Animation allows total immersion into a manufactured world.
Everything the viewer sees is conceived.
It’s deliberate.
However, rather than presenting reality in a literal way, animation creates
life through expression.
Character and emotions are conveyed through exaggerated movement and the possibilities
of what can be presented are limited only by the author’s imagination.
Meaning anything can be seen
and anything can be felt.
Hello and welcome to Animation/Propaganda.
In our last episode we looked at the history of mass manipulation and information control.
This video will be just a little lighter as we dive into the early days of American animation,
specifically cartoons.
We’ve actually covered a lot of ground in terms of early animation so that will save
us some time here. I f you’re interested in the roots of the medium, check out last
years history of computer animation.
That took us from the magic lantern all the way
to Winsor McCay.
This is going to pick up where we left off with McCay and run through the Golden Age
of American Animation. We will of course be venturing into the cartoon history other cultures
in future videos, but this one is going to focus exclusively on America’s output
and why it lends itself so well to propaganda.
Cartoons as we know them grew out of newspaper comic strips, where many pioneers of American
animation got their start, including Winsor McCay.
McCay produced his films similar to
multi-panel comics, by drawing and filming every movement on an individual piece of paper.
These experiments were often financed by his boss, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst’s newspapers were instrumental in the widespread acceptance of yellow journalism,
or what we today call fake news.
The stories he ran were often exaggerated or straight
up fiction, with a focus on the sensational.
In 1915, Hearst founded the International
Film Service, or IFS, an animation studio.
Hearst hoped he could capitalize on the popularity
of his strips by bringing them to life through the exciting new medium of animation.
IFS, however, was not the first animation studio.
Raoul Barré began his career producing cartoons for Edison Studios. In 1914, he would establish
his own, dedicated completely to animation.
While no iconic star emerged from Barré,
the studio is notable for the introduction of the peg system, which allowed animators
to keep each frame in line, as well as the less enduring slash system.
The slash system was a way of minimizing an animators work by allowing the reuse of parts
of the frame. A frame could be drawn, photographed, and then part of it torn away and replaced
with the succeeding action, creating an animated scene.
Many animators that would contribute to the medium’s evolution got their start at Barré,
including Pat Sullivan, who we will talk about in just a bit. However, as he was wont to
do with newspapers, William Randolph Hearst poached Barré’s staff, with Barré himself
briefly acting a consultant for the IFS.
The same year Barré opened his studios, John Randolph Bray founded Bray Studios. Rather
than employing established cartoonists to adapt existing properties, Bray brought on
new talent to create original series, the first of which was his own Colonel Heeza Liar,
lan adventurer loosely based on Teddy Roosevelt.
Along with Earl Hurd, Bray would develop the next major innovation in animation, the cel
process. Animators could now save time and effort by drawing the action on transparent
sheets and photographing them over a static illustrated background, thus replacing Barré’s
slash method as industry standard. Streamlining the process also helped Bray
Productions establish themselves as the country’s top animation studio. Bray would go on to
employ and foster the talents of
Paul Terry,
Walter Lantz,
and Dave and Max Fleischer.
As covered in the last episode, in 1917 America’s Committee on Public Information crafted a
massive anti-German campaign aimed at swaying public opinion towards war. William Randolph
Hearst, who believed a majority of his readers were of German descent maintained a sympathetic
position with Germany. Because of this, and the CPI’s success, Hearst’s reputation
suffered and with it his business. IFS folded in 1919
and his animated properties were licensed to Bray.
Cartoons were used to bookend newsreels prior
to film screenings. They were not marquee attractions.
That changed in 1919 with the emergence of Felix the Cat.
Debuting as Master Tom in Feline Follies, Felix quickly captured the nation’s attention,
breaking out of the medium and into the mainstream.
Felix was treated like a movie star and was
merchandised to no end.
He spawned a slew of imitators and the mixture of a lovable anthropomorphic animal and surreal situations
wrote the template for pretty much everything that followed.
Felix also has the distinction of being one
of the first images transmitted by television, when a doll bearing his likeness was broadcast
as a test pattern during an experiment in 1928.
Now there is some dispute as to who created Felix. The studio, owned by former Barré
animator Pat Sullivan, claimed ownership. It was common practice that studios retained
rights to anything created by their staff, who went largely uncredited. Sullivan’s
lead animator, Otto Messmer, claimed to have conceived and drawn Feline Follies himself though.
Sullivan’s career was marred by incompetence,
not to mention racism, alcoholism and pedophilia, and a majority of historians and peers back
Messmer‘s claims. Regardless, Felix was a product of his time.
He captured the spirit of the jazz age and reflected the events of the day. However he
fell out of fashion when film and cartoons made the move to synchronize sound. He continued
to be marketed throughout the 20th century though never again reached the heights he
had in the 1920s.
In 1921, illustrator Walt Disney and his partner Ub Iwerks were contracted by a Kansas City
theatre to create a series of newsreel cartoons. Inspired by Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Fables,
the resulting Laugh-O-grams were takes on popular fairy tales, featuring Felix-clone
Julius the Cat. Julius would appear in Disney’s next series,
the Fleischer-inspired Alice Comedies. This series, which combined live action with
animation, was loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s novels and followed the adventures of Julius
and Alice as the navigated an animated wonderland. It was born out of the final Laugh-o-gram,
Alice’s Wonderland, during the production of which, Disney’s studio filed for bankruptcy.
He would contact distributor Margaret J. Winkler in hopes of getting the film seen.
Winkler had been instrumental in the growth of the industry, having distributed the Fleischer’s
Out of the Inkwell series as well as Felix the Cat. Disney’s timing was perfect, as
she was losing the rights to both when he sent her Alice’s Wonderland.
Moving to Hollywood, Disney Formed a new studio with his brother Roy, with Iwerks in tow.
Disney Brothers, which would eventually grew into The Walt Disney Company, was born.
Winkler married her employee Charles Mintz in 1924, who would assume control over Disney’s
distribution. The combination of cost and waning interest
lead to Disney abandoning Alice in favour of total animation.
With the popularity of cartoons, film studio Universal Pictures sought a character of their
own. Mintz encouraged Disney and co. To come up with something they could pitch.
The result was Oswald the lucky rabbit. With Oswald, Disney ushered in a new era of
character-driven animation. Building upon Felix, Oswald introduced a level of expressiveness,
in which personality is informed by movement. Oswald was Disney’s first hit and His popularity
allowed the studio to grow. However, despite creating it with Iwerks, they did not own
the rights to the character, Universal did. After being denied a larger cut of the profits,
Disney would step away from Oswald. and Charles Mintz continued producing shorts with a staff
comprised of many animators he hired away from Disney.
Iwerks stuck with Disney and the pair set out to create their own character they would
have complete control over. In 1928, They produced two shorts featuring a mice couple
but they could not find distribution. Inspired by The Jazz Singer, Disney decided a synchronized
soundtrack would make his new cartoon more appealing and attract a distributor.
Sound had been used before in cartoons but failed to make much of an impression, It was
very much a novelty. This gamble paid off, and the first released Mickey Mouse cartoon,
Steamboat Willie, became a resounding success and launched a media empire that today owns
nearly 100 billion dollars in creative assets and is responsible for over a quarter of the
film industry’s total output.
What followed has became known as the Golden Age of American Animation.
As he had done with sound, Disney popularized
the use of colour in cartoons with 1932’s Flowers and Trees. While not the first, he
would again further the medium with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a feature
length cartoon. This asserted Disney’s dominance as the
country’s top animation studio. During this time, many of Disney’s contemporaries
also established their own iconic characters. In 1930, his early rivals the Fleischers debuted
Betty Boop. Like Felix, Betty Boop embodied the spirit of the Jazz Age in the post-depression
world. She stumbled through surreal situations and maintained an independence few female
cartoons were allowed. She was her own character, who embraced her sexuality, at least until
the passing of the Hays Code in 1934. In addition to Betty, the Fleischers produced
an adaptation of the comic strip Popeye that would become their most popular property,
eclipsing, briefly, even Mickey Mouse in terms of star power.
The series followed the spinach-fuelled adventures of Popeye the Sailor, who was more often than
not pitted against his rival, Bluto, for the affection of Olive Oyl.
Both Popeye and Betty Boop reflected the gritty realities of Depression-Era America, contrasting
Disney’s whimsical disposition. While these characters enjoyed their time in the limelight,
they have since largely fallen from the public consciousness.
Next to Disney, no studio has been able to maintain relevance quite as much as Warner
Bros. Prior to founding their in-house studio in
1933, Leon Schlesinger had produced cartoons for Warner with former Disney animators Hugh
Harman and Rudy Ising.
The early shorts featured Harman and Ising’s Bosko. Conceived while the two were still
working for Disney, Bosko was one of the better depictions of African Americans in cartoons,
better but still not great. After a falling out over money, Harman and
Ising left Schlesinger, taking Bosko with them.
It wouldn’t be until 1935 that animator Friz Freleng gave Warner their first true
star in Porky Pig. Porky premiered alongside several others in Freleng’s I Haven’t
Got a Hat. While Bosko and his short lived replacement Buddy had uttered the phase, it
was Porky who immortalized the classic send off:
Warner cartoons were known for their zaniness and Porky was the perfect straight man to
play off of. In what is perhaps his most famous cartoon, Porky visits Wackyland, a hallucinatory
dreamscape created by Bob Clampett. While popular, Porky would eventually be eclipsed
by Daffy Duck, who made his debut in Tex Avery’s Porky’s Duck Hunt. Daffy would in turn be
eclipsed by a bunny that would become Warner’s signature mascot and rival Mickey Mouse for
the title of top cartoon. Bugs Bunny was formally introduced to the
world in 1940’s A Wild Hare.
He starred in several iconic shorts but in the hands of Chuck Jones, Bugs reached the
pinnacle of his career, and maybe even the medium, in 1957.
What’s Opera, Doc? lampoons the music of German composer Richard Wagner, with Bugs
and Elmer Fudd assuming the roles of Brunnhilde and Siegfried. The two follow their usual
routine of Elmer hunting Bugs through stylized set pieces and parody.
Working with just six minutes, Jones manages to encapsulate Wagner’s work as well as
stage a ballet, with plenty of time left over for gags, in what has repeatedly been ranked
as the greatest cartoon of all time. The advent of television effectively rendered
theatrical animation obsolete. However, Many shorts found a second life in early children’s
programming before fading in favour of new, original characters.
So why do cartoons make effective propaganda?
The most obvious answer is the perception that they are geared towards children. Indoctrination,
you know, get them while they’re young. However, like cartoons, not all propaganda
is aimed at kids.
No, I believe cartoons are effective propaganda because both are distorted and conceived realities.
Each gives its creator the ability to manufacture and present their vision of the world.
Where propaganda manipulates facts, cartoons are able to express them in a way that’s
exaggerated or absurd.
Together they can bring a soldier to a battlefield and show them the enemy they want them to
see. Or, they can anthropomorphize and portray them with the characteristics of animals,
literally, less than human.
Certain characters have broken through to our world, look at the star power of Felix,
in his time, or Bugs or Mickey, but still their is a disconnect between them and reality.
This disconnect is a valuable tool for propagandists. The delivery of a message is softened when
it comes from the mouth of a bunny rather than someone who looks like you, your neighbour.
We treat them differently and more importantly we trust them differently.
With cartoons, propagandists are given complete control of how their message is conveyed,
by using and manipulating characters with which you have a developed a bond, perhaps
even a sentimental one.
In our next video, we look at how this partnership has been used in America’s War of Drugs.
Like propaganda, this subject is huge and this was not meant to be an exhaustive history.
I’m sure I missed some things so feel free to comment or even correct down below. We
will be exploring this more in a process video over on Patreon, patreon.com/picsnportraits.
You can support us there. I will post links to relevant material in the description below.
If you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven’t and be sure
to check out part 1.
As always, thank you so much your interest in this channel and thank you so much for
watching!