Title: Funny pictures : animation and comedy in studio-era Hollywood /
Authors: Goldmark, Daniel.; Keil, Charlie
Publisher: University of California Press,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Animated films United States History and criticism.; Wit and humor in motion pictures.
Abstract: This collection of essays explores the link between comedy and animation in studio-era cartoons, from film's early days through to the 20th century.
Contents: Introduction: what makes these pictures so funny? / Charlie Keil and Daniel Goldmark -- Part One. The (filmic) roots of early animation. The Chaplin effect: ghosts in the machine and animated gags / Paul Wells -- 2. Polyphony and heterogeneity in early Fleischer films: comic strips, vaudeville, and the New York style / Mark Langer -- The heir apparent / J. B. Kaufman -- Systems and effects: making cartoons funny. Infectious laughter: cartoons' cure for the Depression / Don Crafton -- "We're happy when we're sad": comedy, gags, and 1930s cartoon narration / Richard Neupert -- Laughter by numbers: the science of comedy at the Walt Disney Studio / Susan Ohmer -- Part Three. Retheorizing animated comedy. "Who dat say who dat?" racial masquerade, humor, and the rise of American animation / Nicholas Sammond -- "I like to sock myself in the face": reconsidering "vulgar modernism" / Henry Jenkins -- Auralis sexualis: how cartoons conduct Paraphilia / Philip Brophy -- Part Four. Comic inspiration: animation auteurs. The art of diddling: slapstick, science, and antimodernism in the films of Charley Bowers / Rob King -- Tex Avery's prison house of animation, or humor and boredom in studio cartoons / Scott Curtis -- Tish-Tash in cartoonland / Ethan de Seife -- Part Five. Beyond the studio era: building on tradition. Sounds funny/funny sounds: theorizing cartoon music / Daniel Goldmark -- The revival of the studio-era cartoon in the 1990s / Linda Simensky.