Klein: Story and Gags

1
Klein Story and Gags

• Movement in early cartoons borrowed primarily
  from live entertainment.
• At the top of the cartoon industry, virtually
  every producer during the 20s and 30s, had worked
  in vaudeville in some capacity.

2

• Even sound in the early cartoons was borrowed
  from vaudeville.
• According to Klein, after a decade of sound
  vaudeville was all but gone from the animated
  film.

3

• In 1934 Disney decided to move away from gags as
  the Primary vehicle for storytelling.

4

• Disney begins to move away from the graphic
  narrative and the vaudeville gag to a cartoon
  version of movie acting.
• The Multiplane camera makes this possible

5
Klein Mickey as Logo

• Throughout the 1930s Disney was hopelessly in
  debt.
• Even after the success of Snow White he was three
  million dollars in debt.

6

• 1929 Mickey picks up his first endorsement
  advertising a pencil tablet.
• At the start of the war licensing was strong and
  Disney had begun thinking about starting a theme
  park.
• Ultimately, the War slowed this down.

7

• The whirlwind that heralds international Disney
  begins in the 1950s and occurs simultaneously
  with the advent of TV.
• The Disney TV show begins in 1954.
• In the 1950s profits were divided equally into
  thirds Films, licensing, Disneyland.