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. Eight of his early puppet animations were shot in Gasparcolor, an alternative to Technicolor.[1]

Pal came to the U.S. in 1940, and produced more than 40 Puppetoons for Paramount Pictures between 1941 and 1947.[2]

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.[3] 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 1987, 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. In 2020, The Puppetoon Movie Volume 2 was released on Blu-ray and DVD, featuring 17 shorts not included on any of the Puppetoon Movie releases and The Ship of the Ether.[4]

Jasper

Some controversy exists in modern times, as the black character, Jasper, star of several Puppetoons in the 1940s is considered a stereotype today. The Jasper series of shorts relied on a small, consistent cast. The titular character was a playful pickaninny, his mother a protective mammy, Professor Scarecrow being a black scam artist, and the Blackbird serving as his fast-talking partner-in-crime.[5] Pal described Jasper as the Huckleberry Finn of American folklore.[3] 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".[3]

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.[3]

Jasper's full name is Jasper Jefferson Lincoln Washington Hawkins.[6]

At one point, Jasper's popularity was on par with Mickey Mouse's and Donald Duck's.[7]

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.[8]

Filmography

European Shorts

1932

  • Midnight

1934

  • The Ship of the Ether
  • Radio Valve Revolution

1935

  • The Magic Atlas
  • World's Greatest Show
  • In Lamp Light Land
  • Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves

1936

  • Ether Symphony
  • Charlie's World Cruise
  • On Parade!

1937

  • What Ho, She Bumps
  • The Reddingsbrigade
  • Philips Broadcast of 1938

1938

  • South Seas Sweethearts
  • The Ballet of Red Radio Valves
  • Sky Pirates
  • How An Advertising Poster Came About

1939

  • Aladdin and the Magic Lamp
  • The Sleeping Beauty
  • Love on the Range
  • Philips Cavalcade (a.k.a. Cavalcade of Music)

1940

  • Friend in Need

American Shorts

1940

  • Dipsy Gipsy

1941

  • Western Daze
  • Hoola Boola
  • The Gay Knighties
  • Rhythm in the Ranks

1942

1943

  • Jasper and the Choo-Choo
  • Bravo, Mr. Strauss
  • The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
  • Jasper's Music Lesson
  • The Truck That Flew
  • The Little Broadcast
  • Jasper Goes Fishing
  • Goodnight Rusty

1944

1945

  • Jasper's Booby Traps
  • Hot Lips Jasper
  • Jasper Tell
  • Jasper's Minstrels
  • Jasper's Close Shave
  • Jasper and the Beanstalk
  • My Man Jasper

1946

1947

1948

  • Sweet Pacific

1971

Cancelled Projects
  • Casey Jones
  • Davy Crockett
  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Johnny Appleseed
  • Sinbad
  • Three Little Princes[10] [11] [12]

See also

Sources
  • Cripps, Thomas (1993), Making Movies Black : The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era:, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-536034-9

References
  1. Fischinger - CVM pages - Center for Visual Music
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. Cohen (2004), p. 58
  4. "'The Puppetoon Movie Volume 2' Now Available on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack". AWN. December 1, 2020.
  5. Cripps (1977), p. 230
  6. Christopher P. Lehman (December 1, 2018). "Jasper and the Puppetoons - Part 3". CR.
  7. Vidette-Messenger of Porter County. "Hollywood Film Shop". United Press. 13 April 1944. Valparaiso, page 4. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/333163964/?terms=%22jasper%22%20%22mickey%20mouse%22%20%22donald%20duck%22&match=1 (login needed)
  8. "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  9. Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900-1960. Scarecrow Press. pp. 166–167. ISBN 978-0810832503.
  10. Arnold Leibovit Facebook Post, May 12, 2018
  11. Chico Record. "Hollywood". Virginia McPherson. 25 October 1945. Chico, page 2. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/681104846/?terms=inkypooh&match=1 (login needed)
  12. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. "Ellen Drew Named For Film Comedy". 13 April 1946. Brooklyn, page 14. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/686223057/?terms=%22john%20henry%20and%20the%20inky%22&match=1 (login needed)
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