Feline Follies

After watching a bunch of very funny Snub Pollard 2-reelers produced by Hal Roach and directed by Charley Parrott Chase, plus Universal Jokers co-starring Billy Franey and (frequent Chase co-star) Gale Henry, some directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine, the gang here is thinking of silent era cartoons - especially all-time favorite Felix The Cat, that gem from the inspired pen of the incomparable Otto Messmer (1892-1983).



Author, animator and Messmer expert John Canemaker elaborates.





Have devoted entire blog posts to Messmer and Felix. Our family even had an amazing and playful tuxedo cat named Felix!



The blog has posted numerous Felix cartoons but somehow missed the very first entries in the series.



So, here, submitted for your approval, are first two Felix The Cat cartoons, made back in 1919.





While Messmer's essential and trademark minimalism is there from the beginning, Felix' design is different and more angular in these early cartoons.









Since the awaited Blu-ray release of Rainbow Parade Cartoons volume 2 by Thunderbean is just around the corner, must find a spot in today's post for the following 35mm scan of Bold King Cole, one of the three Felix cartoons from RKO Radio Pictures' Rainbow Parade series.



How do we show proper respect for Mr. Messmer and Felix? With a few more cartoons featuring cats, beginning with one produced by the Van Beuren Studio that looks a tad like those last Felix cartoons from 1930. The co-star, Countess Cat, sounds like the Betty Boop voice who preceded Mae Questel in the boop-oop-a-doop part and also played Olive Oyl when Ms. Questel was unavailable, Margie Hines.



SASSY CATS is one of Columbia Pictures' Scrappy cartoons, created by three all-time animation greats, Dick Huemer, Art Davis and Sid Marcus, for the Charles Mintz Studio. The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog finds the outrageous pre-code cartoons and animation of Heumer, Davis and Marcus hilarious.



Davis and Marcus ended up at Warner Brothers; the former would be a head animator with both Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin and Friz Freleng, while the latter collaborated with Bob McKimson both on creating The Tasmanian Devil and such cartoons as The Hole Idea (1955).



After leaving the Mintz Studio in 1933, Mr. Huemer spent decades as a top Walt Disney Productions storyman, working as a team with Joe Grant, contributing to Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, etc. He was, on record, not a fan of his Mintz cartoons.



Speaking of the Charles Mintz Studio, the crew there led by Ben Harrison and Manny Gould were among those to bring the Krazy Kat from comics and the universe of George Herriman (1880-1944) to animation, albeit only once.



In the opinion of this cartoon fan, the 1936 Mintz cartoon comes closer to capturing the George Herriman universe than the WW1 era Krazy Kats produced by International Film Service, Inc. (a.k.a. Hearst).



The ever-inventive Gene Deitch also made 34 episodes of a series based on Herriman's Krazy Kat in the 1960's at his Prague studio, no less. Many can be seen on the Comic Kings YouTube channel. Perpetual wiseguy Ignatz Mouse is played by none other than Paul Frees.

© King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Given the difficulties translating the otherworldly qualities of George Herriman's comic strip to animation, we still find the early 1960's take on Krazy and Ignatz quite entertaining, definitely tops from the KFS (King Features Syndicate) offerings - and among the more clever made for TV cartoons.







What's the best way to wrap this cat-packed post up? With an extremely funny Warner Brothers cartoon in glorious Cinecolor directed by one of those fellows responsible for Scrappy at the Charles Mintz Studio, the great Arthur Davis.

The cat, Louie the parrot's pal Heathcliff, may qualify as the single dumbest character ever in an animated cartoon.

For the next Feline Follies, there are many more options, including the Hugh Marman MGM cartoon THE ALLEY CAT, Terrytoons' Little Roquefort, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry in CinemaScope, and especially Bob Clampett's WB masterpieces THE HEP CAT (1942) and GRUESOME TWOSOME (1945), that could be added.

Unfortunately, did not find a complete print of Irv Spector's enjoyable Modern Madcap cartoon Cool Cat Blues (1961), featuring stellar voice work by impressionist Will Jordan, as all transfers on YouTube and Daily Motion appear to be missing footage for some reason. This cartoonologist prefers the satiric qualities of the 1960's Modern Madcaps to the more formulaic 1950's Famous Studios cartoons.