Thoughts on the Alice Comedies? Lately, I’ve been watching…
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Thoughts on the Alice Comedies?
Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of old black-and-white cartoons, some even from the pre-sound era. One series I’ve been interested in are the Alice Comedies.
Before Mickey & Oswald, the Alice Comedies were Walt Disney’s first series with a recurring character. It was a live-action girl named Alice (there were four child actresses playing the title role over the course of the series) and her cartoon pal, a talking cat named Julius (which was a Felix knock-off), as they got into all kinds of misadventures in the cartoon world (from the jungle to the middle of the ocean and even starring in reimagined fairy tales).
The live-action/animated combination is crude by today’s standards but back then cool to see it play out on the screen. There were 57 shorts and Walt himself directed them all. Though not animating them (that was left up to Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harmon & Rudolf Ising), you can tell the evolution in the series from the animation and the storytelling itself.
Disney & his crew were still getting familiar with the form itself and you can see some of the techniques that would later show up in the Oswald & Mickey shorts. On their own, it’s a curious animation gem into the early Disney storytelling style and, for a series that’s about 100 years old, some of the shorts are silly and enjoyable in a charming way.
For those who have seen some of the Alice shorts, what did you think of them?
#movies #video
Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of old black-and-white cartoons, some even from the pre-sound era. One series I’ve been interested in are the Alice Comedies.
Before Mickey & Oswald, the Alice Comedies were Walt Disney’s first series with a recurring character. It was a live-action girl named Alice (there were four child actresses playing the title role over the course of the series) and her cartoon pal, a talking cat named Julius (which was a Felix knock-off), as they got into all kinds of misadventures in the cartoon world (from the jungle to the middle of the ocean and even starring in reimagined fairy tales).
The live-action/animated combination is crude by today’s standards but back then cool to see it play out on the screen. There were 57 shorts and Walt himself directed them all. Though not animating them (that was left up to Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harmon & Rudolf Ising), you can tell the evolution in the series from the animation and the storytelling itself.
Disney & his crew were still getting familiar with the form itself and you can see some of the techniques that would later show up in the Oswald & Mickey shorts. On their own, it’s a curious animation gem into the early Disney storytelling style and, for a series that’s about 100 years old, some of the shorts are silly and enjoyable in a charming way.
For those who have seen some of the Alice shorts, what did you think of them?
#movies #video
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