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.

Pigs, Affairs and Candy

In 1950, he was a 58-year-old maintenance worker for a candy company in Los Angeles. That doesn’t sound like the description of a fairly significant name in the world of theatrical animation. But that’s a snapshot of the life of Burt Gillett, director of the Three Little Pigs and Flowers and Trees.

Gillett tends to be a controversial figure, partly because of Shamus Culhane’s experiences with him at the Van Beuren studio. Culhane claimed Gillett was unstable, maybe even mentally ill. Animator/Director Dick Lundy told author Joe Adamson that Gillett spent loads and loads of money and never knew where his pictures were going.

Most of the material you’ll read about Gillett, not surprisingly, involves his work for Walt Disney. But I found a few stories in local papers from his time at Van Beuren, one of them praising the studio’s cartoons.

Gillett was born in Edmeston, New York on October 15, 1891. The 1892 Census has the family in Elmira. He liked art at an early age; the Connellsville, Pa. Daily Courier in 1907 reported he was in high school and won second prize in a weekly magazine’s drawing contest. Census documents reveal in 1910, he was living on West 57th in Manhattan and working as a cashier for a lumber company. He was attending the Art Students League at the time. He was a cartoonist on the Connellsville, Pa. Daily Courier when it reported on its front page of Jan. 25, 1911 he had eloped with the family maid. Louise Clawson had been employed for two weeks and was fired. Gillett married her a week later. “Love at First Sight,” proclaimed the sub-headline. He was 19. The “remarkably pretty girl, graceful of figure and a brunette of fascinating type” was 15.

Two years later, the Newburgh, N.Y. Directory tells us he was a cartoonist with the city’s Daily News. In 1916, Gillett landed a job in the Barre-Bowers cartoon studio. Gillett then opened his own $70,000 studio which took up the entire fifth floor of a building on 42nd Street in New York. The Connellsville Courier of Aug. 7, 1925 stating he had partnered with Ben Harrison, Dick Humor [sic] and Manny Gould, with brother Clyde as business manager of “Associated Animated Studio.” It made Mutt and Jeff cartoons and shorts called “Fun From the Press” for Literary Digest. It had a short life. Animation researcher and restorer Devon Baxter went through Harrison’s personal notes, and Harrison admits he used the company’s gilt-edge, but worthless, stock to plug a hole in his shoe.

In April 1929, Walt Disney visited Pat Sullivan’s studio where still-silent Felix the Cat cartoons were being made. Gillett was animating there and Disney hired him. Jack Cutting, an artist later put in charge of Disney’s foreign department, was hired in August that year, and reminisced in a 1973 newspaper story that there were 19 men on staff and Gillett was the oldest.

Gillett had tremendous success at Disney. Meanwhile, back in New York, Amedee Van Beuren was paying for third-rate cartoons being churned out by his staff. Why not entice the director of the most famous animated short to that time to take over and whip the operation into shape? So it was in early 1934 that Van Beuren hired Burt Gillett. “I was reluctant to leave California as I like the climate and my associates out there very much,” he told the Newburgh Daily News in a story published June 22, 1934. “However, business is business and this looks like a splendid opportunity, so here I am.”

Here’s a story from the Matt Richardson’s ‘Round Town column in the Elmira Star-Gazette, Dec. 3, 1935.

Leaves Newspaper Grind For the Newer Grind Of Color Cartoons
IT IS A GREAT THRILL for Burt Gillett, when he returns to Elmira periodically for a look around, and to ponder old times. . . These visits are a happiness tonic, too, an aid to longevity. It was 31 years ago that Mr. Gillett started out to make his way in the world and he chose newspaper work—of all things! . . . He landed in Newburgh, and for 10 years wrestled with court reporting for sustenance, while dabbling in art for the love of it. . . Older heads recognized Burt's ability, and advised him to stop trying to beat, his way through life on a typewriter and stick to his sketching. . . It proved good advice. . . The young man thought he liked cartooning, hurried to Hollywood, and tied up with Walt Disney of Mickey Mouse and "Silly Symphony" fame. . . He became a director of these amusing little characters and the artists who produce them. . . It was Gillett, if you please, who directed the "Three Little Pigs," which touched off a national hysteria of laughter. . .
ALL THIS HAPPENED 18 years ago. And now the former Elmiran is back east again, in Manhattan, associated with the VanBuren Studio, specializing in rainbow color movie cartoons. On his staff is a corps of 100 artists constantly turning, out this art that screen lovers have learned so much to admire. . . Burt doesn't draw any more. . . There is greater pecuniary reward in watching others do the actual work and seeing that they do it correctly. . . For a while, out West, Mr. Gillett was able to return to Elmira only twice, these visits being separated by a 10-year interim. . . But now, from New York to Elmira, is an easy "jump," proven by the fact he has made the jaunt three times the past year. . .
THE MOVIE DIRECTOR'S FATHER was Lewis M. Gillett, who for years—until 1904—when the family moved to Pennsylvania, conducted a jewelry store at the corner of West Water and Main Streets—present site of the Les Kelly drug store. . . In there Burt strolled, closed his eyes and tried to look back in retrospect to the days of his boyhood. . . He endeavored to imagine all around him were clocks, silver and pewter instead of ivory sets, porus plasters and pills. . . And was fairly successful—a dream boy for the moment. . . Burt has never been quite weaned from Elmira, you know. . . He sees many old landmarks, far too few old friends, and there comes a fund of reminiscences which he delights to peddle around to those willing to lend an ear and capable of remembering, perhaps.

Animator Izzy Klein was at Van Beuren at the time and said Gillett was constantly firing people not up to his standard. As well, Gillett brought Tom Palmer with him. Palmer was an ex-Disneyite who was picked up by Leon Schlesinger in 1933 and made production manager. Sound department head Bernie Brown told historian Michael Barrier that Palmer was inept at putting together a story, giving vague instructions to “do a funny bit of business here.” At Van Beuren, the two of them came up with the dreadful live action/animation “Toddle Tales,” then invented the unhilarious Molly Moo Cow.

But Van Beuren was going in the right direction, though Tom Sito’s book on animation unions, Drawing the Line points out “big sections of the shorts were thrown out as substandard [by Gillett] and [artists] were forced to work unpaid overtime hours to replace them.” But it’s obvious the studio’s animation improved with people like Carlo Vinci, Bill Littlejohn, Pete Burness and Jack Zander. The studio had licensed Felix the Cat and The Toonerville Trolley characters. Under writers like Joe Barbera and Dan Gordon, they could have been very funny, rollicking cartoons. But RKO, which had a stake in Van Beuren, decided in 1936 it was better simply to kill the studio and release Walt Disney’s shorts instead of putting ersatz Disney “Rainbow Parade” cartoons in theatre. Gillett went on a month-long trip to England, returning in August 1936 and immediately took a job again with Walt Disney, who had said when Gillett left in 1934 “Who needs him?”.

Meanwhile, Gillett lost interest in that “brunette of fascinating type.” The Bergen Evening Record told all in its issue of Jan. 20, 1937. The clipping to the right below is from the Dec. 22, 1936 edition of the Passaic Herald-News. It should be of note to people who doubt Culhane’s story of instability and reports that Gillett was a souse.

Gillett, Aide To Disney, Ordered To Pay Alimony
Edgewater Woman Wins $70 Weekly From Mickey Mouse Cartoonist In Separation Action
Burton F. Gillett, cartoonist for Walt Disney, is under court order today to pay $70 weekly alimony to Mrs. Louise Gillett, 647 Undercliff Avenue, Edgewater, and $750 counsel fees as result of her recent separate maintenance divorce suit decree.
WORKS IN HOLLYWOOD
Gillett, who is working at Disney's Hollywood studios, also was ordered by Advisory Master N. Demarest Campbell in Chancery Court at Hackensack to give his estranged wife half the income from his property. He owns a $15,000 house in Edgewater and a $40,000 home in Los Angeles.
According to the petitioner her husband misconducted himself with Miss Edith [Ethel Vera] Falkenberg, model in his office, in an apartment at 360 Central Park West, New York, on various dates.
Although Gillett earns as much as $325 a week he failed to provide proper support for his wile, she charged at the trial.
Jan. 10, 1936, Mrs. Gillett took part in a raid on her husband's apartment and said she found him partly dressed with Miss Falkenberg. The couple have a child and Gillett wants to marry the girl, his wife testified.
The defendant did not appear in court to contest the accusations but he was represented by Vincent J. Aiken of Fort Lee.
Lawrence A. Cavinato, counsel for Mrs. Gillett, contended the artist failed to support his wife in the manner to which she was accustomed and entitled after he became friendly with Miss Falkenberg.
The couple was married Jan. 25, 1911, at Cumberland, and have one grown son.
Another of Mrs. Gillett's allegations was that her husband drank excessively and on one occasion when she protested said he wanted to stay drunk so he wouldn't have to look at "your homely mug.”
Trial of the case took two days.
Mrs. Gillett declared that her husband threatened to kill himself when she refused to grant him a divorce to permit him to marry the Falkenberg girl. On a vacation cruise to Europe last summer he even threatened to throw her overboard if she declined to divorce him, Mrs. Gillett told the court.

The divorce was granted in December 1937 and Gillett took out a marriage license with his former employee the following March. There was a 20-year age difference between the two.

In September 1938, Gillett was gone from Disney and began writing and directing for Walter Lantz. He lasted about a year; his final cartoon was released March 4, 1940. Lantz explained to Joe Adamson that Gillett never properly laid out his cartoons like other directors meaning he never knew how long they were. “Gillett never knew where he was going; he’d wind up with a nine-hundred-foot picture,” as opposed to the usual 600 feet which meant less animation time, less inking and painting, and less money. Lantz was big on saving money. “After he made a few of those, I said, ‘Burt, you’re going to put me out of business.’”

In 1940 his occupation in the Burbank City Directory is “writer.” His World War Two Draft Card, dated Apr. 25, 1942, states he was employed at McDonnell’s Restaurant. Gillett and his former paramour divorced and he married Theckla Virginia Monberg of Huntingdon Park in 1943. Oddly, he showed up in Connellsville in August 1949, with the Daily Courier reporting he was visiting his ex-wife’s sister. The 1950 Census indicates he and Virginia were separated (she died in 1953).

Gillett had one more last hurrah in animation. In April 1961, the San Francisco Museum of Art screened a number of films, including The Three Little Pigs. Gillett was invited to attend.

With nary an obituary, at least that I can find, Gillett died in Panorama City on December 28, 1971.

The Old Pepper Gag

Felix the Cat probably wasn’t the first, but he was among the silent cartoon characters to drag out the pepper/sneeze gag that got good mileage in cartoons for decades into the sound era (ie. starting in 1928).

In Felix Gets Broadcasted, he winds up in Egypt and is chased by what was then described as a Nubian. He rushes onto the Sphinx. Trapped!

Some expressions.



He looks up at the Sphinx’s nose and gives his “Aha!” take. Two extremes are below.



He pulls out the you-know-what.



The gag works every time.



Felix thanks the Sphinx and it’s off to the next scene.



The M.J. Winkler studio was distributing the Felix cartoons on a State Rights system every two weeks. This one was released June 15, 1923. It was preceded by Felix the Globe Trotter and followed by Felix Strikes It Rich and then the fun Felix in Hollywood, according to the Motion Picture Booking Guide of Oct. 1923. Film Daily of Feb. 17, 1924 gives the date as Sept. 1, 1923. The Motion Picture News lists it on the bill at the Stanley Theatre in Philadelphia on the week of July 1, 1923. It was still being screened at theatres as late as 1927.

That Felix is a Character

The silent era Felix the Cat can morph into all kinds of things, and he has a unique evolution in Japanicky (1928).

In his haste to hide from an angry traditional Japanese lord, he grabs a pictogram from a sign and turns himself into a character.

Felix wanders sideways, as a pictogram, to the lord and changes himself back.

There are some very nice settings in this cartoon and a neat literal gag where Felix gets some tea from a tree. The tea is the letter ‘T.’

Like all the Jacques Kopfstein Felixes, when sound was added, Felix indistinguished jabbers through the whole cartoon.