Origins of American Animation

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The films in Origins of American Animation provide an opportunity to examine a number of historic events in the early-twentieth century. Topics range from U.S. involvement in World War I and Prohibition to cultural phenomena such as consumer culture and the relationship between vaudeville and the motion picture industry.

1) World War I

When Germany and Great Britain entered into a war in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson announced that the United States would remain neutral. Investments with the English and strained diplomatic ties with the Germans, however, prompted the U.S. to declare war against Germany on April 2, 1917. Two propaganda films from the following year reflect the different roles of the U.S. in the European conflict.

An advertisement for war saving stamps, W.S.S. Thriftettes (ca. 1918), features a funeral procession for the German Kaiser while imploring the audience to "Save and buy" war stamps and "Hurry the end of the war." Meanwhile, AWOL-All Wrong Old Laddiebuck (1918), points out that military actions don't officially end with the restoration of peace.

The incarcerated soldier at the end of AWOL--All Wrong Old Laddiebuck.

AWOL-All Wrong Old Laddiebuck features a troop of U.S. soldiers ready to return home after Germany's surrender in November 1918. One impatient soldier declares that everyone should have been discharged "the minute the armistice was signed." His colleagues, however, counter that they're obligated to remain on base until they are instructed to leave. The first soldier refuses to wait for his superiors and heads off base without permission. He meets up with a woman known as "MISS AWOL" and rides with her, wreaking havoc across the countryside.

After a series of mishaps, including an appearance in a local court, the soldier returns to camp. The rest of his battalion, however, turn their backs on the deserter. The soldier is then imprisoned while everyone else celebrates their return home by jumping and leapfrogging on their way out. As the soldier angrily shakes the bar of his jail cell, the bars form the ominous letters, "AWOL."

• According to these films, how can U.S. civilians and soldiers contribute to the war effort?
• What do you think is the difference in these contributions?
• What do you think is the role of the federal government in both of these efforts?
• How does W.S.S. Thriftettes compare to print ads for War Savings Stamps such as "Size Up Your Savings" and "The Circus Poster"?
• What do you think is the effect of the fact that AWOL-All Wrong Old Laddiebuck never actually defined the term, AWOL, as "absent without leave"?
• What message would this film have for civilian audiences?
• Why do you think that it was important for soldiers to remain on base even after the end of the war?

2) Consumer Culture

Late-nineteenth-century industrialization created a culture of high consumption and low self-esteem. Advertisers regularly marketed products on their ability to improve the consumer's social standing and cultural worth. Successful ad campaigns often increased a product's demand and kept the consumer prepared to buy into the next new trend.

"Pop" Mormand satirized this consumer culture in his comic strip, "Keeping Up With the Joneses," a chronicle of Ma and Pa McGinnis's quest to become as refined as their neighbors. Harry Palmer later adapted the strip in a series of animated cartoons, represented in this collection with two related films.

Men's Styles (1915) begins with Pa McGinnis spotting an ad for an exclusive hat in a men's fashion magazine. Pa travels to a store featuring "The Latest London Lid" and declares, "To keep up with the Joneses, I gotta have one of them new kellys." Ma McGinnis later teases her husband about his purchase. Pa, however, dismisses her insults as proof that "women folks don't appreciate art in millinery." He places the hat under his bed and awakes to find that a cat used it to give birth to a litter of kittens. The final intertitle declares, "The latest in hats is the latest in cats."

Ma McGinnis spies and criticizes her husband's new hat in Men's Styles.

The companion piece, Women's Styles (1915), focuses on the female fashion sense. Pa criticizes his daughter for wearing trendy, revealing, "hyphenated dresses." He turns to his cook and wife for support but discovers that both women have embraced "this reckless display of limb." The film ends when Pa buys extremely dark glasses to protect himself from seeing the disturbing fashion trend.

• Why do you think that fashion is the means for "keeping up with the Joneses"?
• How does each family member do their part to "keep up"?
• What do you think are the implications if a family does not "keep up"?
• Why do you think that Ma disparages Pa's new hat?
• Why do you think that Pa is disturbed by the new dress styles?
• What do you think that these responses imply about the affect of advertising on both the individual and society?

3) Vaudeville

Vaudeville entertained middle-class audiences throughout the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries by offering a variety of entertainers on a single stage. Actors, comedians, singers, dancers, musicians, athletes, and other performers presented a series of attractions on any given night. Motion pictures arrived in the vaudeville theatres in 1896 and quickly became the biggest draw on the bill. Two films in this collection demonstrate how new animation techniques could extend traditional vaudeville magic performances.

The satisfied look of the Enchanted Drawing.

The Enchanted Drawing (1900) features an illustrator sketching a man's face, a wine glass, a bottle of wine, and a cigarette on a large pad of paper. Trick photography allows the artist to remove each object from the page, use it, and return it to the page. The face in the drawing responds to every trick--either becoming upset when items are removed from the page or becoming happy when he can enjoy the alcohol and cigarettes on the page.

Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902), on the other hand, presents a similar premise within a larger sketch. A baker enters the scene and throws a lump of dough at a scurrying rodent. The dough sticks to a barrel and the baker becomes a sculptor through trick photography, using the dough to fluidly create a series of funny faces. When the baker completes the caricatured image of an Irishman, his colleagues start to laugh and then throw him headfirst into a barrel of flour.

• What do you think is the role of slapstick comedy in these films?
• How do these films compare to other comic vaudeville sketches represented in the American Memory collection, American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment 1870-1920?
• Why do you think that both films rely on trick photography?
• How do you think that audiences might have responded to these films?
• Why do you think that movie theaters ultimately replaced vaudeville theaters?
• What other conventions of film and early animation might have come out of the vaudeville tradition?

4) Prohibition

The temperance movement gained momentum as a religious and political cause in the late-nineteenth century. Efforts to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol within local communities ultimately led to a national ban in October 1919 with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The U.S. officially remained "dry" throughout the 1920s, but prohibition also increased crime with the continued sale and distribution of alcohol through bootleggers and speakeasies (illegal saloons). U.S. Treasury agents often confiscated alcohol and fined and imprisoned offenders but their actions accounted for little more than a drop in the bucket. The Eighteenth Amendment was finally repealed in 1933.

Monkeys, moonlight, and moonshine in Tony Sarg's Prohibition cartoon.

An untitled film from Tony Sarg's Almanac (currently identified in the collection as the first part of The First Circus) critiques Prohibition through a satirical reference to Charles Darwin's Descent of Man. The introduction explains, "Forty five years ago today Charles Darwin wrote his book 'Descent of Man' from Monkey. . . . At the same time he unknowingly discovered the original Prohibition Agent." The film features two monkeys discovering and sharing a bottle of liquor. When a larger monkey chases them away and drinks the rest of the bottle, the original monkeys cry over their loss.

• Sarg's cartoon appeared four years before the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" in which teacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching the theory of evolution--an idea that allegedly disputed the notion of creationism. Why do you think that Sarg chose to use Charles Darwin's Descent of Man to critique prohibition?
• What does the film suggest about groups such as the temperance movement attempting to influence social behavior through political and legal means?
• What is suggested by the conclusion of the film, in which the larger ape drinks the monkey's alcohol?
• How might the excitable illustration in The Enchanted Drawing and the drunken rabbit in Mary and Gretel relate to Prohibition?
• How does this cartoon compare to songs about prohibition in the American Memory collection, California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties?