Moving Pictures

March 18, 2024
Larsen (A Book About the Film Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life), a film professor at Brigham Young University, presents a robust history of American theatrical animation from its newspaper comics strip roots to the present day. Starting at the turn of the 20th century, early animators borrowed “almost whole cloth from the printed page’s format, humor, and caricatures.” In the 1910s, the industry was propelled forward by such innovations as the rotoscope technique, which involved tracing over live-action footage, frame by frame, to create more lifelike cartoons. Those advances set the stage for Walt Disney’s rise from small-time ad man who churned out commercials in Kansas City, Mo., to founder of the L.A. studio where he developed his first animal-based cartoon, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, in 1927. (The character’s “impish, schoolboy” qualities also turned up in Mickey Mouse, who debuted in 1928.) Larsen energetically traces the remarkable adaptability of the medium from Disney’s meteoric success, through the use of animation studios during World War II to produce public service films, to the advent of television, which undermined cinematic shorts yet offered an exciting new avenue for animators, and the growth of such powerhouse studios as Pixar and Dreamworks. The result is a lively chronicle of a perennially evolving medium.

May 1, 2024
Larsen surveys the history of American animation in detail, specifically shorts and feature-length films made for the cinema (i.e., not those created for television or streaming). Starting with Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) and continuing all the way to 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Larsen recounts the animation industry's roots in newspaper comic strips and pays special attention to Walt Disney's contemporaries, especially oft-forgotten animators who were considered more successful than him at the time, or at least before Mickey Mouse and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs took off. Larsen describes how technology, economics, and war have influenced the industry and recaps the unique contributions companies like RKO, Universal, Columbia, and Warner Bros. have made to animation as people considered it a more serious and lucrative medium. Academic in depth yet approachable, even occasionally humorous, this deep dive is best suited to readers serious about researching animation and film, but even those with a passing interest in these subjects will find many worthwhile nuances and analyses here.

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June 1, 2024

James Blackton's 1906 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is probably the first animated cartoon, but Winsor McCay's 1911 Little Nemo and 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur were arguably the first memorable ones. For decades, cartoons were made primarily for one medium: the cinema. Cartoon efforts during World War II boosted the industry. But by the late '60s, even with television providing a new venue for consumers, movie cartoons seemed on their last legs, which led to losing the market niche they'd enjoyed for over half a century. In the 1970s, they emerged into the age of the blockbuster cartoon feature. Larson's (film and animation studies program director, Brigham Young Univ.; A Book About the Film: "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life") book tells the story of those earlier years. It was a sink or swim business from the start. Pre-Disney cartoons were fillers for movie theater programs, and they were produced quickly but had a thin profit margin. Then came Disney's 1928 Steamboat Willie, and after a period of fumbling, cartoons became an art form. VERDICT Primarily for cinema buffs but interesting enough for general appeal. Larsen is immensely knowledgeable about the history of animation, and he writes lively prose.--David Keymer

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