Talkartoons is a series of 42 animated cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures from 1929 to 1932. [1]
For the Fleischer brothers, the transition to sound was relatively easy. With the new contract with Paramount Pictures, and without the burden of Red Seal Pictures and Alfred Weiss, Max Fleischer was free to experiment with new, bold ideas. First he changed the name of the Ko-Ko Song Cartunes series to Screen Songs . Although the Screen Songs were successful, Fleischer felt that it wasn't enough; Walt Disney seemed to gain a great amount of fame through his sound cartoons as well. He decided to work with his brother, Dave on a new series of cartoons where the characters did more than just simply dance to the music of the "bouncing ball". The name for the new series was to be Talkartoons. When the idea was pitched to Paramount, they leaped at the opportunity. [2]
The Talkartoons started out as one-shot cartoons. The first entry in the series was Noah's Lark, released on October 26, 1929. Although a Fleischer cartoon, it appeared to be patterned after the Aesop's Film Fables of Paul Terry. In it, a Farmer Al Falfa-esque Noah allows the animals of his ark to visit Luna Park. When he brings them back into the ship, the weight is so heavy that it sinks. In the end, Noah chases topless mermaids throughout the ocean waters. Lark has very few gray tones, due to employing the paper-cutout animation process utilized in the Screen Songs produced during the same time and the earlier Fleischer silent works. It also included copyright-free songs, mostly utilized from old 78-rpm's.
The series began to take a new direction, however, with the arrival of Max and Dave's brother, Lou Fleischer, whose skills in music and mathematics made a great impact at the studio. A dog named Bimbo gradually became the featured character of the series. The first cartoon that featured Bimbo was Hot Dog (1930), [3] the first Fleischer cartoon to be animated on cels, and thus to employ a full range of greys. New animators such as Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, and Rudy Zamora began entering the Fleischer Studio, with new ideas that pushed the Talkartoons into a league of their own. Natwick especially had an off-beat style of animating that helped give the shorts more of a surreal quality. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the Talkartoons series and the Fleischer Studio was the creation of Betty Boop with Dizzy Dishes in 1930.
By late 1931, Betty Boop dominated the series. Koko the Clown was brought out of retirement from the silent days as a third character to Betty and Bimbo. By 1932, the series was at an inevitable end and instead, Betty Boop would be given her own series, with Bimbo and Koko as secondary characters.
Dave Fleischer was the credited director on every cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios. Fleischer's actual duties were those of a film producer and creative supervisor, with the head animators doing much of the work assigned to animation directors in other studios. The head animator is the first animator listed. [4] Credited animators are therefore listed for each short. Many of the shorts from 1931-32 don't have their animator credits listed, as they were cut when the shorts were sold to television and had their titles replaced.
1929 | ||||
No. | Film | Original release date | Credited animators | Notes |
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1 | Noah's Lark | October 26 | No animators credited |
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1930 | ||||
No. | Film | Original release date | Credited animators | Notes |
2 | Marriage Wows | January 12 | No animators credited |
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3 | Radio Riot | February 10 | No animators credited |
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4 | Hot Dog | March 29 | No animators credited |
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5 | Fire Bugs | May 9 | Ted Sears Grim Natwick |
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6 | Wise Flies | July 14 | Willard Bowsky Ted Sears |
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7 | Dizzy Dishes | August 9 | Grim Natwick Ted Sears |
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8 | Barnacle Bill | August 25 | Rudy Zamora Seymour Kneitel |
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9 | Swing You Sinners! | September 22 | Ted Sears Willard Bowsky |
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10 | Grand Uproar | October 12 | Seymour Kneitel Al Eugster |
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11 | Sky Scraping | November 1 | Ted Sears Willard Bowsky |
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12 | Up to Mars | November 23 | Rudy Zamora Jimmie Culhane |
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13 | Accordion Joe | December 12 | Ted Sears Grim Natwick |
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14 | Mysterious Mose | December 27 | Willard Bowsky Ted Sears |
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1931 | ||||
No. | Film | Original release date | Credited animators | Notes |
15 | Ace of Spades | January 6 | Rudy Zamora Al Eugster |
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16 | Tree Saps | January 19 | Grim Natwick Ted Sears |
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17 | Teacher's Pest | February 7 | Grim Natwick Seymour Kneitel |
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18 | The Cow's Husband | March 14 | Jimmie Culhane R. Eggeman |
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19 | The Bum Bandit | April 6 | Willard Bowsky Al Eugster |
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20 | The Male Man | April 24 | Ted Sears Seymour Kneitel |
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21 | Twenty Legs Under the Sea | May 5 | Willard Bowsky Tom Bonfiglio |
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22 | Silly Scandals | May 23 | Unknown |
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23 | The Herring Murder Case | June 24 | Unknown |
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24 | Bimbo's Initiation | July 27 | Unknown |
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25 | Bimbo's Express | August 22 | Unknown |
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26 | Minding the Baby | September 28 | Jimmie Culhane Bernard Wolf |
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27 | In the Shade of the Old Apple Sauce | October 19 | Unknown |
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28 | Mask-A-Raid | November 9 | Unknown |
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29 | Jack and the Beanstalk | November 22 | Roland Crandall Sam Stimson |
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30 | Dizzy Red Riding Hood | December 12 | Unknown |
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1932 | ||||
No. | Film | Original release date | Credited animators | Notes |
31 | Any Rags? | January 5 | Willard Bowsky Thomas Bonfiglio |
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32 | Boop-Oop-a-Doop | January 16 | Unknown |
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33 | The Robot | February 8 | Unknown |
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34 | Minnie the Moocher | February 28 | Willard Bowsky Ralph Somerville |
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35 | Swim or Sink | March 13 | Seymour Knitel Bernard Wolf |
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36 | Crazy Town | March 26 | James H. Culhane David Tendlar |
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37 | The Dancing Fool | April 6 | Seymour Kneitel Bernard Wolf |
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38 | Chess-Nuts | April 18 | James H. Culhane William Henning |
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39 | A-Hunting We Will Go | May 3 | Alfred Eugster Rudolph Eggeman |
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40 | Hide and Seek | May 14 | Roland Crandall |
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41 | Admission Free | June 10 | Thomas Johnson Rudolph Eggeman |
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42 | The Betty Boop Limited | July 18 | Willard Bowsky Thomas Bonfiglio |
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Snow-White is a 1933 American animated short in the Betty Boop series from Max Fleischer's Fleischer Studios. Dave Fleischer was credited as director, although virtually all the animation was done by Roland Crandall, who received the opportunity to make Snow-White on his own as a reward for his several years of devotion to the Fleischer studio. The resulting film, which took six months to complete, is considered both Crandall's masterwork and an important milestone of the Golden age of American animation.
Fleischer Studios was an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of its films. In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s.
Max Fleischer was a Polish-American animator and studio owner. Born in Kraków, Poland, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he became a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios, which he co-founded with his younger brother Dave. He brought such comic characters as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen, and was responsible for several technological innovations, including the rotoscope, the "follow the bouncing ball" technique pioneered in the Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes films, and the "stereoptical process". Film director Richard Fleischer was his son.
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character designed by Grim Natwick at the request of Dave Fleischer. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She was featured in 90 theatrical cartoons between 1930 and 1939. She has also been featured in comic strips and mass merchandising.
Koko the Clown is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer. His first appearance as the main protagonist in Out of the Inkwell (1918–1929), a major animated series of the silent era. Throughout the series, he goes on many adventures with his canine companion "Fitz the Dog", who would later evolve into Bimbo in the Betty Boop cartoons.
Out of the Inkwell is an American animated film series of the silent era. It was produced by Max Fleischer from 1918 to 1929 and was called The Inkwell Imps at the end of that period.
ComiColor Cartoons is a series of twenty-five animated short subjects produced by Ub Iwerks from 1933 to 1936. The series was the last produced by Iwerks Studio; after losing distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, the Iwerks studio's senior company Celebrity Pictures had to distribute the films itself. The series was shot exclusively in Cinecolor.
Myron "Grim" Natwick was an American artist, animator, and film director. Natwick is best known for drawing the Fleischer Studios' most popular character, Betty Boop.
James H. "Shamus" Culhane was an American animator, film director, and film producer. He is best known for his work in the Golden age of American animation.
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Dave Fleischer was an American film director and producer who co-owned Fleischer Studios with his older brother Max Fleischer. He was a native of New York City.
U.M. & M. TV Corporation was an American media company best known as the original purchaser of the pre-October 1950 short films and cartoons produced by Paramount Pictures, excluding Popeye and Superman. The initials stand for United Film Service, MTA TV of New Orleans, and Minot T.V.
Bernard "Berny" Wolf was an American animator and television producer.
Seymour Kneitel was an American animator, best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios.
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Willard Gustav Bowsky was an American animator best known for his work at Fleischer Studios in New York City and Miami, Florida, where he worked on cartoons featuring Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman, in addition to two feature-length animated films. Fellow Fleischer animator Shamus Culhane described Bowsky as "what one might call a pre-McCarthy, gung ho, all-American Babbitt." He was described as being outspoken with anti-Semitic remarks, but skilled at animating complicated perspective shots and directing many of the jazz-influenced cartoons produced by the studio.
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