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Directors: Raoul Barré & Bill Nolan
Release Date: August 18, 1915
Rating: ★
‘Cartoons on Tour’ is an entry in Raoul Barré’s and animator Bill Nolan’s’Animated Grouch Chaser’ series.
The entries in this series were essentially live action comedies, with cartoons injected of ca. three minutes length. ‘Cartoons on Tour’ is a typical example: the film features a live action story of a girl and a boy planning to elope. While waiting for her Bob to pick her up, the girl reads one of Raoul Barré’s animated comic strip: “The Tales of Silas Bunkum”, in which a bearded man tells a tall tale about an elephant (who moves just like Gertie in ‘Gertie the Dinosaur‘).
Then Bob arrives and the two drive to the chapel, but the girl’s old man hops along. Luckily he’s distracted by the comic book,, and reads’The Kelly Kids’ Kite’ about a boy flying off with a kite. This part knows a rather crude beheading of a crow. The second comic the old man reads is ‘Mr. Hicks in Nightmare Land’ about an old man spying on a girl in the water. Later he dreams he drinks from the fountain of youth, turning him into a baby. When he lands on the couch of a beautiful lady, he wakes up… At that point the man discovers a telegram inside the comic, and realizes what’s going on. But he’s easily soothed by a last comic: ‘The Pleasure of Being a Grandpa’.
The animation is extremely limited in this cartoon, with most images hardly moving at all. Moreover, the action is slow and terribly unfunny, making the film a rather tiresome watch.
Watch ‘Cartoons on Tour’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Cartoons on Tour’ is available on the Blu-Ray-DVD-combo ‘Cartoon Roots’
Director: George Vernon Stallings
Release Date: September 4, 1915
Stars: Colonel Heeza Liar
Rating: ★★★
‘Colonel Heeza Liar at the Bat’ is a Colonel Heeza Liar cartoon directed by George Vernon Stallings, who would later join Van Beuren and Disney.
Stallings’s approach to animation is very comic strip-like in this short: the scenes are very flat, and although the drawing and posing are very good, the animation is extremely limited and stiff, relying heavily on repeated drawings and on poses instead of movement.
In this short the colonel joins a ball game, winning it with ease, e.g. by pitching curve balls that defy all laws of nature, and by running a home-run three times in a row. The film uses titles in rhyme, but text balloons are reserved for the umpire only.
Watch ‘Colonel Heeza Liar at the Bat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Colonel Heeza Liar at the Bat’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938’ and on the DVD ‘Before Walt’
Director: J.R. Bray
Release Date: 1915
Rating: ★★★½
‘Diplodocus’ is J.R. Bray’s own version of Winsor McCay’s ‘Gertie the Dinosaur‘ (1914), being so similar to the McCay’s success film that it’s plain plagiarism.
The film stars a Diplodocus instead of a Brontosaur and shows the differences between Bray’s and McCay’s drawing styles, with McCay showing more art nouveau elegance, and Bray displaying more comic strip like clarity.
Bray’s film reuses much of McCay’s material: like Gertie the Diplodocus lifts one foot, shifts from side to side, he gets startled by a flying dragon, interacts with a mastodon, eats a pumpkin etc. Like McCay’s film it’s clear that the film had to be shown together with a live narrator, who interacts with the drawn prehistoric animal.
The only new elements are the Diplodocus tying its neck in a knot, the arrival of a small monkey, and a sea serpent pulling at the mastodon’s trunk.
Bray’s animation is of a high quality, but his Diplodocus lacks Gertie’s personality. Thus this weak rip off only manages to show what great film ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ was, and still is.
Watch ‘Diplodocus’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Diplodocus’ is available on the DVD & Blu-Ray-set ‘Cartoon Roots: The Bray Studios Animation Pioneers’
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