early animation

Saucy Felix

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Pam’s Pictorama: This pattern of Felix china has long attracted me and I have very much wanted to own at least a specimen example and now I do. It is Royal Rudolstadt made in 1925, or so it appears from what I read online, although this dish is unmarked. While the Felix-es around the edges look very regular and professional, there’s something sort of wonderfully wonky about the Felix face in the middle. I have always liked the way the figures around the edge look almost as if they would animate if you spin the plate. (They don’t.)

This set of dishes brings the tally of Felix china that I am aware of to three different designs. The others range broadly, from the one I wrote about in Living the Felix Life which is very professional looking and Felix is exactly the same on each to the one in the post here, Dishing Felix, which looks very much like it was copied freehand.

Felix Keep on Walking plate, Pams-Pictorama.com
Felix dish, Pams-Pictorama.com collection

Today’s dish falls soundly between the others aesthetically and I assume it is a tea cup saucer. What a racy tea set this must have been! I have seen cups and creamers from it, but oddly never a tea or coffee pot. I believe pieces are also trimmed in yellow, green and blue and in fact this may be the first pink one I have seen. None of these dishes impresses me as having been made for children. I do believe I would be more inclined to have tea parties if I owned this full set!

I briefly considered buying these as high end cat dishes which, among other things, would make poor Kim a nervous wreck as he is often the one handling the dishes at feeding time. (I neither get up early enough, nor do I get home early enough for Mr. Blackie and Ms. Cookie it seems.) The kits have rather splendid cat dishes anyway and I have decided to show them here as well while we are on the subject. They don’t rise to the level of Felix Royal Rudolstadt by any means, but I think are definitely a step above plastic – and C&B are always happy to see them.

C&B have matching dishes

Periquito, the Spanish Felix of Chocolate Cards

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I considered these quite a find. There were at least another three, but they went high and this was as many as (perhaps more than!) I could afford. It is evident that these were chocolate cards – sort of the Spanish version of Felix meet Bazooka Joe of the 1920’s, and needless to say (all due respect Joe) a heck of a lot better. This Felix doppelganger is pretty charming in his own right, even if he is an knock off. I can only find a passing reference to this series of cards. (Admittedly, I might do better if I read Spanish.) Each one is numbered and the back seems to say there are 25 cards in the series. The one reference I found said there was a total of 48 images. As you can see, I have numbers 9, 13 and 21. I am especially partial to #9 where Faux Felix makes a nice little hammock for himself after seeing the human enjoying one. However, all of them are very charming indeed.

Each card has an explanation of the comic on the back – for those who can’t get the joke on their own I guess. The cat’s name translates to something along the line of Parakeet or Budgie the Mischief Cat. I can’t quite figure out where the bird element comes in, but it may be the limitations of the Google translation. I invite Spanish readers to enlighten me on any of these points.

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Below is a useful thumbnail history from a Spanish site, Tebeosfera, and translated by our friend, Mr. Google:

Series of comic strips featuring the cat “Periquito”, which included translations (probably unlicensed), copies and imitations of the famous character of animation “Felix the Cat” (Felix the Cat) made by several Spanish authors of the Editorial Marco as Regúlez in his own head parakeet (1927) and other publications of the house asRin-tin-tin by authors such as Juan Martinez and Castillo Osete. Subsequently, these cartoons also appear in La Risa in 1950.

In the twenties several collections of character trading cards as dumb cartoons were cartoons, advertising various chocolatiers on the back, as they were also published as Adventures Budgie Cat by Tinez and New Adventures of Periquito Cat by Bofarull.

The name “Jack Budgie” was the most common translation in Spain the popular Felix the cat in the animated short films released in cinemas in the mid-twenties of the twentieth century, which also went on to become the usual nickname followers football club Espanyol (still in force), thanks to the jokes Castanys for satirical football weekly the Xut (1922) and others like the sports Whip (1930), where fans of that team is parodied, calling them ” four cats”. [This piece mystifies me a bit.]

Black Cat editorial also published a similar character named “Jack Periquín” in the Children ‘s Joy (1930).

The site above also has this page of comics which is a much clearer Felix rip off of sorts, sample below. After looking carefully however, it seems that just the logo is the rip-off Felix and the comic is a real one in translation.

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Not in my collection, found at Tebeosfara.com

I have also found this nifty book on Google images which would have held your collection of Periquito cards below.The cards can be found for sale on some Spanish auction sites. I love the fact that he is a bit tubby and he has that extra long tail. He’s like the good living, European cousin of our man.

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Periquito Card Book, not in my collection

I am not sure I understand entirely, but I think the term Gato Periquito is still in use to describe mischievous kitties and therefore if you search on this you will also get a lot of Spanish cat videos and photos of cats getting into all sorts of trouble. As for me, having discovered this kissin’ cousin of my man Felix, you know I will be looking for Gato Periquito toys and other items.

Ho, ho, ho – a Felix Find

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: In my business (if you can call acquiring things and never selling any a business) it is rare to come across an early stuffed Felix that is really different than those I have seen, and in some ways this magnificent Christmas gift from Kim is one of those. Purchased from a British store I stumbled across online called All You Can Bear located some place in Great Britain, I was immediately very enamored of him. After paying a king’s ransom (thank you Santa Kim!) he arrived in a sizable box shortly after Thanksgiving. Christmas Day finally arrived for this Felix fanatic – and there he is in all his glory! This fellow is larger than I fully absorbed from the listing photos and the design of his tail as a sort of third leg makes him take up considerable space. (This will cause some major reshuffling among the stuffed shelves of our apartment!) He is shown here on Christmas morning, atop of a pile of very fine Deitch art work, complete with Christmas lights.

At first I thought he might be related to the Felix below, one that I have always considered the strangest design and of great curiosity, and that I wrote about in the aptly named post Odd Felix. The one below no longer stands, if indeed he was ever designed to, and the face is different, but there is something similar to our new inhabitant about the design of the body and the ears. It is hard to tell from my photo, but as I mention above, the new Felix uses his tail as a sort of third leg. However, looking at them side-by-side I am less inclined to think their origin is the same. The new Felix is an entirely new design for me.

Doggy Felix

Very Unusual Felix in Pictorama Collection, Pams-Pictorama.com

 

One of the reasons I love to collect these toys is that every single one of them ended up with a different expression and this makes them very human for me. After learning that many of those toys, made in London, were hand assembled by women (a blog post of mine I keep going back to myself, East London Toy Factory, Ltd.) it makes sense. It is what has always charmed me most about these guys and this one beguiled me immediately from his listing page. He looks as if he is about to begin a great oration – hand (paw?) held aloft. Or, from another angle, like he has a crazy secret or really off-color joke which is cracking him up and that he can barely keep to himself. Hmm – Felix, what could that be?

 

Flat Felix Photo Finale, Installment 3

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Pictorama Collection, Pams-Pictorama.com

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As of the writing of this post, this third photo postcard of someone posing with a full size two dimensional Felix is the last in my collection. The Felix in this one bears a remarkable resemblance to the second one I wrote about – a variation on the tongue out, lascivious looking Felix. (If you missed the December 10 post it is here Blackpool, Felix Cutout Continued). As I predicted in that post, it makes for a very strange photo with a child. This little girl seems either dumbfounded or, more likely, terrified of him. She is holding the end of his tail in a rather unconvinced fashion – you can just imagine someone telling her to hold onto him, and his tail being the closest and safest seeming piece to hold onto. Scrawled on the back in fairly childish handwriting is the name, Margaret Bettell-Wilkinson.

If you look carefully, an entire amusement park has been painted into the background. There is something which resembles the base of the Eiffel Tower, although maybe they were just aiming for some sort of ride. There is a Ferris wheel and these sort of exhibition hall style buildings – I wonder if this was a specific park they were painting? Perhaps the one the photo studio was in or near. There is that fence with its very forced perspective as well and whatever went on below and above it which is too dark to tell.

The little girl, Margaret we will assume, could be considered a bit woebegone under any circumstances although to some degree as you look at early photos of children, if they are not really dressed up they tend to look tatty by our standards today. I think people in general had fewer clothes and kids wore them hard. This little girl does have a nice beret on and a sporty coat. I think it is her skinny, bare legs and droopy socks, combined with her effort to put some space between her and Felix, that makes her look at bit sad. Fair to say, at least in this context, Margaret is just not a Felix fan!

While one might think that perhaps photos where people are not at their happiest or best do not end up being saved, this just isn’t true. We all know this. Oddly, we hang onto all the photos of our loved ones in the end. A photo of someone, a pet, or something else you care about is hard to throw out even if they look funny or it is a bit blurry. It is even hard to delete these on your phone – where you know all those photos are piling up and you get constant warnings about storage being full. This is a fortunate part of human nature for the photo collector like myself, but the bane of the organized and the squeezed for space. Still, once a photo was made into an object like this wonderful postcard, you could never throw it out – even when your now 35 year old daughter comes home and says you should get rid of that thing. I am so very relieved no one listened.

Blackpool, Felix Cutout Continued

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Posing with Felix at Blackpool, Pams-Pictorama.com

 

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Devoting ourselves further today to the ever-important work of discovering and discussing Felix the cat photos! This is the second in a three part series of photo postcards taken with a wooden, handmade Felix. When you think about it, despite having to find someone to draw and paint Felix freehand, it was a much smaller investment and less of a commitment than the life-size doll, took up less space in the studio too. Still, a general sense of jolliness prevails.

Here we have a card which is a recent acquisition of mine taken of these two roguish fellows having a holiday in Blackpool, England. (It was never sent and nothing written on the back, therefore I am taking the seller’s word for the fact it was taken in Blackpool.) There are fewer of these photo postcards where Felix is merely a board cut-out to be posed with – or were fewer saved for me to find? While they may not offer the glory of the larger than life-size stuffed Felix at the seaside, someone was still having a mighty fine time posing with him while on holiday. I scooped this one up on eBay, what appeared to be minutes after it having been posted in England as a buy it now. Didn’t even have to wait for an auction. It was waiting for me.

Without any real firsthand knowledge, it appears that Blackpool is a holiday spot which may be a working class, distinctly family oriented holiday locale. A quick look online shows Blackpool on the seashore and sites that rent houses and RV’s and continues as a resort today. Despite their suits, these fellows look less prosperous and less devil may care than last week’s subject in Felix Photo, the Cut-outs, Part 1, and the painted background is also less evocative and interesting. This Felix offers his arm, just like that one, however these guys aren’t having any of that. Unlike that Felix in his happy dancing pose, this one is a bit lascivious. (What’s with the tongue Felix? Can we really imagine small children posing with him?) In fact, these gentleman stand behind Felix as if they are friends of his, taking him home after a long night at the pub, before he can really get himself in trouble. However, here these gentlemen are, in suit and tie – handkerchief and hat for one – posing for the camera; their holiday visit recorded for us to consider, barreling on toward a century later.

In closing, just for the heck of it, I am including a link to a 1920 Felix cartoon, The Circus to help put you in the high mystic mood. It has lots of mice and one of them even does the Felix dance!

Felix Photo, the Cut-outs, Part 1

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Photo postcard from the Pictorama Collection

 

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am writing this in anticipation of receiving a similar card I just purchased, another of folks with a Felix cut-out prop. I consider these Felix cut-out cards a sub-genre of the photo postcards posing with the stuffed Felix which I collect- admittedly with some passion! I originally thought them lesser, but I have developed an affection for these, each Felix painted freehand and obviously off-model by whoever they were able to hire for the job – some better, some less skillful – and I decided an examination of them might be fun. I have owned this one for a long time – it sits cheerfully on the wall near the kitchen with many of the other Felix postcards. The stage set in this one has a nice background too. I wonder if it was only used for Felix or if it had multiple uses – Mickey perhaps?

This Felix is in the happy dancing pose (in the very early cartoons he would dance around in a circle when especially pleased with himself) an attempt which was nicely ambitious on the part of the creator. The face could be a bit more Felix-y, and this version looks like he could lose a few pounds in the tummy too. I never thought of Felix a tubby guy. Still, the spirit of the cat is there!

The posing fellow in question is looking fashionably casual in his white ducks and blazer – I think I detect argyle socks – open collar shirt. I suspect that linking his arm through Felix’s wasn’t his own idea, but that of the photographer. The background makes us think he and Felix are on embarking on a sea voyage – I get the feeling that this was likely taken at a seaside resort in Britain or Australia, but is unidentified. We don’t know if it was the fellow in the photo, but someone thought enough of this photo to keep it for almost 100 years.

The link here, Felix Saves the Day, is for an early Felix cartoon, one mixed with a lot of live action. At the very end you can catch his happy dance which inspired this pose.

Sticky Wicket?

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Pam Photo Post: These bizarre Felix photos are like catnip to me and I went to the wall to acquire this one recently, despite its damage. It appears to have been glued into an album (Felix’s family album perhaps?) and somewhat rudely peeled away. It has left it somewhat crinkly. It is a wonderful trick of the camera’s focus (and a tiny croquette set) that makes Felix appear to be human-sized. It was in fact advertised as a child in a Felix costume. I am pretty sure I recognize (and own) the model toy here. (He was featured in the post Toy Hospital earlier this year.)

It is a fascinating photo – it is not a postcard, although it is roughly that size, a bit bigger. It sets my imagination ablaze – what exactly did the photographer have in mind and how did it end up in an album? Who had the doll-sized croquet set if my assumptions are correct? It would have been taken by a canny photographer which, as I mention above, created the illusion. Or am I wrong and it is an extra-large size Felix? It  does remind me of the utterly extraordinary larger-than-life Felixes in my post Greetings from Felix in Kuala Lumpur where he appears to be directing traffic or something along those lines on the streets of the city.

As for croquet – it was well established in the United States by the late 1860’s, although its origin is in Britain. Some folks might be surprised to know that Central Park has long been a permanent home to croquet and lawn bowling societies. Although a very long-standing feature of the Park, I doubt an original one dubbed by Olmsted who preferred only seasonal entertainments and no permanent playgrounds or facilities in his original design. Still, there is something distinctly British about our American man Felix here. As we know, the Brits embraced Felix even more deeply than we in his homeland and indeed, this photograph was wrested from a dealer in Great Britain.

I will seek some advice from friends who restore photos at the Met to see if there is anything to be done for this little beauty – or at least the best way to frame and preserve it from further damage. If we make any significant improvement I promise to a follow up post.

Toy Hospital

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: The toy posts continue, as does the work in our compact apartment; I write to you from a very dusty computer this morning. I snapped a few quick photos of toys as I cleaned them and packed them for the duration of the ceiling work. Last week I featured Felix-es that could use some work in my post, Felix…the Bad and the Ugly, and it reminded me of a toy hospital that used to reside on Lexington Avenue, near Bloomingdales. I worked in the neighborhood, my brief stint at the Central Park Conservancy, and was of course curious. As you walked by you could see toys piled up in a second story bay window in a old building – a large sign declaring Toy Hospital. Therefore one day, when to my great horror, the arms broke off this Felix I knew exactly where I was headed.

On my lunch hour I chugged up a couple of flights of old, steep stairs in one of those incredibly narrow, dark stairwells you find in very old New York City walk-up buildings of a certain vintage. A glass door opened into a room which pretty much had toys scattered and piled helter-skelter, waist high with no visible path through them to the window. The shop ran the length of the floor, with about a third off it closed off as what appeared to be a workshop at one end. The toys strewn around were not of any particular vintage – all in various states of repair and disrepair. I did not see other antique Felix dolls.

An elderly man greeted me and I showed him the patient. Felix is held together by a wire armature – his arms and legs are meant to move. The armature was so very old, and rusty, that it had broken. The man took Felix and told me he would have a look and he would let me know how he would proceed.

This Felix was one of my early indulgences. It was in the relatively early days of eBay (I was just congratulated on my 17th year on eBay by them – I was relieved that they didn’t show me how much I have spent in that time) and this was the first time I saw this model of Felix and I had to have him. I paid fairly dearly as a result, but had a very deep affection for his real weirdness. I believe he is a Chad Valley made toy – as is my recent Christmas gift from Kim featured in Felix as Cat written several months back. Years after purchasing him, when they had become a bit more ubiquitous on eBay, I was at a grand antique toy market in Atlantic City and saw someone selling an entire basket full of them! The El Dorado of a certain kind of Felix. She said that they were prizes at fairs in Britain. I have never really agreed with that, I believe the quality is too high and they were only purchased as toys, but more on that another time.

When I was summoned to discuss the nature of the repair, I brought Kim with me, figuring that he would appreciate the unusual nature of the enterprise. The elderly doll doc went through his plan for a meticulous rebuilding of the armature. The fee would be somewhat astronomical. I can’t remember what I suggested he might do that would be more simple – I suspect I pointed out that the arms no longer needed to move, as we don’t actually play with him much, and instead just re-attached. The toy doc looked at me and intoned, “No! I must do what is right for the doll!” Of course, in the end, I meekly agreed and Felix was restored to his original glory there. I paid more for the repair than I had for Felix, but of course it was worth it to have him back – the integrity of his moving pieces intact.

Looking back on it, I feel that the fee included the price of admission to one of those dying New York curiousities, ultimately a victim to the toy doc’s advanced age and ever-rising rents. Sadly it was gone a few years after that, a nail salon in it’s place.

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Felix from the side – note his hump back!

Greetings from Felix in Kuala Lumpur

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Felix neg woman & kidsGirl and Felix negFelix neg Kids in Chairs

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Although I detoured slightly last week from my Felix fiesta, I am putting a cap on it (this edition anyway) with this really interesting series of photographs. One of the things that makes these unusual is that I purchased them as negatives. I was not able to purchase the entire lot – they were sold separately and went for a fair amount of money. However, with the exception of the one below, I feel I got the best of them. (Note the two small Felix dolls at the base of the huge one!)

The One That Got Away

The One That Got Away

I do not know what the story is here. At first I thought it was a family album of negatives, but after I saw the images of the large Felix that seemed less likely. Not surprisingly they were sold by a person in Great Britain. Then, after considering the whole collection I have developed the theory that perhaps they came from a photographer’s collection of negs. They are old, large format negatives and if I were able to print them by hand (which I would love to do someday when I have access to a darkroom again) I would be interested in seeing them as contact prints – perhaps even done as platinum prints. For now we send our thanks to our good friend, Eileen Travell, for scanning these and creating these positives.

They were taken in Kuala Lumpur and the larger than life Felix is in front of the Whiteaway Laidlaw department store in the one photo. Whiteaway Laidlaw was a British chain throughout India and the British empire of the East, undoubtedly supplying the British nabobs and wealthy locals with the necessities of European life away from home. It’s nickname was Right-away and Paid-for as it operated, not surprisingly, on a cash only basis. (Not unlike our Whole Foods-Whole Paycheck of today?)

So many questions remain. Was the photographer one of those who traveled around with his Felix doll props, much like the many I have shown with Felix on the beach throughout Britain, Australia and New Zealand? It is notable that the big Felix in these photos is very reminiscent of a postcard I treasure that was featured in an early post, Felix for a Cause. I would dare say the very same model. Enough to say, the sun never set on the British empire – nor on Felix evidently.

In addition to thanking my co-worker and friend Eileen Travell, Photographer for the Metropolitan Museum for making these “prints” for me, a very special thanks to Nora Kennedy and her colleagues in the Photograph Conservation area of the Museum who looked at the negatives and told me how to store them.

Just In – a New Aesop’s Fable Doll!

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Which doll is this?

Which doll is this?

Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: I have a deep relationship with both the Aesop’s Fable cartoons and these splendid toys. (For another post on the subject and my collecting mania in general see my earlier post, Mine, all mine…at long last.) When I discovered the cartoons, well into adulthood, I felt as though these were finally the long lost cartoons I had always been looking for. Reel after reel of endless black cats and mice – chasing, charmingly anthropomorphic. I share an example that somehow is a high water mark for me Makin’ ’em Move, In a Cartoon Studio. It is, of course, animator cats, dogs and pigs, slaving away at the drawing table – just like something out of Boulevard of Broken Dreams…one of my favorite Kim Deitch books! 

The existence of the toys came to me even later, but I fell hard for them. The promotional photo below was my introduction to them. Not surprisingly, the cat in the polka dot skirt was my first acquisition – The Countess. I bought her in a Hake’s auction (I believe Kim helped on that one – in fact I believe he’s had a hand in helping to purchase virtually all of these. He’s very nice about supporting my habit.) We really paid up. She is pretty pristine. The dog in the red pants (Don the Dog) came off of eBay and I got a pretty good deal. The very hurt one on the lower right (another version of The Countess?) Kim picked up during a visit to San Francisco a few years back. The slightly grimy one in the maroon corduroy, I frankly don’t remember acquiring, although I am thinking it must have also been on eBay – he seems to have been altered and I am not sure who he is – Raffles is my guess.

The good news and the bad news it seems is since people don’t know what these dolls are so one most often just stumbles upon them.

Group of Aesop Fable Dolls

The question I pose for today is – which doll is this new one? It is generally thought that these six were it. But careful study shows he just isn’t one of them – and he’s in pretty pristine condition so I don’t think he’s been altered either. Any thoughts out there in cartoon land?

Aesope's Fables toys

Lastly, this tidbit I turned up while searching for the new doll. This is an old advertisement for a theater contest giveaway of Aesop’s Fables dolls! Oh lucky people of the past. Evidently the outsized Countess was four feet high and a replica of the doll! Would love to find that some day. As I’m sure you know, I will just keep looking.

Aesop Fable Doll Ad