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Felix the Cat is a funny animal cartoon character created in the silent film era. The anthropomorphic black cat with his black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history. Felix was the first character from animation to attain a level of popularity sufficient to draw movie audiences.[1][2]
Felix's origins remain disputed. Australian cartoonist/film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan, owner of the Felix character, claimed during his lifetime to be its creator. American animator Otto Messmer, Sullivan's lead animator, has been credited as such.[3] What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed success and popularity in 1920s popular culture. Aside from the animated shorts, Felix starred in a comic strip (drawn by Sullivan, Messmer and later Joe Oliolo) beginning in 1923,[4] and his image soon adorned merchandise such as ceramics, toys and postcards. Several manufacturers made stuffed Felix toys. Jazz bands such as Paul Whiteman's played songs about him (1923's "Felix Kept On Walking" and others).
By the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons Felix's success was fading. The new Disney shorts of Mickey Mouse made the silent offerings of Sullivan and Messmer, who were then unwilling to move to sound production, seem outdated. In 1929, Sullivan decided to make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1932. Sullivan died in 1933. Felix saw a brief three cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios.
Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned, "long-legged" Felix, added new characters, and gave Felix a "Magic Bag of Tricks" that could assume an infinite variety of shapes at Felix's behest. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in two feature films. As of the 2010s, Felix is featured on a variety of merchandise from clothing to toys. Oriolo's son, Don Oriolo, later assumed creative control of Felix.
In 2002, TV Guide ranked Felix the Cat number 28 on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list.[5]On 9 November 1919, Master Tom, a prototype of Felix, debuted in a Paramount Pictures short entitled Feline Follies.[6] Produced by the New York City-based animation studio owned by Pat Sullivan, the cartoon was directed by cartoonist and animator Otto Messmer. It was a success, and the Sullivan studio quickly set to work on producing another film featuring Master Tom, the Felix the Cat prototype in The Musical Mews (released 16 November 1919). It too proved to be successful with audiences. Otto Messmer gave two different versions of how Felix got his name, the one on his official site ”Rejoining Sullivan with a great idea for a new character named Felix the Cat,[7] and the second that ”Mr. (John) King of Paramount Magazine suggested the name "Felix", after the Latin words felis (cat) and felix (lucky), which was used for the third film, The Adventures of Felix (released on 14 December 1919). Pat Sullivan said he named Felix after Australia Felix from Australian history and literature. In 1924, animator Bill Nolan redesigned the fledgling feline, making him both rounder and cuter. Felix's new looks, coupled with Messmer's character animation, brought Felix to fame.[8]
The question of who created Felix remains a matter of dispute. Sullivan stated in numerous newspaper interviews that he created Felix and did the key drawings for the character. On a visit to Australia in 1925, Sullivan told The Argus newspaper that "The idea was given to me by the sight of a cat which my wife brought to the studio one day."[9] On other occasions, he claimed that Felix had been inspired by Rudyard Kipling's "The Cat that Walked by Himself" or by his wife's love for strays.[8] Members of the Australian Cartoonist Association have demonstrated that lettering used in Feline Follies matches Sullivan's handwriting.[10] Pat Sullivan also lettered within his drawings which was a major contradiction to Messmer's claims.[10] Sullivan's claim is also supported by his 18 March 1917, release of a cartoon short entitled The Tail of Thomas Kat, more than two years prior to Feline Follies. Both an Australian ABC-TV documentary screened in 2004[11] and the curators of an exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales, in 2005, suggested that Thomas Kat was a prototype or precursor of Felix. However, few details of Thomas have survived. His fur color has not been definitively established, and the surviving copyright synopsis[citation needed] for the short suggests significant differences between Thomas and the later Felix. For example, whereas the later Felix magically transforms his tail into tools and other objects, Thomas is a non-anthropomorphized cat who loses his tail in a fight with a rooster, never to recover it.
Sullivan was the studio proprietor and—as is the case with almost all film entrepreneurs—he owned the copyright to any creative work by his employees. In common with many animators at the time, Messmer was not credited. After Sullivan's death in 1933, his estate in Australia took ownership of the character.
It was not until many years after Sullivan's death that Sullivan staffers such as Hal Walker, Al Eugster, and Sullivan's lawyer, Harry Kopp, credited Messmer with Felix's creation. They claimed that Felix was based on an animated Charlie Chaplin that Messmer had animated for Sullivan's studio earlier on. The down-and-out personality and movements of the cat in Feline Follies reflect key attributes of Chaplin's, and, although blockier than the later Felix, the familiar black body is already there (Messmer found solid shapes easier to animate). Messmer himself recalled his version of the cat's creation in an interview with animation historian John Canemaker:
Sullivan's studio was very busy, and Paramount, they were falling behind their schedule and they needed one extra to fill in. And Sullivan, being very busy, said, "If you want to do it on the side, you can do any little thing to satisfy them." So I figured a cat would be about the simplest. Make him all black, you know—you wouldn't need to worry about outlines. And one gag after the other, you know? Cute. And they all got laughs. So Paramount liked it so they ordered a series.
Animation historians back Messmer's claims. Among them are Michael Barrier, Jerry Beck, Colin and Timothy Cowles, Donald Crafton, David Gerstein, Milt Gray, Mark Kausler, Leonard Maltin, and Charles Solomon.[12] There are many examples of support for Pat Sullivan. Here's a recollection from 1953 by Australian writer Hugh McCrae who was sharing an apartment with Pat Sullivan just before Felix was created. 'It comes properly as a postscript that in New York McCrae shared a flat with Pat Sullivan, the famed creator of "Felix ,the Cat." When a film about Felix was being planned, Sullivan suggested that McCrae should do the drawings while he (Sullivan) supplied the ideas. McCrae refused and has regretted it ever since.' [13]
Regardless of who created Felix, Sullivan marketed the cat relentlessly, while Messmer continued to produce a prodigious volume of Felix cartoons. Messmer did the animation directly on white paper with inkers tracing the drawings directly. The animators drew backgrounds onto pieces of celluloid, which were then laid atop the drawings to be photographed. Any perspective work had to be animated by hand, as the studio cameras were unable to perform pans or trucks. Pat Sullivan began a comic strip in 1923, distributed by King Features Syndicate.[8] Messmer took over drawing duties of the strip.