Celebrate Spring with Color Classics
BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONONLINE.NET
We continue to celebrate spring with Max Fleischer Color Classics featuring ants and vegetables.
These cartoons, Ants in the Plants (1941) and The Fresh Vegetable Mystery (1939), were among the last Color Classics produced before the company moved on to make Technicolor cartoons starring their Gabby character from the full length 1939 feature Gulliver's Travels.
Don't expect the urban, jazz crazy tales of the Fleischer brothers' early years in these Color Classics. Although their Koko the Clown dominated '20s cartoon popularity and Fleischer Studios' Betty Boop was a household name, the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 kept Fleischer cartoons from the racey, dark, city-oriented subject matter that made their early cartoons unique.
The Color Classics, obvious nods to Disney's successful Silly Symphonies series, have their own visual charm, aided by the Stereoptical process developed by Fleischer Studios. If many of the backgrounds look real, it's because they are -- drawn animation cells were positioned in front of scale model, three dimensional dioramas, giving an amazing depth to many scenes.
The opening scene to Ants in the Plants is a good example of the Stereoptical process, as the camera pans downhill toward the ant village.
(Video at MuskegonOnline.NET)
Those interested in classic cartoons can visit the The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit museum, library and digital archive dedicated to serving the worldwide animation community. A project of ASIFA-Hollywood, the archive receives support from The Walter Lantz Foundation. Go to http://www.animationarchive.org and prepare to be entertained.
These Works are in Public Domain and not Derivative as specified by U.S. copyright law (title 17 of the U.S. Code).
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.
