It’s a short article today due to a week of my running around like crazy. This week’s film may be familiar to you, or maybe you’ve never seen it at all. It’s a favorite of mine.
There’s a few really interesting old films that deal with animation history that sort of fall off the usual radar. This one, Animated Cartoons- the Toy that Grew Up (1946), is the first film I show in my animation history class at CCS. It does a very simple, nice job of taking about — and showing — some of the early toys that feature animation. Produced in 1946 by Les Films Du Compas, France, this documentary is unique in that it features all original devices, dating back to the early 1800s. The highlight of the film is an extended sequence detailing Emile Reynaud’s Praxinoscope from the turn of the century, and it’s a lovely sequence showing how Reynaud’s theatre and presentations were set up.
Sections of the film were featured on the Disneyland TV show “The Story of the Animated Drawing” (1955).
That’s where I first saw the short. Later, in 1987, while working at the University of Michigan’s Film and Video Library, I was happy to see the original film. It’s a little dry compared to today’s flashier documentaries, but I think it’s still pretty enjoyable.
Here is the short, from the print we used on the Thunderbean DVD Makin’ ‘Em Move’:
And here is The Story of the Animated Drawing (1955).
Have a good week all!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Walt Disney got it right, but the other narrator mispronounced the name of the toy that started it all: it was called a thaumatrope, not “traumatrope.” Its inventor, Sir John Herschel, was one of England’s foremost intellectuals in the nineteenth century: mathematician, astronomer, chemist, botanist, meteorologist, etc. He also did some important pioneering work in the field of photography; in fact, it was he who coined the word. Sir John’s father, astronomer William Herschel, discovered the planet Uranus, the polar ice caps of Mars, and infrared radiation, as well as making significant improvements in telescope design. But before he did any of that, he was a professional musician who composed over twenty symphonies, a dozen concertos, and a large body of sacred music. Herschel’s music, at least such of it that I’ve heard, suffers in comparison to that of his contemporaries like Haydn and Mozart, so his decision to change careers was a smart one.
Guy-Bernard Delapierre (1907-1979), who scored the French documentary, was a close personal friend of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), the foremost French composer and composition teacher of the twentieth century. They met during the war when they were inmates at a POW camp in Germany. After the war, Messiaen gave composition classes in Delapierre’s home, as the Paris Conservatoire refused to grant him space for that purpose until the 1960s. Animation connection: One of the characters in Matt Groening’s “Futurama”, Turanga Leela, was named after Messiaen’s best-known piece of orchestral music, his Turangalila Symphony.
“The Story of the Animated Drawing” is Walt Disney at his finest. It’s a real treat to get a lecture on the origins of animation from the maestro responsible for Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies. Walt’s passion for animation shines through in this fascinating hour. Even today, this segment has much to offer.
I once had to teach a science class, having little to no background in actual science, so part of the class I devoted to studying the science of animation. I used this episode and others as examples. A variety of semi-scientific projects emerged from this. It was an all boys’ school, and these young men came up with their own amazing variations on the inventions from early animation. It was very memorable, and I believe several of the students walked away with a deeper understanding of the principles of movement. Thanks to films like the ones referenced above.