History of animation

On November 9, 1919, a cartoon character named Master Tom appeared in a short film by Paramount Pictures called "Feline Follies", who clearly resembles Felix. The film was produced in the animation studio by Pat Sullivan, a film producer who immigrated from Australia, directed by cartoonist and animator Otto Messmer. The film was a success and Paramount ordered more episodes with the character. However, Paramount producer John King renamed it "Felix", a play on words from the Latin words felis (cat) and felix (happy, lucky, the lucky one).

The question of whether Felix was invented by Pat Sullivan or by Otto Messmer remains unanswered. Sullivan stated in numerous newspaper interviews that Felix traced back to him and that he designed the "key drawings" for the figure. Sullivan's statement is supported by his cartoon short film "The Tail of Thomas Kat", which premiered on March 18, 1917, over two years before "Feline Follies"; According to a television documentary by the Australian broadcaster ABC, this “Thomas Kat” character is an even earlier “Felix” prototype.

Significant differences between Thomas and Felix also become clear from the preserved representation of the figure by "Thomas Kat" for the registration of the copyright: Where Felix miraculously succeeds in turning his tail into tools or other objects, this is not the case either anthropomorphic Thomas about a cat that loses its tail in a fight with a rooster and never regains it.

Sullivan was the studio owner and he acquired the copyright on all creative work of his subordinates. After his death, the rights to the figure became part of the inheritance.

It was only many years after Sullivan's death that some of his employees called Messmer the creator of Felix. They claimed that Felix was based on an animated Charlie Chaplin that Messmer had previously created for Sullivan's studio. The black, grinning cat of "Feline Follies", who actually dances like Chaplin, gives this theory a certain probability. The future figure is even more angular there and has a considerably longer nose than the later Felix, but the famous pure black body already exists, however the coat color of the former Thomas Kat is not yet finally clear.

Regardless of the question of who originally created Felix, it was Pat Sullivan who relentlessly marketed the character, while Messmer, meanwhile, drew an enormous amount of Felix cartoons. In 1923 he even started a comic strip for the company King Features Syndicate.

After the expiration of the distribution contract with Paramount in 1922, Sullivan had his cartoons distributed by Margaret J. Winkler. Felix's popularity reached new heights under Winkler.

In 1923 the cat reached the peak of his film career. In the short film "Felix in Hollywood" he plays with the theme of his own popularity by such "co-stars" how he Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille, Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin and even the censor Will H. Hays known. His picture appeared on clocks, Christmas decorations and as the motif of the first giant balloon for the Thanksgiving Day parade of the Macy's department store. Felix also became the subject of numerous popular hits. Even Paul Whiteman, self-proclaimed "King of Jazz" and a famous band leader of the time, played a play about the lively cat.

Felix was also the first image to be broadcast on a television station in the United States. In 1928, the RCA selected a Felix paper mache doll for an experiment in New York's Van Cortlandt Park. The image was chosen because of its strong contrasts and because it could withstand the strong lights that were needed. The figure was placed on the rotating platter of a phonograph and was broadcast around two hours a day. After a one-time payment to Sullivan, the doll remained on the turntable for almost a decade, the test picture with which the RCA fine-tuned its image resolution.

Felix's great success also attracted numerous imitators. The appearance and characters of other cat figures from the 1920s such as Julius from Walt Disney's Alice Comedies, Waffles from Paul Terry's "Aesop's Film Fables" and Bill Nolan's adaptation of the Krazy Kat from 1925 all seem to be replicas of Felix.

The cartoons were also popular with critics. They were cited as wonderfully imaginative examples of surrealist filmmaking. Felix was said to represent a child's ability to be amazed; creating the fantastic when it is absent and playing lightly with it when it is present. His famous gait - hands clasped behind his head, head bowed, lost in thought - became a trademark that has been reinterpreted by critics around the world. Felix's tail, which could be a shovel in one moment and an exclamation mark or pencil in the next, made it clear that anything can happen in this world.

With a starting capital of $250, two artists named Walter Disney and Ubbe Iwwerks bought the necessary equipment and rented a small office as a studio. They started drawing short commercials for companies until Disney got a job in an advertising agency a short time later and Iwerks also started there shortly afterwards. Since Disney had the claim to improve the quality of the cartoon, he always experimented with it, read books about film and motion sequences, developed ideas and made his own designs. His first cartoons, which he called "Laugh-o-Grams" and which were shown in the cinemas of Kansas City as supporting films, encouraged him to go back into business. So he had his company, which he also called "Laugh-O-Gram", officially registered on May 23, 1920.

In the following years, the studio produced some short films, including ones based on templates such as Cinderella, which were sold but did not bring in enough profit. Also the silent film series Alice's Wonderland could not save the company from bankruptcy. After a few precarious months in which Disney was financially supported by his brother Roy and kept afloat with occasional orders, he decided to move to Los Angeles and start up his business there. He sold his camera for the train ride and traveled to California with only $40 in his pocket.