This was my first-ever look at a cartoon that was made during the Silent Film Era. Boy, it was different. Dated? Sure, but there were some cool aspects to this film, made 85 years ago. If you think mixing live shots with animation is something that came along with "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," I have news for you - they were doing it (or trying) way back in the early 1920s.
They mixed some live footage - such as fans at baseball game or pictures of skyscrapers - in with the animation. So, we saw "Willie Brown," a little boy being chased up a skyscraper by a policeman. Yes, it wasn't exactly state-of-the-art graphics but it wasn't bad. Later, we see Felix get in a game, take a train, etc.
It was still crazy stuff you could only see in a cartoon, question marks coming out of Felix The Cat's brain and then Felix jumping on top of those question marks to get to the top of a building to visit Willie in jail, or other typically-impossible things only possible in animated movies.
The story simply involves the home baseball team, "The Nifty Nine" playing the "Tar Heels" (a black team. The cartoon is a little racist.). The game is at The Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played for years. You see real-life shots, once again, of the fans and the stadium. Back to the animation, we see a a clever ending to this as Felix comes up with a plan on how to save the home team from getting clobbered by the opponents.
Overall, this was very entertaining. It's also a curiosity piece because it's primitive and different from stuff we saw in succeeding decades.
This cartoon was part of a collection of in the "Presenting Felix The Cat - The Otto Messmer Classics - 1919-1924" DVD, with original organ scores by Dave Wickersham. Thanks to the restoration job, the print quality is pretty darned good, too, considering the age of this animated short.
They mixed some live footage - such as fans at baseball game or pictures of skyscrapers - in with the animation. So, we saw "Willie Brown," a little boy being chased up a skyscraper by a policeman. Yes, it wasn't exactly state-of-the-art graphics but it wasn't bad. Later, we see Felix get in a game, take a train, etc.
It was still crazy stuff you could only see in a cartoon, question marks coming out of Felix The Cat's brain and then Felix jumping on top of those question marks to get to the top of a building to visit Willie in jail, or other typically-impossible things only possible in animated movies.
The story simply involves the home baseball team, "The Nifty Nine" playing the "Tar Heels" (a black team. The cartoon is a little racist.). The game is at The Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played for years. You see real-life shots, once again, of the fans and the stadium. Back to the animation, we see a a clever ending to this as Felix comes up with a plan on how to save the home team from getting clobbered by the opponents.
Overall, this was very entertaining. It's also a curiosity piece because it's primitive and different from stuff we saw in succeeding decades.
This cartoon was part of a collection of in the "Presenting Felix The Cat - The Otto Messmer Classics - 1919-1924" DVD, with original organ scores by Dave Wickersham. Thanks to the restoration job, the print quality is pretty darned good, too, considering the age of this animated short.