World Film and Television Progress (1938)

[RKO Radio] Now animated cartoons were no novelty in the cinema at that time. We are told that as early as 1906 a Yorkshireman, J. Stuart Blackton, made a cartoon comedy called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces for the Vitagraph Company, and by 1911 Windsor McCay, a prolific and most painstaking artist, was drawing as many as 4,000 pictures for his cartoons in order to get smoothness of movement, and it was McCay who, in the summer of 1918, produced a topical cartoon of 25,000 drawings depicting the sinking of the Lusitania. In 1917 Max Fleischer started the Out of the Inkwell series and created his famous Koko the Clown, and Koko and Pat Sullivan's Felix the Cat were probably the most famous cartoon characters of the early post-war cinema. Fleischer's work was a combination of photo and cartoon, of real human beings and cartoon characters, a system later adopted by Disney in his "Alice" series. Meanwhile, William B. Hearst, of the International Feature Syndicate, a great advocate of the "comic strip," placed Gregory La Cava, the famous director, in charge of an Animated Cartoon section, and under his leadership were produced Jerry on the Job, Bringing Up Father, Krazy Kat and other pictures. Also to this period, 1917-1920, belong the Mutt and Jeff series, made by Budd Fisher, and Fhe Terry Cartoon Burlesques. So when Disney arrived in Hollywood with his forty dollars, his suit full of holes, his sweater and high hopes, he was bringing no novelty to the film colony. Animated cartoons were already well known to cinema managers, serving either as "fillers" in a programme, oddments thrown in to make the session last the required length of time, or else (if they were bad enough) as "chasers", since the poverty of their inspiration forced a reluctant audience out of the cinema and room was thus made for others. So in Hollywood Disney made little progress, and it was not until a copy of one of his cartoons was sent to New York (he could not afford to take it himself) that things began to look brighter. Winkler, an independent distributor, engaged him to make cartoons, 112 and the "Alice" series, based on Alice in Wonderland, was begun. During his association with Winkler, Disney made over sixty "Alice" cartoons, and later, in 1927, a cartoon animal character was born (for Alice was a real little girl who merely played in a cartoon world), and Oswald the Rabbit came into being. Twenty-six Oswald cartoons were made, and then Winkler and Disney quarrelled. Oswald had done well and Disney hoped for more money for improvement, but to this Winkler would not agree. The partnership had lasted four years, and when the split came Disney and his wife were in New York and his brother Roy was managing his affairs in Hollywood. Winkler took several of the best men from Disney's organisation and started in on his own, producing a second series of Oswald cartoons. Oswald is still to be seen in Walter Lantz's cartoons, which are released by Universal, a pleasant enough little fellow but with none of the personality with which Disney could have endowed him. On the train back from New York to Hollywood, Mickey Mouse was born. Disney had always had a fondness for mice, and when he was working in Kansas City he used often to catch them in the waste-paper baskets around the studio, and would keep them in a cage on his desk. One little mouse was far tamer than the rest and he it was who sowed the seeds of a mouse cartoon series in Disney's mind. On that train going back to Hollywood after the split with Winkler, Disney and his wife did some hard thinking. The situation was serious in the extreme. A new character was needed, a new personality whom the great movie-going public would at once take to their heart. And as the train reached the Middle-West, and memories came back of Kansas City and his little friends in the studio there, a mouse was born, a mouse in a pair of gay and rakish red-velvet pants with two enormous pearl buttons in the front, and by the time Los Angeles was reached, the first scenario had been written. Mickey Mouse had arrived and the world was completely unconcerned! Not that he was even then called Mickey Mouse. Mortimer Mouse was the name originally adopted, and it was only later that it was discarded as being unsuitable. Disney had still one or two Oswald cartoons to make under contract for Winkler, and the first Mickey Mouse had to be made in secret in consequence, so Disney's garage at his home was used privately as Mickey's studio. But no sooner was Mickey born than another bombshell came to wreck Disney's plans, and not only Disney's but those of nearly every producer in Hollywood. "Mammy," wailed Al Jolson, "Oh, Mammy," and before anyone quite knew what had happened sound had arrived and the days of silent pictures were gone. The first Mickey cartoon was completed and sent to New York, where the furore caused by The Jazz Singer was still at its height. Mickey, of course, was silent and nobody would look at him. The greatest star since Chaplin was hawked around the town and the producers to a man turned him down. Meanwhile a second Mickey cartoon was being made in the Disney garage, but it became increasingly obvious that it must be synchronised with sound if it was to have a chance. Everyone was sound crazy and so it was decided that Mickey must talk. This synchronisation could not be done in Hollywood, and so, in August of 1928, a print of the third Mickey cartoon to be made, Steamboat Willie, was taken to New York by Disney, and after much difficulty and many disappointments (the cost of sound was prohibitive in those days) he met the goodnatured Irishman, Pat Powers, who agreed to put sound to the film for a price that seemed reasonable and within Disney's slender means. The first synchronisation was disastrous, but after a little experimenting a very satisfactory result was obtained. Distributors became interested at once, but a hitch arose when Disney refused to sell out his organisation (which then consisted of some twenty-five people, several of whom had originally worked for him in Kansas City). He wished to retain his individuality, and this