[INSPIRATION] 1920's Rubber-hose Animation

Rubber-hose animation will play a huge part in my animation, Max the Cat will play as an embodiment of classic rubber-hose techniques, although I have briefly talked about this in one of the first posts I made; Walt Disney, I want to delve deeper into what rubber-hose animation actually is.

Rubber-hose animation was created in America around the 1920s, a time when animation was fairly new, there was no real standard for animation nor were there any expirienced animators. However there were skilled comic strip artists who became fasinated by moving drawings and wanted to challenge their skills by delving into the possibilities of moving drawings. Artists would experiment with what would work and what would not, until they began to create drawings with the illusion of movement, and over time, the most successful characters and cartoons would have a huge influemce on the animation industry. One of the most successful characters and cartoons being Felix the Cat created by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer.

The animation had very bouncy and rubber like movement, the limbs were somewhat noodle like and avoided stiff movement. The humour was very visual, with many sight gags and surreal plot lines. However, it was Felix's happy-go-lucky but short tempered attitude, capability to use his initiative to get himself out of difficult situations and fourth-wall breaking made him a very likeable character and an influencial character to other animators, because of this many immitators emerged to recreate the style, affecting the entire industry. Over time, as animation began to evolve, although the dominating style and design varied from studio to studio, it became known as rubber-hose animation.

One of the studios that was influenced by the rubber-hose style was the Fleischer Studio, ran by the two Fleischer brothers; Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer. They created a character known as Koko the Clown which became the break through for the company in the Out of the Inkwell series of animation, which was a hybrid for rubber-hose animation and roto-scoping. However, once 1930s came the studio create a new character which in many ways followed very similar design styles as Felix the Cat, the character was known as Bimbo the Dog, an irrational character with a weakness for attractive women. Down the line, the studio decided to give Bimbo a girlfriend, Betty Boop, who quickly casted a large shadow over Bimbo in popularity. Over time, Betty Boop cartoons were forced to tone down the innuendos and seual humor soon was eclipsed by the creation of a character who could be considered the magnum-opus of the Fleischer Studio, Popeye the Sailor Man, in this regard, Fleischer Studios was rather special, as it was one of the few Studios whose stars were not animals, but human characters. However, the studio ran into financial problems in the 1940s and the studio shut down until Famous Studios siezed control.

The list goes on with how many studios, cartoons and characters were inspired by the rubber-hose animation style, below are a few examples of the style, represented through characters and cartoons from eras 1910s to the 1940s:

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Scrappy

Krazy Kat

Bosko

Cubby Bear

Pooch the Pup

Beans the Cat