Back in earliest era of animation, besides theatrical distribution, there were other outlets for animated cartoons. Mainly these were technical and educational, but there was a limited market for cartoons produced as entertainment in homes and schools. Sometimes they were included with the 8mm, 9.5 and 16mm projector purchases. Usually, they were no frills efforts to shut the kids up between travel reels. Very occasionally, they offered something special.
John “Scarfoot” MacCrory’s fame rests on one rumor; that he brutalized employees that weren’t meeting their quotas; that he’d chain them to their desks and even whip them. Color me skeptical. But it is certain that his was a studio on the lowest rung of the ladder. His legacy is made up of oddball shorts and a failed pilot. Among fans and collectors, it’s generally agreed upon that it was his studio that made a small number of cartoons based on properties for home release by Pathegrams; These two below, and shorts based on BUCK ROGERS and DICK TRACY. The rudimentary animation appears to have been done by professionals; there are spasms of competency and the ANNIE animation includes “rubberhose” motion done with know how. But scenes like the clownmobile with its hovering cutout passengers, are simply strange. The ANNIE film was derived from a continuity in the comic strip.
THE LONE RANGER (John“Scarfoot” MacCrory? USA, late 1930s)
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE (John“Scarfoot” MacCrory? USA, late 1930s)
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS (Carpenter-Goldman Laboratories, USA, 1928)
The studio chiefly made educational and technical films. This special, released by KodakCinegraph, was perfect for the kids at home to recite the lines they doubtlessly knew by heart. Some camera maneuvers are simple but cleverly adds interest. Changes of backgrounds as the character was in motion was a trait of Frank Moser at Paul Terry’s Fables studio, and leads to my very personal opinion that the animator was him or at least by someone joined at the hip.
BROWNIE IN HOLLYWOOD (unknown, USA) https://youtu.be/tuJiyL3OGhE?si=-2HUnFSbYJ-_TYdX
This little gem was part of a series of TONY THE BEAR reels made originally between1921-22, and in circulation for years, this reel bearing (hee) a1930s title card. Inspired by Otto Messmer’s FELIX THE CAT,but the bare naked visuals bear (haw) more of a resemblance to the CHAPLIN cartoons Messmer had been making for Pat Sullivan in the 1910s.
THE MISFORTUNES OF A PEDESTRIAN (Robert Lortac, France, 1922)
Versatile and ubiquitous cartoonist Robert Alfonse Collard, using the adapted name of “Robert Lortac”, created comics and science fiction novels while running a studio from 1914 to1944. During the 1920s, he made simple cutout animation destined for9.5mm home release by the Pathe-Baby company. There were Aesop’s fables, original characters like the hapless “Professeur Mécanicas”and “Toto”, a mischievous brat. For a time Lortac had a rather unhappy partnership with Emile Cohl, who didn’t care for the cruel slapstick Lortac favored.
HARVEST FESTIVAL (Noburo Ofuji, Japan, 1929)
In Japan, “Record Talkies” were home market films issued with records to supply the intended soundtracks. These were both live action and animation. This finely crafted cutout animation, lays on the deep focus and double exposures, illustrates a hit accompanied by a Bouncing Ball.
Several nations had vital markets for “toy films”; sprocketed strips of paper printed with series of drawings for children’s toy projectors. Usually they were in color and displayed their own sense of mastery. Against the tide of CGI and AI, interest has been gaining in these films; they are being carefully restored and there have been retrospective screenings in Spain and Japan.
Spanish “toy films”
German “toy films” https://youtu.be/UN3jvV0GGYA?si=G7IgpSDAQl9VfH7k
Here’s a TV news story honoring the art of color “toy films” in Japan. Click on the image to see this report:
I sincerely hope anyone who can shed additional light on the stories on this obscure chapter of animation history will! The Magic Lives On!
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Milton Knight is an artist of wide experience, having been involved in comics, illustration, animation and painting. You’ve seen his animation in Sonic The Hedgehog, The Twisted Tales of Felix The Cat and in Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World. His comic art has graced Mighty Mouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and his own book, Hugo. Knight has also recently completed his first novel. Visit his blog at 
On early German and Japanese toy films s. my “Animated film in Japan until 1919” (now available for free as a pdf at https://litten.de/abstrtoc/abstr6.htm. On the Japanese paper films see my research note from 2014, also available (although my name’s gone missing) at https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/japanese-color-animation-1907-to-1945-part-2/
F.S. Litten
Fred – we had a glitch in the system years ago here, behind the scenes, at Cartoon Research. The glitch in the system caused many posts to lose their authors credit – I apologize for that. I have just gone back in and returned your credit to your valued contributions back from 2015. Thanks!
I’ve only seen “Scarfoot” credited as McCrory, not “MacCrory”, for example on the title card of his magnum opus “Buster Bear”. As for allegations of his management style, well, back in those days schoolteachers could strike, paddle, or even whip their pupils with impunity, so I think it’s quite possible that the same sort of disciplinary or motivational tactics might have carried over into the occasional workplace. Is there any eyewitness testimony from McCrory’s former employees?
These cartoons are terrific! I’ve seen the lone Ranger one before — I remember the misspelling “Hiegh-ho” — but the others are all new to me. As a fan of Moser-era Terrytoons, I’m especially fond of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, unquestionably the most literal animated retelling of the story I’ve ever seen. As for the paper films, I’m curious: were they drawn onto strips at actual size, like Norman McLaren painting directly onto film stock in his early years, or were the pictures drawn at a larger size and then reduced? The Japanese ones, with their complex battle scenes, are quite elaborate.
It’s always a pleasure to discover some rare old cartoons — and the rarer, and the older, the better!
I “inherited” a 16mm reel of cartoons that my grandfather seems to have bought and spliced together sometime in the 1930’s, which includes the “Goldilocks” cartoon. I’d wondered about where it came from, so I appreciate learning about it now. The other cartoon of note on it was one of the Kinex “Snap the Gingerbread Man” stop-motion shorts, which is a series that it might be good to learn more about as well.
Wonderful stuff. I found a lot of toy films made in Spain, and more specifically in Barcelona (and I have a few ones). They were printed (usual off-screen colors), closer to a comic than a animated film (unlike the german ones). Beautiful simplified shapes, they resemble those “graphic designer comics” Raw magazine style in which the spanish artists excelled from the 80’s onwards.
Great stuff, Milton! Good to see you back here!
My goodness, whatta buncha gloriously weird stuff! A tip of the ol’ Saint Looey Browns cap, Mr. Knight, for coming up with some very interesting, off-the-beaten-track animation.
“For a time Lortac had a rather unhappy partnership with Emile Cohl, who didn’t care for the cruel slapstick Lortac favored.”
I’m not sure what information you’re basing that statement on.
During his interview with André Martin, Robert Lortac mentioned his collaboration with Émile Cohl at the Éclair-Journal studio in 1916, but he never spoke of any deterioration in his relationship with Cohl at that time.
https://journals.openedition.org/1895/3937
Furthermore, Émile Cohl often used slapstick in his films, whether animated or live action. In addition, the adaptation of the comic strip “Les Pieds Nickelés” that he produced between 1916 and 1918 contains numerous gags that anticipated the violent and burlesque humor of American cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s.
During his brief collaboration with cartoonist Benjamin Rabier on another series of cartoons centered on a dog between 1916 and 1917, Cohl openly criticized Rabier’s humor as being too tame and asked him to come up with more exaggerated gags for his cartoons.
https://journals.openedition.org/1895/2483
So I really don’t understand why you claim that Cohl didn’t like Lortac’s humor; on the contrary, I think that Lortac simply adopted this style of humor thanks to Émile Cohl’s influence on him.
I also note that the film “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” does not appear to have been directed by Frank Moser, as it still only contains a single camera shot, whereas Moser’s work at Paul Terry is characterized by the use of multiple camera shots to present his characters.
This cartoon actually seems to have been directed by John MacCrory, as the style is very similar to that of the cartoons he made for Life magazine, such as “North of Nowhere” (1927).