I Had No Idea What I Was Missing

-




I have been walking like this my entire life and thought nothing of it.  Now I find out this is the Felix pace, head down and deep in thought.
And everyone said I would never amount to anything!





We have much in common.  As does Pat Sullivan, who first drew Felix and drank himself insensible every day of his adult life.  Dead by 47.  Some say the chief animator, Otto Mesmer, came up with Felix but it is probable that Mr. Sullivan originated it.
Pat Sullivan was a convicted child rapist and did time for it while others were out fighting the Hun.





Felix was the first cartoon star, but Sullivan's refusal to use sound doomed him.  Here he is rushing toward oblivion.  All cartoons after Felix, Koko the Clown excepted, were rip-offs of Felix.  Even Mickey, who was just a pared down version of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  Disney lost control of Oswald and Ub Iwerks came up with a superior version.  Here is Woo's Whoopie, 1930-

https://youtu.be/sxailD4Ofq4

 



Clever.





I grew up watching this incarnation of Felix in the 1960's.  I still know this tune by heart-

https://youtu.be/h2YJduDyFA4




I mentioned yesterday that Felix was the first Macy's Day Parade balloon that we have a picture of.  NBC used a statue of Felix to calibrate the new invention, television.





As primitive as can be, and it would stump me even to turn this stuff on.

https://youtu.be/wJqeufU_BQU





Felix is now owned by Dreamworks.  He is by no means forgotten, and he will be back!

(Oh, yeah.  Lindbergh took a Felix doll with him on his transatlantic flight.  Another feline first). Now, if only Felix had a rabbit in his show, how great would that be?





Ask, and you shall receive.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Andrew The Bee's Four Color Safari

-
Image
 All You Need To Survive -  The Thrill-Packed World Of JUNGLE COMICS! Ingagi, 1930, The queer half breed child. In Darkest Africa, 1936. The Back Cover   https://youtu.be/OKGCaiZDV28 Andrew the Bee is one of the extremely talented artists and writers I know from DeviantArt.  Andy is as good as any artist there is and it is an delight to be able to put up his work on my site.  We did this before but because the post depended on my knowledge of computer files it may have fallen a tad flat.  Here is the earlier version of this essay about a comics genre that I knew nothing about before reading all this. https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2020/01/jungle-comics-safari.html https://www.deviantart.com/andibi
Read more

Two Bad Men, Said Their Murderers

-
Image
John Choate, 25 August 1818 - 3 August 1869 Crokett Choate, 1842 -3 August 1869 This tells of a grave by the dashing wave A fond friends lip that did quiver Of an eye that's hid by a leaden lid And a voice now stilled forever. John on the left.  They were originally buried where they were killed but October of that year the Refugio Masons moved the bodies to Rockport.  This was all part of the Sutton-Taylor feud, the Suttons were backed by the U. S. Government and of no particular righteousness, they were badge wearing murderers and bullies.  The two story house with the porch running around the second floor in the left background belongs to my sister.  A lovely house and the best behaved neighbors possible! Photos by Steve Davis. The man who killed them.  Sheriff.  Regulator. Murderer. https://books.google.com/books?id=PUvanZiwzdUC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=john+and+crockett+choate+death+jack+hel...
Read more

The Madonna Of Stalingrad

-
Image
This superior drawing is known as the "Madonna of Stalingrad".  It was drawn by Lt. Kurt Reuber, a doctor and a protestant pastor.  It measures 3' by 4', and is charcoal on the back of a Soviet map.  It reads, running down the left side, Christmas at the siege, Fortress Stalingrad, Light, Love, Life.  It was flown out by his battalion commander (why was an officer leaving, his place was with his men) on what Wikipedia says is the last flight out but I dispute that.  Could be, though.  Reuber died in a work camp.  He drew another before his death.  The original is on display at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church in Berlin. The Prisoner's Madonna.  Reuber. The Germans starved their POW's to death, by policy.  The Russians then starved their German prisoners to death, by policy.  Of the 91,000 6th Army prisoners, 6000 would return home a decade later. 'The Eastern Front was the armies of two mass murderer...
Read more