Directed by: Otto Messmer

Starring: Felix the Cat, Ben Turpin, Charlie Chaplin, William S. Hart, Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille

STORY

Long before Mickey Mouse headed for Hollywood, another little black-and-white cartoon superstar had already arrived.

Felix the Cat.

In Felix in Hollywood, Felix begins his adventure far away from movie-star glamour, living with a struggling actor who dreams of making it in the motion-picture business.

Then opportunity arrives.

His owner receives an offer to go to Hollywood.

There's only enough money for one ticket, however, which means Felix is going to have to stay behind.

Felix has other ideas.

This is Felix the Cat, after all — a character who can transform imagination, determination and cartoon logic into solutions for virtually any problem.

If Felix can't buy a ticket to Hollywood, he'll find another way to get there.

Soon Felix has joined the journey west, and the little cat enters the rapidly expanding world of Hollywood filmmaking.

For Felix, Hollywood is a playground.

Movie sets become opportunities for adventure. Famous stars appear around him. The machinery of moviemaking becomes part of the joke.

And because this is 1923, the celebrities Felix encounters aren't historical figures.

They're CURRENT MOVIE STARS.

The cartoon parades Felix through a wonderfully exaggerated version of Hollywood populated by recognizable caricatures of some of the biggest personalities of the silent screen.

Felix encounters cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin.

Charlie Chaplin appears with the unmistakable visual characteristics of his famous Tramp.

Western superstar William S. Hart represents the heroic world of movie cowboys.

Gloria Swanson brings silent-screen glamour.

Douglas Fairbanks embodies the athletic swashbuckling movie hero.

And legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille becomes part of Felix's animated Hollywood universe.

For audiences watching in 1923, these weren't nostalgic references.

These were celebrities they knew.

Felix himself belonged among them.

By the early 1920s, he had become one of animation's first genuine stars — a character whose personality could carry a cartoon and whose image was recognizable far beyond the theater screen.

That makes Felix in Hollywood something more than a funny cartoon about a cat visiting the movies.

It's a meeting between two worlds.

The rapidly growing live-action movie industry.

And the rapidly developing art of character animation.

Felix strolls straight through both.

Hollywood had its stars.

Animation now had one too.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
BEFORE MICKEY — THERE WAS FELIX

Mickey Mouse would make his first produced appearance in Plane Crazy in 1928.

Felix in Hollywood was released five years earlier.

By then Felix was already an established cartoon personality.

That timeline matters.

Felix belongs to an earlier generation of animation — the silent-cartoon era that helped demonstrate that audiences could become attached not simply to animated novelty but to an animated CHARACTER.

Felix wasn't merely a drawing that moved.

He was a star.

ONE OF ANIMATION'S FIRST SUPERSTARS

Felix the Cat became one of the first animated characters to achieve widespread international popularity.

His simple black body, enormous white eyes and distinctive silhouette made him instantly recognizable.

More importantly, Felix had personality.

He thought.

He reacted.

He schemed.

He became frustrated.

And when reality presented an obstacle, Felix often found a solution that only an animated character could possibly invent.

That personality helped distinguish Felix from many earlier animated creations.

OTTO MESSMER — THE MAN BEHIND FELIX

The history of Felix the Cat contains one of animation's most famous authorship controversies.

Producer Pat Sullivan's name appeared prominently on the cartoons, and for many years Sullivan was publicly associated with Felix's creation.

But animator Otto Messmer is widely credited by animation historians with creating and developing the Felix character and directing the cartoons that made him famous.

Messmer's importance to Felix — and therefore to the development of character animation — is enormous.

PAT SULLIVAN AND THE FELIX EMPIRE

Felix cartoons were produced through Pat Sullivan's studio, and Sullivan aggressively promoted the character.

As Felix's popularity grew, he expanded beyond the movie screen.

Felix appeared on merchandise and in print, becoming an early example of how a successful animated character could develop into something much larger than a series of theatrical shorts.

Decades before character merchandising became a gigantic entertainment business, Felix was already demonstrating the possibilities.

HOLLYWOOD BEFORE HOLLYWOOD WAS HOLLYWOOD

Felix in Hollywood gives us an extraordinary cartoon snapshot of the movie industry in 1923.

Hollywood was already the center of American filmmaking, but the great studio era audiences now associate with classic Hollywood was still developing.

Silent films dominated.

Movie stars had become international celebrities.

Feature filmmaking was expanding rapidly.

And the film industry itself had become famous enough to be parodied.

Felix arrived right in the middle of it.

THESE WERE NOT CAMEOS — THEY WERE CARICATURES

Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Ben Turpin and Cecil B. DeMille didn't assemble to perform voices for an animated cat.

These are animated caricatures.

That distinction is part of the fun.

The filmmakers depended upon audiences recognizing the stars from their appearances, costumes and screen personas.

No introduction was necessary.

A few visual clues could tell a 1923 moviegoer exactly who had entered the cartoon.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN — THE PERFECT CARTOON CELEBRITY

Of all the stars caricatured in Felix in Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin may have been the easiest to recognize.

The bowler hat.

The little mustache.

The cane.

The distinctive physical mannerisms of the Tramp.

Chaplin had created a screen image so visually specific that animation could reproduce it instantly.

Felix and Chaplin also had something important in common:

Both could communicate personality without spoken dialogue.

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS — HOLLYWOOD'S ACTION HERO

Douglas Fairbanks was one of the greatest stars of the silent era.

Athletic, charismatic and famous for adventure pictures, Fairbanks embodied the exuberant movie hero.

His films helped define the swashbuckling adventure genre.

To a 1923 audience, putting Fairbanks into Felix's Hollywood wasn't simply inserting another celebrity.

It meant Felix had entered the company of one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

GLORIA SWANSON — SILENT-SCREEN GLAMOUR

Gloria Swanson was already a major silent-film star when Felix in Hollywood appeared.

Her glamorous screen image made her another natural target for caricature.

Today, many viewers know Swanson primarily through Sunset Boulevard.

But in 1923, audiences weren't looking backward at a legend of silent Hollywood.

They were looking at one of its reigning stars.

WILLIAM S. HART — THE GREAT WESTERN STAR

Before generations of movie cowboys who followed, William S. Hart helped establish the Western hero on screen.

His serious, rugged Western persona made him instantly identifiable to movie audiences.

Felix's encounter with Hart connects the cartoon directly with one of the genres helping build Hollywood's mythology.

BEN TURPIN — A FACE MADE FOR COMEDY

Silent comedian Ben Turpin possessed one of the most recognizable faces in early screen comedy.

His famously crossed eyes became part of his comic persona.

That gave animators an immediate visual shorthand.

One exaggerated drawing and audiences knew exactly who they were seeing.

CECIL B. DEMILLE — THE MAN BEHIND THE SPECTACLE

Felix doesn't encounter only actors.

Cecil B. DeMille represents the powerful filmmaker behind the camera.

DeMille was already known for ambitious productions and would eventually become virtually synonymous with enormous Hollywood spectacle.

Including him tells us something important:

By 1923, directors themselves could be celebrities.

FELIX WAS A SILENT STAR IN A SILENT WORLD

There is something beautifully appropriate about Felix visiting Hollywood in 1923.

The movie stars around him didn't speak from the screen either.

Silent-film actors communicated through faces, gestures and physical movement.

So did Felix.

The difference was that Felix's body wasn't constrained by human anatomy.

If an idea required him to bend, stretch or transform, a pencil could make it happen.

FELIX COULD THINK ON SCREEN

One of Felix's most important contributions to animation was the visual representation of thought.

Rather than simply moving from gag to gag, Felix could appear to stop and THINK.

Question marks, punctuation and graphic symbols could become physical parts of his world.

The audience wasn't merely watching what Felix did.

Animation could show what Felix was thinking.

That became an enormously powerful storytelling tool.

FELIX'S TAIL COULD BECOME ALMOST ANYTHING

Felix possessed one particularly useful piece of cartoon anatomy.

His tail.

In the wonderfully elastic logic of Felix cartoons, that tail didn't always have to remain merely a tail.

It could become a tool, prop or whatever the gag required.

The concept captures something fundamental about early animation:

A drawing doesn't have to obey reality.

It only has to obey imagination.

AINTOID: FELIX WAS EVERYWHERE

Felix became far more than a movie character.

During the height of his popularity, his image appeared on an extraordinary assortment of merchandise.

Toys.

Posters.

Printed material.

Household products.

Felix demonstrated very early that an animated character could exist simultaneously on the movie screen and throughout popular culture.

AINTOID: FELIX WENT TO HOLLYWOOD BEFORE MICKEY

Here's the timeline that makes this cartoon irresistible.

Felix visits Hollywood in 1923.

Mickey Mouse doesn't appear until 1928.

So five years before Mickey's first cartoon was produced, Felix was already famous enough to star in a cartoon joking about his arrival among Hollywood celebrities.

Felix wasn't following Mickey's path.

Mickey belonged to the generation that followed Felix.

AINTOID: FELIX BECAME A TELEVISION PIONEER — BY ACCIDENT

Felix has another remarkable place in media history.

A papier-mâché Felix figure was famously used during early experimental television work in the late 1920s because its strong black-and-white contrast made it suitable as a test subject.

The little cartoon cat who had conquered movie screens became associated with another emerging medium.

Television.

AINTOID: FELIX EVEN WENT TO WAR

Felix's popularity extended into military imagery.

His likeness was adopted as an insignia by U.S. Navy aviation units, including the famous VF-31 squadron lineage.

The image of Felix carrying a bomb became one of the character's unusual connections to American military history.

Few cartoon stars can claim a résumé quite like that.

AINTOID: THE MOVIE STARS WERE FELIX'S PEERS

Perhaps the most revealing thing about Felix in Hollywood is the joke underneath the entire cartoon.

Felix enters a world populated by famous movie stars.

But Felix himself belongs there.

He was already famous.

The audience recognized Felix just as surely as they recognized Chaplin, Fairbanks or Swanson.

That tells us how far animation had come.

A character made from ink and photographed drawings could stand beside the biggest human stars in Hollywood.

AINTOID: BEFORE THE MOUSE, THE CAT RULED

Today it is almost impossible to discuss the history of American animation without Mickey Mouse towering over the story.

But animation history didn't begin with Mickey.

Characters and artists had already been pushing the medium forward for years.

And among the greatest stars of that pre-Mickey world was Felix.

That's what makes Felix in Hollywood such a wonderful treasure for Absolutely Toons.

We aren't simply watching an old cartoon.

We're visiting animation before Mickey Mouse.

And the biggest cartoon star in town is a cat.