Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org Frame by Frame The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Ahmanson • Murphy Imprint in Fine Arts. The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Department of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and, at the University of Chicago, the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, the Division of the Humanities, and Yuri Tsivian. Frame by Frame A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons Hannah Frank Edited and with an introduction by Daniel Morgan Foreword by Tom Gunning UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2019 by Hannah Frank Suggested citation: Frank, H. Frame by Frame: A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.65 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Frank, Hannah, 1984–2017, author. | Morgan, Daniel, 1977- editor, writer of introduction. | Gunning, Tom, 1949- writer of foreword. Title: Frame by frame : a materialist aesthetics of animated cartoons / Hannah Frank ; edited and with an introduction by Daniel Morgan; foreword by Tom Gunning. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018044521 (print) | LCCN 2018048471 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520972773 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520303621 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Animated films—History and criticism. | Motion pictures—Aesthetics. Classification: LCC NC1765 (ebook) | LCC NC1765 .F65 2019 (print) | DDC 791.43/3409—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044521 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FOR MY FAMILY IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER Apparently he had examined them patiently picture by picture and imagined that they would be screened in the same way, failing at that time to grasp the principle of the cinematograph. —Flann O’Brien Contents List of Illustrations ix Foreword: Hannah Frank’s Pause by Tom Gunning xi Editor’s Introduction by Daniel Morgan xix Acknowledgments xlix Introduction: Looking at Labor 1 1. Animation and Montage; or, Photographic Records of Documents 13 2. A View of the World: Toward a Photographic Theory of Cel Animation 44 3. Pars Pro Toto: Character Animation and the Work of the Anonymous Artist 74 4. The Multiplication of Traces: Xerographic Reproduction and One Hundred and One Dalmatians 108 Conclusion: The Labor of Looking 144 Notes 157 Bibliography 189 Index 207 vii List of Illustrations FIGURES 1.1. Robert Breer, Blazes (1961) 21 1.2 $21 a Day (Once a Month) (Universal, 1941) and Knock Knock (Universal, 1940) 26 1.3. Pages from newspapers and telephone books in animated cartoons 37 1.4. Tortoise Wins by a Hare (Warner Bros., 1943), Fighting Tools (Warner Bros., 1943), What’s Cookin’, Doc? (Warner Bros., 1944), and the Chicago Sunday Tribune. 39 1.5. Meet John Doughboy (Warner Bros., 1941) and the Los Angeles Examiner 40 1.6. Robert Breer, Jamestown Baloos (1957) 42 1.7. Robert Breer, Jamestown Baloos (1957) 43 1.8. Ken Jacobs, Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (1969) 43 2.1. The Painter and the Pointer (Universal, 1944) and Gulliver Mickey (Walt Disney, 1934) 47 2.2. Jumping Beans (Fleischer Studios, 1922) 54 2.3. Animated Hair Cartoon No. 18 (Red Seal Pictures, 1925) 54 2.4. Robert Breer, Fuji (1974) 55 2.5. Popeye Presents Eugene the Jeep (Paramount, 1940) 59 2.6. Hair-Raising Hare (Warner Bros., 1946) 59 2.7. Hare Do (Warner Bros., 1949) 61 2.8. Porky Pig’s Feat (Warner Bros., 1943) 61 2.9. Brave Little Tailor (Disney, 1938) 64 2.10. Duck Amuck (Warner Bros., 1953) 69 ix x List of Illustrations 2.11. All Wet (Disney, 1927) 73 3.1. Dover Boys at Pimento University, or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall (Warner Bros., 1942) 76 3.2. Blow Me Down! (Paramount, 1933) 77 3.3. Birds of a Feather (Disney, 1931), Now That Summer Is Gone (Warner Bros., 1938), The Hams That Couldn’t Be Cured (Universal, 1942), and Three Little Pups (MGM, 1953) 91 3.4. Bathing Buddies (Universal, 1946) and Daddy Duck (Disney, 1948) 92 3.5. Tall Timber (Disney, 1928) and The Chain Gang (Disney, 1930) 93 3.6. Touchdown Mickey (Disney, 1932) and Donald’s Camera (Disney, 1941) 93 3.7. Donald’s Lucky Day (Disney, 1939), Fair Weather Fiends (Universal, 1946), The Case of the Missing Hare (Warner Bros., 1942), and Daffy the Commando (Warner Bros., 1943) 96 3.8. Put-Put Troubles (Disney, 1940), A Tale of Two Kitties (Warner Bros., 1942), and Tweety Pie (Warner Bros., 1947) 97 3.9. The Hep Cat (Warner Bros., 1942) 98 3.10. Big Cheese (Van Beuren, 1930) 102 3.11. The Worm Turns (Disney, 1937) 103 3.12. Lonesome Ghosts (Disney, 1937) 105 3.13. Robert Breer, Rubber Cement (1976) 107 4.1. Robert Taylor, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974) 111 4.2. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) and Cinderella (Disney, 1950) 114 4.3. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 120 4.4. Deduce, You Say! (Warner Bros., 1956) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 130 4.5. The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962) 134 4.6. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 136 4.7. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 137 4.8. “Kanine Krunchies,” Springtime, and What’s My Crime? in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 138 4.9. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney, 1961) 141 5.1. Sniffles Bells the Cat (Warner Bros., 1941) 145 5.2. Sniffles Bells the Cat (Warner Bros., 1941) 148 5.3. Sniffles Bells the Cat (Warner Bros., 1941) 148 5.4. Ball of Fire (dir. Howard Hawks, 1941) and A Song Is Born (dir. Howard Hawks, 1948) 151 5.5. A Song Is Born (dir. Howard Hawks, 1948) and Song of the South (Disney, 1946) 151 5.6. Cinderella (Disney, 1950) 155 Foreword : Hannah Frank’s Pause Tom Gunning Sometime in 2014, Hannah Frank sent me a draft of a chapter from herdissertation on Hollywood cartoons, which I read with curiosity and pleasure. In her analysis of the processes of cel animation, she discussed her own method of analysis and research. In this context she turned to the writings of Emily Dickinson, especially recent research on the poet that not only returns to the original manuscripts to restore Dickinson’s eccentric punctuation and line spacing that early editors tended to tidy up, but investigates Dickinson’s materials: the actual slips of paper she wrote on; their sources (wrappers, envelopes, flyleaves from books), shapes, and textures; as well as the various marks that appear on them. I read this with some fascination even as it went on for several pages. I could see the model that this new Dickinson research set for Frank’s own investigation of the material basis of Hollywood cartoons. Frank was examining the individual animation cels from which animated cartoons of the studio era were composed, as well as tracing technological shifts in animation processes and how these affected what we watch on the screen. But when I met with her to discuss the chapter, I wondered aloud whether such a digression into Dickinson might pose a problem for readers and publishers, even if she had convinced her dissertation committee of its relevance. Hannah gave me that quiet smile I had come to recognize as a sign of her combina- tion of amusement and confidence—plus a dash of mischief. Demonstrating how all these things were related—technology, history, materials, cinema, literature— was precisely the point of her work. I am delighted that now a publisher and editor have agreed and are making this daringly original and constantly surprising work available to a wide group of readers. The only regret that accompanies this happy event is the fact that Hannah herself could not see it, due to her untimely death at age thirty-three. xi xii Foreword Frame by Frame, the published version of Frank’s dissertation, then titled “Looking at Cartoons,” is one of the most thorough examinations yet written of the animated cartoons of the studio era. Frank undertook in-depth research, scrutinizing the films and the materials underlying them, studying animation technology and its changes. She profited from recent decades of serious research and analysis by historians of animation. But she deliberately went further. She not only practiced close analysis of the cartoons she discussed, but asked how far close such readings could go, and what exactly we should pay attention to. Like recent Dickinson scholars, Frank paid attention to things others might ignore or consider unimportant.