Talkartoons series

***Talkartoons*** is an American major animated series. The series was produced by Max Fleischer from 1929 to 1932.

## History

For the Fleischer brothers, the transition to sound was relatively easy. With the new contract with Paramount Pictures, and without the burden of Red Seal Pictures and Alfred Weiss, Max Fleischer was free to experiment with new, bold ideas. First he changed the name of the *Ko-Ko Song Cartunes* series to *Screen Songs*. Although the *Screen Songs* were successful, Fleischer felt that it wasn't enough; Walt Disney also seemed to gain a great amount of fame through his sound cartoons as well. He decided to work with his brother, Dave on a new series of cartoons where the characters did more than just simply dance to the music of the "bouncing ball". The name for the new series was to be *Talkartoons*. When the idea was pitched to Paramount, they leaped at the opportunity.

The *Talkartoons* started out as one-shot cartoons. The first entry in the series was *Noah's Lark*, released on October 26, 1929. Although a Fleischer cartoon, it appeared to be patterned after the *Aesop's Film Fables* of Paul Terry. In it, a Farmer Al Falfa-esque Noah allows the animals of his ark to visit Luna Park. When he brings them back into the ship, the weight is so heavy that it sinks. In the end, Noah chases topless mermaids throughout the ocean waters. *Lark* has very few gray tones, due to employing the paper-cutout animation process utilized in the *Screen Songs* produced during the same time and the earlier Fleischer silent works. It also included copyright-free songs, mostly utilized from old 78-rpm's.

The series began to take a new direction, however, with the arrival of Max and Dave's brother, Lou Fleischer, whose skills in music and mathematics made a great impact at the studio. A dog named Bimbo gradually became the featured character of the series. The first cartoon that featured Bimbo was *Hot Dog* (1930), the first Fleischer cartoon to be animated on cels, and thus to employ a full range of greys. New animators such as Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, and Rudy Zamora began entering the Fleischer Studio, with new ideas that pushed the *Talkartoons* into a league of their own. Natwick especially had an off-beat style of animating that helped give the shorts more of a surreal quality. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the Talkartoons series and the Fleischer Studio was the creation of Betty Boop with *Dizzy Dishes* in 1930.

By late 1931, Betty Boop dominated the series. Koko the Clown was brought out of retirement from the silent days as a third character to Betty and Bimbo. By 1932, the series was at an inevitable end and instead, Betty Boop would be given her own series, with Bimbo and Koko as secondary characters.

## Filmography

* *Noah's Lark* (1929)
* *Marriage Wows* (1930)
* *Radio Riot* (1930)
* *Hot Dog* (1930)
* *Fire Bugs* (1930)
* *Wise Flies* (1930)
* *Dizzy Dishes* (1930)
* *Barnacle Bill* (1930)
* *Swing You Sinners!* (1930)
* *Grand Uproar* (1930)
* *Sky Scaping* (1930)
* *Up to Mars* (1930)
* *Accordion Joe* (1930)
* *Mysterious Mose* (1930)
* *Ace of Spades* (1931)
* *Trees Saps* (1931)
* *Teacher's Pest* (1931)
* *The Cow's Husband* (1931)
* *The Bum's Bandit* (1931)
* *The Male Man* (1931)
* *Twenty Legs Under the Sea* (1931)
* *Silly Scandals* (1931)
* *The Herring Murder Case* (1931)
* *Bimbo's Initiation* (1931)
* *Bimbo's Express* (1931)
* *Minding the Baby* (1931)
* *In the Shade of the Old Apple Sauce* (1931)
* *Mask-A-Raid* (1931)
* *Jack and the Beanstalk* (1931)
* *Dizzy Red Riding Hood* (1931)
* *Any Rags?* (1932)
* *Boop-Oop-a-Doop* (1932)
* *The Robot* (1932)
* *Minnie the Moocher* (1932)
* *Swim or Sink* (1932)
* *Crazy Town* (1932)
* *The Dancing Fool* (1932)
* *Chess-Nuts* (1932)
* *A-Hunting We Will Go* (1932)
* *Hide and Seek* (1932)
* *Admissions Free* (1932)
* *The Betty Boop Limited* (1932)