Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
In 1923 the Fleischers made the groundbreaking fourreel educational film, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. In the
face of increased competition from the technically adept
Fleischer Studio, Disney created the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928), introducing
animation’s first cartoon superstar, Mickey Mouse. Nine
years later, Disney made Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs (1937), the first full-length, sound-synchronized,
Technicolor animated film, along the way making the seminal Silly Symphonies, including Flowers and Trees
(1932), the first cartoon made in three-strip Technicolor;
Three Little Pigs (1933), famous for its Depression-era
rallying cry of ‘‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’’; The
Country Cousin (1936), which established a definitive
design for cartoon mice; and The Old Mill (1937), using
the multiplane camera. All of these made aesthetic, technical, and narrative strides in the field. Many of early
Silly Symphonies were drawn by Ub Iwerks and based on
a ‘‘rope’’ aesthetic of elongated faces and limbs. Fred
Moore’s use of the ‘‘circle’’-based ‘‘squash ‘n’ stretch’’
animation in Three Little Pigs, however, essentially
prompted the change in Disney’s aesthetic that led to
an advance in ‘‘personality’’ animation and an increased
realism in the films that was to characterize the studio’s
signature style. The multiplane camera, which made its
debut in The Old Mill, facilitated this style further by
ensuring that all the moving figures and changing environments stayed in perspective and maintained a depth
of field. At this point, Disney effectively defined animation and created a legacy that all other producers have
sought to imitate or challenge.
As Disney continued its development with what
were arguably the studio’s two masterpieces, Pinocchio
(1940) and Fantasia (1940)—films that consciously
strove to define the ‘‘art’’ of animation in aesthetic and
cultural terms—the Warner Bros. studio established itself
through the work of Hugh Harman (1903–1982) and
Rudolf Ising (1903–1992) and the presence of Bosko, the
studio’s first animated star. Much of the Warner output
was based on music already owned by the studio, and the
early cartoons—the Looney Tunes series and, later, the
Merrie Melodies—may be seen as prototypical music
promos, as these films reinvigorated the market in sheet
music and recordings. Following the Disney strike of
1941 (which essentially ended the first Golden Era of
animation) and the purchase in 1944 of Leon Schlesinger
Productions by Warner Bros., a new house style emerged,
first under director Friz Freleng (1905–1995), then
through the major creative impact of Tex Avery (1908–
1980), which saw Chuck Jones (1912–2002), Frank
Tashlin (1913–1972), Bob Clampett (1913–1984), and
Robert McKimson (1911–1977) become the new heirs
to the animated short. Altogether more urban and adult,
the Warner Bros. cartoons were highly inventive, redefining the situational gags in Disney films through a higher
degree of surreal, self-reflexive, and taboo-breaking
humor.
The Fleischers had the highly sexualized Betty Boop,
with her cartoons’ strong embrace of African American
culture and underground social mores; the blue-collar
hero, Popeye; and the outstanding Superman cartoons
of the 1940s. Hanna-Barbera had the enduring Tom
and Jerry; Walter Lantz (1899–1994) had created
Woody Woodpecker; and Terrytoons had debuted
Mighty Mouse, parodying Mickey Mouse and
Superman. But Warners had the zany Daffy Duck, the
laconic wise guy, Bugs Bunny, and gullible dupes Porky
Pig and Elmer Fudd, who became popular and moraleraising figures during the war-torn 1940s and its aftermath. The cartoons continued to be innovative and
developmental. Their soundtracks also progressed to
enhance the dynamics of the more surreal narratives.
Former Disney stalwart Carl Stalling (1891–1972) and
effects man Treg Brown combined short pieces of music
and a bizarre range of inventive sounds to ‘‘mickey
mouse’’ the movement (follow the action on screen with
exactly matching sound) or to create comic counterpoint
to the dramatic events. And Mel Blanc (1908–1989)
continued to supply the vocalizations for all the
Warners’ cartoon characters.
Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, in particular, revised
the aesthetics of the cartoon, changing its pace and subject matter, relying less on the ‘‘full animation’’ of Disney
and more on different design strategies and thematic
concerns such as sex and sexuality, injustice, and the
inhibiting expectations of social etiquette. In many
senses, the innovation in cartoons as various as Jones’s
The Dover Boys of Pimento University or the Rivals of
Roquefort Hall (1942), Avery’s Red Hot Riding Hood
(1943), and Bob Clampett’s Coal Black and de Sebben
Dwarfs (1943) anticipate the more formal experimentation of the United Productions of America (UPA) studio,
a breakaway group of Disney animators (Steve Bosustow,
Dave Hilberman, John Hubley, and Zack Schwartz)
wishing to work more independently and more in the
style of modernist art (actually pioneered at the Halas
and Batchelor and Larkins Studios in England during the
war) than in comedy. Though now remembered for
popular characters like the short-sighted Mr. Magoo,
UPA made Gerald McBoing Boing (1951) and The TellTale Heart (1953), which used minimalist backgrounds
and limited animation and was clearly embracing a
European modernist art sensibility that was emerging in
the ‘‘reduced animation’’ of the Zagreb Studios in thenYugoslavia, and particularly in the work of its leading
artist, Dus ˇan Vukotic (1927–1998).
In this work, as in work by studios in Shanghai, the
National Film Board of Canada, and even at the shortlived GB Animation Unit, a desire existed to embrace the
art and technique of Disney while ultimately rejecting its
aesthetic and industrial model in order to privilege different notions of the cartoon. It is pertinent to remember
that progressive conceptions of the cartoon had occurred
in Britain as early as 1934, when Anthony Gross and
Hector Hoppin had lyricized the form in Joie de Vivre,
and later, when Halas and Batchelor made their short
Poet and Painter films for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and in their adaptation of George Orwell’s novel in
Animal Farm (1954), which addressed serious subject
matter and represented animals in a more realistic and
less Disneyfied way. There is some irony to the fact that
Halas and Batchelor recalled the ‘‘animal’’ to the animal
cartoon by going beyond the standardization of cartoon
technique, the caricatured rather than realistic representation of animals, and the comic imperatives of the short
film. Animal Farm had to be more realistic, given the
seriousness of Orwell’s theme and its allegory of the
Russian Revolution.
As the Disney studio entered a period of decline,
Chuck Jones created three masterpieces: Duck Amuck
(1953), deconstructing the codes and conventions of
the cartoon and filmmaking in general; One Froggy
Evening (1956), satirizing the idea of celebrity and commercial exploitation in the figure of a performing frog
who refuses to demonstrate his unique talents for its
owner in front of potential entrepreneurs and audiences;
and What’s Opera, Doc ? (1957), a seven-minute compression of Wagner’s Ring cycle. All three exhibited
Jones’s ability to reinvent the cartoon, work with literate
and complex themes, and create what can only be called
art. Also significant was the contribution of designer
Maurice Noble, whose backgrounds, color scheme, and
lighting all add to the sense of operatic grandeur. Jones’s
cartoons were the last great works of the theatrical era in
the United States as the major studios closed their short
cartoon units—Disney (1954), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(1956), Warner Bros. (1962), and Terrytoons (1967)—
and the television era began. Jones was to be highly
critical of what was to follow, arguing that at best it
was ‘‘illustrated radio,’’ but nevertheless that period of
cartoon history is an important one for the form.