Puppetoons

George Pal's Puppetoons were a series of animated puppet films made in Europe in the 1930s and in the United States in the 1940s. They are memorable for their use of replacement animation: using a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets (or puppet heads or limbs) for each frame in which the puppet moves or changes expression, rather than moving a single puppet, as is the case with most stop motion puppet animation.

The series began when Pal made an advertising film using "dancing" cigarettes in 1932, which led to a series of theatrical advertising shorts for Philips Radio in the Netherlands. This was followed by a series for Horlicks Malted Milk in England. These shorts have an art deco design, often reducing characters to simple geometric shapes. A typical Puppetoon required 9,000 individually carved and machined wooden figures or parts.

Pal came to the U.S. in 1940, and produced more than 40 Puppetoons for Paramount Pictures between 1941 and 1947.[1]

Seven Puppetoons received Academy Award nominations, including Rhythm in the Ranks (for the year 1941), Tulips Shall Grow (1942), The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943), And To Think I Saw it On Mulberry Street (1944), Jasper and the Beanstalk (1945), John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946) and Tubby the Tuba (1947). (Info source: AMPAS Animated Short Film Oscar archives.)

The series ended due to rising production costs which had increased from $18,000 per short in 1939 to almost $50,000 following the war. Paramount Pictures, Pal's distributor, objected to the cost. Per their suggestion Pal went to produce sequences for feature films.[2] In 1956, the Puppetoons as well as most of Paramount's shorts, were sold to television distributor U.M. & M. TV Corporation. National Telefilm Associates bought out U.M. & M. and continued to syndicate them in the 1950s and 1960s as "Madcap Models".

Pal also used the Puppetoon name and the general Puppetoon technique for miniature puppet characters in some of his live-action feature films, including The Great Rupert (1949), Tom Thumb (1958), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963). In these films, the individual wooden figures were billed as The Puppetoons.

In 1986, film producer-director-archivist Arnold Leibovit, a friend of George Pal, collected several Puppetoons and released them theatrically and to video as The Puppetoon Movie reintroducing them to contemporary audiences. A feature-length documentary on the life and films of George Pal followed.

Jasper

Some controversy exists in modern times, as the black character, Jasper, star of several Puppetoons in the 1940s is considered a stereotype today. Pal described Jasper as the Huckleberry Finn of American folklore.[2] Already in 1946, an article of the Hollywood Quarterly protested that the Jasper shorts presented a "razor-totin', ghost-haunted, chicken-stealin' concept of the American Negro".[2]

A 1947 article in Ebony pointed that George Pal was a European and not raised on racial prejudice. "To him there is nothing abusive about a Negro boy who likes to eat watermelons or gets scared when he goes past a haunted house". The article, though, pointed that this depiction touched on the stereotypes of Negroes being childish, eating nothing but molasses and watermelons, and being afraid of their own shadows.[2]

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive preserved several of the Puppetoons in 2009, including Jasper and the Beanstalk, John Henry and the Inky Poo, and Rhythm In the Ranks.[3]

Filmography

1932

  • Midnight

1934

  • Radio Valve Revolution
  • Philips Cavalcade (a.k.a. Cavalcade of Music) - February 2, 1934
  • The Ship of the Ether - March 6, 1934

1935

  • The Magic Atlas - February 2, 1935
  • World's Greatest Show
  • In Lamp Light Land
  • Sinbad

1936

  • Aladdin and the Magic Lamp - February 2, 1936
  • Ether Symphony - June 17, 1936
  • Vier Asse
  • Charlie's World Cruise
  • Ali Baba
  • On Parade!

1937

  • What Ho, She Bumps (a.k.a. Captain Kidding)
  • The Reddingsbrigade

1938

  • Philips Broadcast of 1938 (a.k.a. The Big Broadcast of '38) - November 13, 1938
  • South Seas Sweethearts
  • The Ballet of Red Radio Valves
  • Sky Pirates

1939

  • Sleeping Beauty
  • Love on the Range

1940

  • Gooseberry Pie
  • Friend in Need

1941

  • Western Daze - January 7, 1941
  • Dipsy Gypsy - April 4, 1941
  • Hoola Boola - June 27, 1941
  • The Gay Knighties - August 22, 1941
  • Rhythm in the Ranks - December 26, 1941

1942

1943

  • Jasper and the Choo-Choo - January 1, 1943
  • Bravo, Mr. Strauss - February 26, 1943
  • The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins - April 30, 1943
  • Jasper's Music Lesson - May 21, 1943
  • The Truck That Flew - August 6, 1943
  • The Little Broadcast - September 25, 1943
  • Jasper Goes Fishing - October 8, 1943
  • Goodnight Rusty - December 3, 1943

1944

1945

  • Jasper's Booby Traps - 1945
  • Hot Lips Jasper - January 5, 1945
  • Jasper Tell - March 23, 1945
  • Jasper's Minstrels - May 25, 1945
  • Jasper's Close Shave - September 28, 1945
  • Jasper and the Beanstalk - October 19, 1945
  • My Man Jasper - December 14, 1945

1946

1947

  • Shoe Shine Jasper - January 28, 1947
  • Wilbur the Lion - April 18, 1947
  • Tubby the Tuba - July 11, 1947
  • Romeow and Julicat (Shown in the film Variety Girl) - August 29, 1947
  • Date with Duke (featuring Duke Ellington)[4] - October 31, 1947
  • Rhapsody in Wood - December 29, 1947

1948

  • Sweet Pacific

1971

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See also

References
  1. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  2. Cohen (2004), p. 58
  3. "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  4. Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900-1960. Scarecrow Press. pp. 166–167. ISBN 978-0810832503.
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