Animated Films Essay Research Paper American animation — страница 2

live-action world of Max and his artist's studio. Late in the '20s, the Fleischers made cartoons for Paramount (where copyright claims resulted in a new hyphen for their clown), and did some of their best work with Ko-Ko The Cop (1927) and Ko-Ko's Earth Control (1928). The purely animated Felix the Cat cartoons could be equally imaginative: Felix Saves The Day (1922), Felix In Hollywood (1923), and Comicalamities (1928) offer their own crazy plasticity with the characters. Otto Messmer, the cartoons' principal creator, was helped with gags and animation by William Nolan and Raoul Barr?; but Pat Sullivan, who never drew a frame of Felix, took all the credit for himself, and Messmer remained virtually unknown. Paul Terry found success in the 1920s with his "Aesop's

Fables" series. Regularly starring his Farmer Al Falfa, these self-described "sugar coated pills of wisdom" were such a hit that Terry, overseeing a staff of animators and directors, made more than 400 of them over the next eight years. Their popularity rivaled that of Koko and Felix, as part of the new flowering of animation in these years. In 1924 the Fleischers struck gold again with a series of audience sing-alongs, "Song Car-Tunes." (My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean (1926) was the first time viewers could "follow the bouncing ball.") That same year, former Hearst and Barr? animator Walter Lantz was put in charge of cartoon production at Bray, and started his "Dinky Doodle" series which placed animated characters in a live-action

world. Besides writing and directing, Lantz also acted in them, playing everything from Cleopatra in Dinky Doodle In Egypt (1926) to a harried cook in Lunch Hound (1927). Another popular series also began in 1924, from a man who would forever change the art of animation: Walt Disney.With his fellow animators and gag men Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, and Rudolf Ising, Disney developed the "Alice In Cartoonland" series which reversed the formula of the Fleischers and Lantz (and McCay) by placing a live-action person in an animated world. Soon Disney had turned over all the artwork to his animators, and was delegating and supervising their work on cartoons that all bore the stamp of his personality. Disney brought in animator Isidore "Friz" Freleng, who worked on a new

character, Oswald the Rabbit, but the series lasted little more than a year: In 1928 Disney left his distributor, who kept the rights to Oswald. He also lost most of his staff in the break, but Iwerks stayed with Disney and developed a new character, Mickey Mouse, whom they introduced in Plane Crazy (1928). Disney recognized the importance of the sound-recording technology which was beginning to transform live-action motion pictures, and invested in synchronized music and sound effects for his third Mickey Mouse cartoon, the landmark Steamboat Willie (1928). Its success with audiences convinced Disney that the future of animation lay in sound. (Pat Sullivan refused to invest in talking cartoons, and Felix the Cat faded away; Sullivan died a few years later, and Messmer left

animation.) With Iwerks and composer Carl Stalling, Disney launched his "Silly Symphony" series with the classic The Skeleton Dance (1929), a musical romp of skeletons partying in a graveyard. Iwerks directed several "Silly Symphonies" before striking out on his own; but his "Flip The Frog" and "Willie Whopper" series failed to catch on, and by the end of the 1930s he returned to Disney.During those years Disney became the pinnacle of animation. Unsurpassed in detail and expressiveness, his sentimental, tuneful, and funny cartoons had no equal. The 1930s was his greatest period for short animation; he began producing color cartoons with Flowers And Trees (1932), and classic "Silly Symphonies" such as The Three Little Pigs (1933)

and The Tortoise And The Hare (1934) were instant hits. Mickey Mouse (voiced by Disney himself) became internationally famous as an icon of optimism in the grim years of the Depression, and was soon supported by other beloved characters — his pet dog Pluto, his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, the short-tempered Donald Duck, the dimwitted canine Goofy — in cartoons that were universally enjoyed; among the standouts are The Delivery Boy (1931), directed by Burt Gillett; The Band Concert (1935), directed by Wilfred Jackson; Mickey's Service Station (1935) and Clock Cleaners (1937), both directed by Ben Sharpsteen. Disney's success encouraged a boom in animation. Columbia, Disney's distributor until 1932 (when he joined United Artists, whom he later left in 1937 for RKO) also handled