Before we get started, we just want to say that everything we talk about here is available to download and enjoy for free.

OK, picture this… Film travels at a speed of 24 frames per second past the bulb of the projector. So that means back in the day, each and everyone of those cartoon frames had to have something hand drawn to be photographed into it. And if it was for a color toon, then each and everyone of those frames had to be handcolored. So a simple five minute cartoon required at least 7,200 individual handcrafted works of art! Even cutting corners, they could never get away from at least 12 drawings per second, with classic Disney style animation averaging about 18 drawings per second.

In the days of silent toons, the king was Felix The Cat. Hell, the first experimental TV broadcast (in 1928) was a telecast of a 13″ paper mache Felix statue! Throughout the twenties, Felix’s star power help put butts in paid theater seats. Felix toons were the first to exhibit the trippy tomfoolery that we associate with the cartoon universe.

By the early thirties with the very beginnings of animation with sound, cartoon makers were getting even more clever. One toon that pushed the envelope, technologically, artistically and culturally was Betty Boop. Born in 1930 at the end of the economically booming twenties, Betty was a scandal. Wearing a sleeveless dress that ended high above her knees, Betty was often accosted by male characters who “touched her inappropriately” and her trademark “Boop-Oop-A-Doop” seemed to have more a sexual meaning than just scat-singing nonsense. And picture this, gentle reader, the toons featured wild jazz music often performed by real life black people like Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. Boop’s creators, the Fleischer Brothers, pioneered the innovation of melding live action and their surreal animation so that the jazz greats actually appear in the cartoons. While the often demeaning depictions of African-Americans wouldn’t pass today’s politically correct censors, it was Betty’s blatant sexuality that made the censors come calling around 1935 after the Hayes Act, which promised to clean up the era’s licentious media, passed Congress. Although her career continued a few more years, Betty would never be the same girl again.

Also out of the inkwell of Les Frères Fleischer came the muttering seaman with the outsized forearms, Popeye The Sailor. The hot-headed spinach muncher actually made his debut in 1929 in the comic strip Thimble Theater, which starred his later girlfriend Olive Oyl (who was then dating the handsome Ham Gravy!). After the popular Popeye soon took over and the strip was renamed after him, he became a movie star in 1933 guesting in a Betty Boop cartoon. He then had his own Fleischer series, which pitted him against his nemesis Bluto and included his comic strip associates J. Wellington Wimpy, Olive Oyl, and Swee’Pea. By the ’50s, the sailorman had switched his appeal from a grown-up movie following to a children’s television audience — gone were his under-the-breath wisecracks and the frequent fisticuffs with his rival who was rechristened “Brutus.”

Another Fleischer toon worth showcasing was their 1940s Superman series. In these 17 Technicolor gems, The Man of Steel battles foes ranging from mad scientists, and defrosted T-Rexs to Japanese saboteurs, Nazi agents and The Mummy. These action shorts give the current Superman Doomsday a run for its money.

Of course the kings of ’30s and ’40s short animation were Warner Bros. with their Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. These toon series were the birthing place of the wisecracking Bugs Bunny, the stuttering Porky Pig and other characters that continue to entertain, delight and rake in the bucks for Warners.

And while you’re at it, check out the original Tom & Jerry. Nope we’re not talking the cat and mouse here. This anthropomorphic duo are the stars of a string of seven minute buddy movies that take them around the world, their adventures unintentionally illustrating how ethnocentric the 1930s US really was.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.