15: Mysterious Mose

Mysterious Mose, 1930
Fleischer Studios

Being a blogger with a header like mine, you'd have thought I'd have featured a Ghost cartoon a little sooner right? Cartoon ghosts are always solid gold when it comes down to it. They're the ultimate shape shifters and the silent-thru-golden age of cartoons used them to their fullest.

Three being the magic number, I bring you three classic ghost cartoons.

I said the best till last, and I meant it. Who did spooky ghost cartoons better than Fleischer Studios?
I've credited Mysterious Mose a dozen times on the dA masterlist, it feels like I've been talking about it forever. It is one of the singularly brilliant pieces of animation the studio ever did and I don't say that lightly.

Dog Betty is merely the tip of the ice burg. A comment on the video suggests she looks vaguely Josephine Baker-esque in this version of her early incarnation. Betty was based on some of the most beautiful women of the black and white era, Clara Bow being the one she most strongly bears resemblance to, but the commenter is right, and its not JUST because of her skin tone.

This video also, sadly, contains my favourite design of Bimbo the dog. Ghost or not, he'd never look that good or smarmy again. You may just say he looks like a rip-off of the Mouse, but really, what character wasn't.

So watch and re-watch my dears, as that song never quite leaves your head.

14: Haunted House

Haunted House, 1929
Disney

Being a blogger with a header like mine, you'd have thought I'd have featured a Ghost cartoon a little sooner right? Cartoon ghosts are always solid gold when it comes down to it. They're the ultimate shape shifters and the silent-thru-golden age of cartoons used them to their fullest.

Three being the magic number, I bring you three classic ghost cartoons.

Haunted House is proof that whilst you can do something amazingly the first time, and because you have a character building in popularity, doesn't mean you should smush your hands together and make something amazing.

Skeleton Dance is one of the most beloved of all the Silly Symphonies, especially among "dark" young animators who value it's appeal of both being old (and therefore good in some jaded industry critics) and "creepy" (thus satisfying their need to be as spppoooky as possible). Which is fine and dandy. And for its time, it is very impressive, and is alot of fun to watch. It's influenced alot of "spooky" animated subjects in its time- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Corpse Bride- basically, anything with dancing skeletons? Owes it to this short.

And Mickey Mouse? You may have heard of him. Nothing to be sniffed at.

But Haunted House fails (like so many of the Disney Shorts) to be entertaining.
It's still worth watching, and you may disagree with me.
But it feels WAY too much like Skeleton Dance, even if it was released in the same year.

And again, another ghost cartoon with a Questionable moment- I missed it the first time, but the comments point it out.

13: Jeepers Creepers

Jeepers Creepers, Looney Tunes,1933
Robert Clampett


Being a blogger with a header like mine, you'd have thought I'd have featured a Ghost cartoon a little sooner right? Cartoon ghosts are always solid gold when it comes down to it. They're the ultimate shape shifters and the silent-thru-golden age of cartoons used them to their fullest.

Three being the magic number, I bring you three classic ghost cartoons.

Jeepers Creepers is actually one I stumbled upon whilst looking up info on a much more recent piece of animation.
Whilst Warner Brothers aren't my favourite golden-ghost cartoon studio (The Best I save for last). But as I stumbled upon it, and as Black and White Looney Tunes don't get enough love in the public eye (remember, I'm naught but a humble art student) I thought it'd be good place to start. And being the 1930's, there is bound to be some racism. But can we just look past it? Acknowledge that it’s horrible, but just appreciate it for what it is. Isn't it just nice to see Porky again?

And if you know who the voice of the ghost also voices, then no-duh. It's not all that hard to recognise.

01: 1928 Koko's Earth Control

The Inkwell Imps in Koko's Earth Control
By Fleischer Studios, 1928

So, for the first cartoon, I thought it'd be fun to to revisit the cartoon master list I was hosting over on dA and pick out the one cartoon I had that featured that was apart of the series that I took this blog name for.

The Inkwell Imps (or at least the version I'm talking about) was a series of animated shorts from 1919 to 1929 featuring the adventures of a clown called Koko and his best friend Fritz the dog. The series was the first work to be produced by Max Fleischer, and is notable because it was one of the first to feature live action and drawn animation together- several decades before the more commonly associated major feature of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit.

I picked this cartoon at the time, because it’s a part of the Fleischer history that I skipped over quite a bit during my essay at college, and I was actually rather afraid of. The cartoons I usually prefer from the studio are the more refined and well-developed era of 1930 to 1934. The characters by this point are fleshed out (to the extent they were ever going to get, but I'll get to that later), the animation has settled into a beautifully surreal stride and the backgrounds are lushly painted, even for a black and white cartoon (again more on that in later posts) But I was actually pleasantly surprised with this short.

For one thing, the Interaction is limited and in a way that’s good. There’s a much later short, where Betty and a (horribly racist stereotyped) Janitor share words, and its poorly done and I didn't really care for it. There’s also the famous Rise to Fame short that’s included on every dvd release has, that seems cute at first, but it is after all, a clip show.

The interaction in these early shorts are limited usually, and in this case, to the human hand drawing out the characters. And I really love how it looks. Obviously very inventive in its day, in retrospect it looks almost phython-esque. Creator/creation relationships are hard to establish, whether it’s real or not (ala Duck Amuck for instance), and keeping it so limited is a nice way to start a cartoon.

Enjoy this one, and keep a look out for more gems in future posts.