Talkartoons

<i>Talkartoons</i>

Talkartoons

Series of animated cartoons

Talkartoons is a series of 42 animated cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures from 1929 to 1932.[1]

Promotional poster with studio logo

History

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.

Filmography

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.

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See also

References

Sources
  • Leslie Cabarga, The Fleischer Story (Da Capo Press, 1988)
  • Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Penguin Books, 1987)
Notes
  1. [1]
    Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 142. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  2. [2]
    Fleischer, Richard (2005). Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution. The University Press of Kentucky. pp. 49–50. ISBN 0-8131-2355-0.
  3. [3]
    Pointer, Ray (2017). The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer: American Animation Pioneer. McFarland. p. 66. ISBN 9781476663678.
  4. [4]
    Culhane, Shamus (1986). Talking Animals and Other People. New York: Da Capo Press. Pg. 40-41
  5. [5]
    "Marriage Wows (Wedding Belles) (1930) - Talkartoons Theatrical Cartoon Series". Bcdb.com. Archived from the original on June 28, 2013. Retrieved 2017-01-08.
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