Classic Ub Iwerks Cartoons Feature Kids

BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONONLINE.NET

Animator Chuck Jones, who once worked for Ub Iwerks' studio, said it best. "Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards."

Ub Iwerks was a two-time Academy Award winning animator who co-created Mickey Mouse with Walt Disney and was Walt Disney's collaborator in the formative years of Disney's studio (Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy).

Iwerks opened his own studio in 1930, under contract with MGM, producing Flip the Frog shorts, the Willie Whopper series and more. He later produced the independently distributed ComicColor Cartoons shorts.

Below is a ComiColor from 1934 without a talking animal in sight! This Happy Days cartoon is based on Reg'lar Fellers, a newspaper strip created by Gene Byrnes and syndicated from 1917 to 1949. The strip was a comic book in 1940 and a radio series in 1941.

(See the video on http://muskegononline.net/)

Iwerks Studios' Flip the Frog, below, may seem a little audacious, but so was Mickey Mouse in the early cartoons Iwerks produced with Disney. Flip is well behaved here, compared to some of his other exploits. Flip was funny, but didn't keep Iwerks Studios going. Flip was born in 1930 and over by 1933.

(See the video on http://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.