him until he is finally confounded when his sweethearts get together. Good for a lot of giggles.— HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat Ducks His Duty"
(Educational — One Reel)
ANOTHER of the highly humorous issues of the "Felix" series with a number of new bits of business and the always amusing facial expressions of the cartoon characters. This one treats of war — declared by the mice against their ancient enemies, the cats. Felix, one of the prime movers in the conflict develops "cold feet" while at the front and deserts. He falls in love with a fair maiden who, after marriage, develops shrewish tendencies of such a violent nature that friend Felix decides that while "War is hell," an unkind wife is an even more hellish proposition, so back to the field of valor he wends his way and likes it, though he arrives in the midst of a barrage projected by both armies.— HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat in Dough-Nutty"
(Educational — One Reel)
FELIX the Cat and his antics furnish the usual amount of entertainment but we don't care for the introduction of the human figure into this pen-and-ink creation, nor, we believe, will your patrons. This idea of the combination of the human figure and the pen-and-ink-drawing has been used in another series of cartoons but we've never been able to understand the reason for so doing as there seemed no need for it especially as the human figure contributed little or nothing to the enjoyment of the reel.
Here's hoping they leave Felix alone to work out his own difficulties.— HAROLD FLAVIN.

"Felix the Cat in 'Loco' Motive"
(Educational Cartoon — One Reel)
THE news prints are full these days of recountals of the various American flying expeditions over long stretches of ocean to some spot thousands of miles away from our own shores. Now, when most everyone, talks and thinks of aviation, the wide awake Pat Sullivan and staff send Felix to Europe in an airship of his own devising. As is nine times out of ten the case with Felix his thoughts and ambitions were sent winging Germany way because of hunger. When he beholds a well nourished Teuton the cat concludes that Germany must be a land overflowing with milk and honey. And so it is not long after that he faces Eastward and sets out to conquer the air. Though he meets many obstacles and conquers them one by one your sympathies are with the lone cat flying over a waste of water. A really good cartoon storm, pelting rain, dark threatening clouds, a veritable downpour with thunder and lightning, hits the intelligent feline but he manages to stay up in the air and continue his trip, arriving in Germany where a great multitude awaits him. Presenting Felix in a new role, up-to-date, it is good stuff.— RAYMOND GANLY.

Perhaps the day will come when these fine little public domain films will be restored. I hope so. Felix deserves it.

Silhouette Felix

Breaking the fourth wall? Felix the cat did it in the silent era all the time.

Here’s one of many examples. This scene is from The Oily Bird. Here’s a summary of the plot by Raymond Ganly in the March 10, 1928 edition of the Motion Picture News:

Felix the cat continues his lonesome way in this one from the Sullivan studio. For all the world like another Lonesome Luke, the cat is always getting into trouble. His mistress accuses him of stealing her jewels, hence his ignominious ejection from the house. Learning that a hen has swallowed the gems he chases her in order to clear his good name. The bird, in desperation, digs a hole to escape from Felix. The tumult that results in the hole when the cat goes in after he causes an oil spout—much to the joy of the cat’s mistress. Entertaining.

In the scene below, Felix suspects a goat has swallowed the jewels (goats in short films eat everything). Felix points and looks at the theatre audience and winks.

The goat is drawn in silhouette. Felix finds a way to get around that.



Cut to a close-up. Felix looks at the audience again and shakes his head, realising there are no jewels.



Silhouette drawings found their way into a number of Felix cartoons in the late ‘20s. It’s tough to tell because of the angle, but Felix turns into a silhouette, then the goat does as he turns to butt Felix out of the frame.



Otto Messmer gets the credit by fans for these Felix cartoons, though the Sullivan studio had a team of animators. I don’t have a clue which one is responsible for this short.

The Felix Arch

Animated cartoons are entertainment and, like any entertainment, a cartoon that appeals to one person might not appeal to another. It’s visceral. That means there may be no explanation as to why someone likes or dislikes animation on a piece of film, any more than someone can explain why they like or dislike eggplant.

Despite this, there is plenty of commentary and analysis of cartoons out there, varying in tone. One book I have seems to have been an exercise of filling it with words no one uses in any kind of conversation. Others treat the subject casually.

Here’s an early attempt to analyse cartoons. It’s in a book written by an Englishman named Huntly Carter and published in 1930 called “THE NEW SPIRIT IN THE CINEMA. An Analysis and Interpretation of the Parallel Paths of the Cinema, which have led to the present Revolutionary Crisis forming a Study of the Cinema as an Instrument of Sociological Humanism.”

Fantasy, which has for so long been accepted as an expression of the whimsical state of mind, is, of course, within the legitimate sphere of the Cinema. On the screen it is seen at its gayest and best in a small line that assumes thousands of fantastic shapes that compose the Cartoon. In the Cartoon, which is one of the most popular and in some respects the best medium of cinema expression, the human atom and its belongings, undergo whimsical changes that cause a continuous stream of images to form in the mind, and that throw an abundance of rich crumbs to the imagination. But the Cartoon never departs from the actual. It consists of an elastic line in evolution. Shapes grow out of it with which we are familiar even though they are distorted and battered by a sort of recurrent earthquake.

In other words, the Cartoon of the Mickey Mouse, the Krazy Kat, the Felix the Cat, the Inkwell, the Adventures of Sammy and Sausage, or the Oswald Sound Cartoon kind, is simply the caricaturist playing with a line that has the elasticity of gas. It shrinks and expands, collapses and recovers, behaves like a spring winding and unwinding, and at the same time assumes the shapes and characteristics of human beings, animals, insects, of animate things, and inanimate ones made animate. These extraordinary puppets of all sorts, that fall to pieces in heaps and reunite, and outdo even an india-rubber ball in diversity of shapes, that speed through space with a velocity that has no parallel outside the Cinema, have a distinct sociological value. They exhibit man in society caught in a network of events undergoing or trying to escape the consequences. They are in fact a comment, a very witty instructive and biting comment on the absurdities of Man and other living things seen in the light of materialism. At the same time they are human, tragic and comic.

According to Mr. W. O. Brigstocke, of the Education Department of the Liverpool University, the Cartoon has a valuable educational side owing to its elasticity. He has suggested that the moving line of a Felix Cartoon can serve to teach architecture. " Felix could illustrate in a film such difficult conceptions as that of thrust in architecture. Suppose the teacher turned two other Felixes into pillars at his side and then constructed a Felix arch. It would be easy and amusing for him to show stresses and how they could be met. You would see the arch sagging at the knees or wherever it would sag. Gothic cathedrals which demonstrated in the sight of all men where they were weak and where they were strong, by bending, writhing, and even falling down promise infinite amusement. In the same way what could not be done with maps? Let Felix be taken up to a great height and let him behold all the kingdoms of the world with their pomps and vanities not to speak of their trade and transport; then drop him a given number of feet, or let him use up one of his nine lives and drop him all the way; in this manner it would be easy literally to see what scale means, both in space and times values. When one thinks of Felix and mathematics — cones sliced in lovely sections, curves developing in a panopoly of perpendiculars, and tangents to illustrate the secrets of growth and motion and form — why, on these lines we could have all the joys of Felix, Professor Einstein and the Zoo simultaneously."[Footnote]1 Einstein in the Zoo? Some persons would say by all means.
1 The Observer, May 8, 1927

Some of you may find this kind of analysis intellectually stimulating. Others may find it a bore. It’s all subjective, the same as the way you feel about cartoons themselves.

Felix Sees Stars

Depicting violence in an animated cartoon is more than just a punch in the mouth.

Otto Messmer used a great effect in the later Felix the Cat cartoons made for Pat Sullivan. He created a flashing effect using positive and negative silhouettes, and black and white drawings of stars. Generally, the drawings were shot on only one frame, quickening the pace.

Here are some examples from Daze and Knights, released October 30, 1927.

Messmer was never credited on these shorts, let alone the animator.

The same type of effect was used in the sound era by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera at MGM, and Shamus Culhane at Lantz, with coloured cards inserted on the screen.

Encounter With a Street Lamp

Hallucinating Felix is fun.

There are some great scenes Felix Dines and Pines (1927) of morphing monsters. We get a bit more of the same in Felix Woos Whoopee (1930) where the cat gets drunk on speakeasy hootch.

In this one, Felix greets a street lamp, which does a little dance, then jumps on it. The lamp turns into a smoke-spewing dragon that chases after him in perspective. The creature opens its mouth and “swallows” the camera.



Poor Felix had fallen from greatness by this point. Producer Pat Sullivan was interested in the sound of hootch falling into his own glass instead of sound in his cartoons. Educational Pictures dropped Felix. He was picked up for release by Copley Pictures on a state’s rights basis with music and vocal effects added after the cartoons were made to increase their saleability. Felix didn’t really make a comeback (despite starring in some shorts for Van Beuren) until the TV cartoons produced by Trans-Lux in the 1950s.