Felix the Cat

Felix Roly Poly

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Felix side view – check out the whiskers!

Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: The parade of toys emerging as a result of our recent big pack up continues with this fellow who I kept out of a box so I could write about him. This Felix was made by Schoenhut in Germany and appears to have been made around 1922-1924, according to my research. Felix is made of paper mache and appears very sturdy indeed. Therefore, it was a surprise when my research turned up that he was actually a candy container. He only stands about 7″ high so I have to assume that the candy was small and there wasn’t much of it. I cannot see where he would have opened, nor how he has been re-sealed. (Leaving me to wonder – is it possible that the now old, old candy is still in there? Or is this misinformation?)

It is almost beyond my imagination to consider such a wonderful world where candy might have been delivered in such a container into the happy and greedy hands of children. These roly poly toys do not appear to be in short supply so children must have liked Felix more than the candy. In the mugshots above, you can just barely see that he maintains part of a Schoenhut sticker on his tummy and to my especial amazement, he has kept his whiskers all these years!

If Felix was not your roly poly of choice, you could have Santa, goblins, golliwogs, fat men and bunnies – among others. I do own some other black cat candy containers (covered in mohair) made in Germany. Alas, they are packed away and will have to await their moment in the spotlight at some future date.

Roly poly toys seem to have been around for a long time but I could not find out much about their origin. It seems that numerous cultures – Russian, Chinese and European – actually have versions of the toy. Quite simply, the toy is weighted and rounded on the bottom so if you push it over it bounces right back up. I guess this was devised for small children to entertain themselves with since they couldn’t actually knock it over. Wikipedia sites Weebles (by the Fischer Price company with the memorable tagline, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down!) as a contemporary manifestation of the roly poly. They do not mention the bottom-heavy, blow up knockdown clown toys of my youth which I adored. As big as a small child (I found the sheer size thrilling – I always liked big toys) you could sidle on up to it and give it a poke and it would go down – and bounce right back up! Wonderful! I think I could go out and buy one now and still enjoy it.

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!

Felix…the Bad and the Ugly

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Missing an ear and an arm!
Needs a lot of TLC…

Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: One part of my toy collection that got packed earlier today was this stash of what I call Fraken-Felixes. Their sheer strangeness is what attracted me and I didn’t pay much for them. I don’t know what it is, but the stranger the Felix the stronger my affinity and these are certainly odd. There’s something wonderful about the blue eyes applied to the Felix at the top, and I contemplate (perhaps as a retirement project in years to come?) what I might do to bring these other two back to a semblance of respectability.

Sadly, I am not gifted in this area. Growing up I ruined every sewing machine bobbin I ever came near – to the extreme displeasure of many a Home Ec (and shop!) teacher. My sister, Loren, did teach herself to sew fairly well. (She was the exception however – I do not believe I ever saw my mother so much as sew a button on, although I have memories of my mother’s mother hemming the occasional thing.) If these are skills that are genetically passed I was bound to be challenged or at least limited. Other than an uncle who makes furniture and repairs electronics with skill (as did his father) we are a long line of artistic people who are somewhat inept in the areas of actual construction and repair.

Still, I do think that maybe even I can figure out an ear here or an eye there? New arms and tails will be more complicated though and I remain unsure where to start. I recently acquired a Mickey and a Minnie with severe condition issues as well and I have been contemplating what might be done to at least stabilize them. There’s a Popeye and Wimpy who are best if they stay immobile as well. We will see, but maybe I can challenge my grandfather and uncle and Deitch Studio Toy Hospital will emerge as my future calling.

Betty Jewel – and Felix!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Betty poses here with this sprightly Felix strolling on a stick – a toy I have bid on, but not won to date. In pencil on the back it reads, Betty Jewel 1927 Arizona Bound (followed by something I cannot read which might be C/SE7). This photo has been cut down to its current, approximately, 8″x 10″ form as you can tell from the white margin at the bottom. Another actress is almost, but not quite, cut out of the photo. Since no other women are credited on the film I can’t even make a guess.

Betty is very perky here indeed. This film, currently lost, starred an as yet relatively unknown Gary Cooper. The Wikipedia entry has a brief plot from the film which seems to portray Gary’s character as spending all his time looking after his white wonder horse Flash – love that. White wonder horse – hotsy-totsy I say! The IMDb database has a review by someone who says that saw 90 feet of it at the Library of Congress. (Unfortunately, it would not appear to be the piece with Felix in it I will add.) I have slipped in another still from the film – this one between Betty and Gary, although again, sadly minus Felix.

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Betty Jewel, born Julia Baroni, on April 29, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska died in 1963. She has eight acting credits between the years of 1923 and 1927 – with three of them in 1927 and she disappears from the scene after that. Betty seems to have started in the biz as a Ziegfield Girl in the teens. (As Kim pointed out, this means that there is a nude photo of her bouncing around as there is of each Ziegfield girl – and sure enough Google images complied. There is a semi-nude photo of her by the Ziegfield photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. I was unable to grab a usable image so you will  have to search on your own if you are interested.)

Meanwhile, Gary Cooper was bursting forth on the scene and ’27 was a turning point for him with seven films. Not many of these seem to survive however. Kim contributes that Cooper’s big break was in the 1926 film The Winning of Barbara Worth. He is not the star, Ronald Coleman is, but instead a supporting role, competing for Vilma Banky. The film does survive in good condition and a great looking clip that has Gary in it can be found on Youtube here: The Winning of Barbara Worth. Obviously, Gary continues to work and moves into more leading roles. As one review points out though, maybe it wasn’t until you could hear his rather wonderful voice in sound films that he really takes off.

I digress however. Getting back to Felix who brought us here in the first place. Those of you who have frequented Pictorama in the past know that in his day, everyone posed with Felix and that he made such guest appearances as this in numerous films and with many stars of the day. By way of reminder, these former posts are part of the genre and I have linked to some of them below. For those of you these posts are new to – enjoy!

Felix Plays a Prime Prop
Felix is the Cat’s Pajamas – Zita Harrison and Pagliaccio the Cat
Mistinguett – Felix Goes to the Dogs
Felix Makes the Picture Better!

 

 

Be Mine! Or The Luckiest Girl in the World…

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Pam’s Pictorama Valentine Special!

Last year’s Valentine post was a midweek special – Valentine Bonus Post – but this year Kim’s extraordinary entry is getting the marquee treatment it deserves! As many of you FB readers know, at my request years ago, Kim has made me a Valentine’s Day drawing every year we have been together. Since I was a fan before I was a girlfriend (and then wife) I can’t think of anything better – me featured in a Kim Deitch exclusive. And here is this year’s hot off the press.

For those of you who have been following the sketches for his new book you will realize that this drawing falls within the new story, fleshing it out a bit. Here’s a sketch from this part of the story:

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Kim has expanded our real estate holdings substantially, and in the Valentine I am in one of the many rooms in our building dedicated to dioramas scenes designed to feature my toy collection. (Oh joy! Oh bliss!) Here I am with a variety of life size Felix dolls, lined up for people to pose with – we all know it is one of my life’s ambitions to get my hands on one of those, let alone several as shown here. Cookie and Blackie are checking things out, and you can make out Waldo considering a room dedicated to his origin story as well.

By way of reminder, below is last year’s Valentine, which as you can see, ties in here as well. I am sporting my Queen of Catland outfit and Bonzo, my Donald Duck and Oskar are there – even then Waldo was working the Plot Robot and of course Cookie and Blackie are going wild – and we are looking back in time to when this photo was taken. Hmm, looks like Katherine Whaley, Rousseau and Mr. Varney in that Felix photo!

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Felix Featured on Tin

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is an area of my collection that I realize is perhaps a bit obscure. I have a clutch of these tintypes, about a half dozen, of people posing with Felix. Unlike the photo postcards, the tintypes (which rarely turn up on the market, I can’t say I find one every second year or so) are almost universally poorly developed and dark. They usually cost a mint – so someone else, somewhere in the world must also like them – and I pursue them ruthlessly. I do not think there is a single one in my collection I haven’t had to really pay up for. They hang, as a group, in a small hallway where the light is on infrequently and therefore they remain in almost constant semi-darkness.

Still, the window onto the past these provide is irresistible to me. It is that perfect moment when the Felix craze was on, but tintypes were still the photo of the day. Clothing styles are a bit earlier and everything a bit older and more romantic. Two couples, or is it three? All arms linked, hard to tell. Everyone dressed to the nines in their best outfit splendor. The women’s shoes drive home that point – and the luxe fur collar on the one woman’s coat. The men seem a bit self-conscious, especially the chap in the middle who is holding Felix up. They remained somewhere, in a drawer, an album or on a shelf, a treasured item – as they are to me today.

 

A Cuppa Felix

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Pam’s Pictorama: I bought this silver plate and enamel Felix cup for next to nothing on eBay a couple of years ago. I had not seen this piece and evidently I was the only person who was biting that day. Admittedly Felix is a bit damaged by someone who tried to polish this with paste, some of the enamel in his legs is missing. This is about as good as it polishes up without using paste, some of the silver plate having worn through in places.

Wonder if it was meant as a baby cup – lucky kid! No markings and perhaps he is a kissing cousin to the enamel spoons, although the Felix looks a bit different. I use it as a catch all on my bedside table where it tends to attract earrings missing a mate and seldom worn rings.

Felix has a winning grin here. It barely reads as Felix, yet is also immediately recognizable. This is British – no surprise. The Brits seem to have incorporated Felix into all sorts of decorative and household items. I think his ubiquitous presence is hard for us to imagine now. While one thinks of Mickey Mouse having a greater impact I sometimes wonder when I see these items as I examined in my former post Living the Felix Life and Spooning with Felix which highlights a not entirely dissimilar enameled Felix spoon.

As for me, I will always be happy to decorate with a little bit more early Felix.

Handy Felix

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: I have done much blogging about some of my more obscure Felix items (with more to come!) and this puppet is another. There are many items I pay up for, but my constant combing occasionally pays dividends with an item that is great and that no one else seems to want. This was one of those. I have never seen another puppet exactly like this it, and I bought it for a nominal amount uncontested on eBay many years ago. It interests me that the Steiff Felix puppet goes for a fortune and this little guy didn’t even earn a nibble. My good fortune.

I assume this is mostly likely one of those East London Toy Factory Felix toys that I wrote about last year. He most definitely has a handmade, slightly less than professional appeal. He is awkward to use – I realized this when trying to take his photo on my hand – and isn’t balanced quite right for ease of movement.

He is very endearing however and he instantly became a favorite of mine. I have not found an optimum way to display him. He hangs out with the other Felix dolls on the shelves, just folded in half. I like to take him down one in a while though – he looks well loved, and despite his flaws he was clearly a much loved and well used toy, which in turn was well preserved these many, many years. Thank you British child somewhere!

Felix and the Gang

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Felix and gang

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get more of my Felix photos onto this blog. While organizing and recording them was one of the prime motives behind starting it, I realized recently that I have barely scratched the surface of my collection in this area. I have allowed myself to travel down many tributaries, but 2016 will be the year of Felix photos!

There is something a bit homemade about the Felix doll this very lively group is posing with here. One of my never-ending fascinations with Felix toys and photos is the huge variation of the off-model Felix-es one sees. Mickey Mouse can have a similar quality but Disney sat on pikers pretty quick and hard so there is less to choose from. But Felix, hand-made in factories in England, tends to have a wide variety of expression – most often goofy, sometimes downright insane.

Each and every person in this group, shown in their period swimming togs, seems to be enjoying this photo and their day at the beach. Even the fully suited gent in the back is smiling on them. The sun is glinting in and it looks like a raucously good time at the beach today.

Felix as Cat

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Felix portrait

 

Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: Oh Merry Christmas to me! This extraordinary Felix was a gift from Kim this Christmas. In truth, I picked him out on eBay months ago and Kim purchased him and tucked him away. Christmas morning was my first good look at him though – and wowza!

I have only ever seen one or two Felix dolls posed on all fours, but never this model. Felix walking (upright) was part of his whole appeal – and schtick. His humpbacked thinking manner is recreated in two and three dimensions – often with the hump in his back exaggerated, as he walks, pondering something, which his hand/paws behind his back. I have a plate which bears the much used motto Felix Keep on Walking which is a play on this. (See my prior post Living the Felix Life which features this item.) As Mickey Mouse and countless others would ape later, the anthropomorphic charm is all about being upright and therefore more human.

Christmas night Kim and I stumbled home after our annual trip to my folks in NJ and curled up on the couch to take a look at another of my Christmas gifts – the superb DVD Cartoon Roots. (I know, I am a very lucky woman!) This outstandingly curated DVD put together by Tom Stathes deserves a shout out. Instead of the usual entries in the early animation stakes, this disk manages to have the one or two outstanding examples of each that you’re pretty sure you have never seen. I have not yet viewed the whole thing (why rush?) but already have seen a few excellent Terry Aesop Fables, a strange and interesting Krazy Kat (where he seems to be trying to morph into Felix…) and Felix Comes Back, a splendid example from 1922.

I have been known to opine on how Felix started out drawn more squarely (pointier I like to say) and both more feline and a tad bit doggy. According to Kim, Bill Nolan was responsible for this subtle neutering of Felix which Messmer passively allowed. Anyway, I was reminded that back in ’22 Felix spent a good portion of his time on all fours – running away fast from things most frequently – but sportier and a bit wilder.

However, all this to say, Felix spent the majority of his career walking on two legs and virtually all the toys and merchandising reflect this. In all the many hours (days, years) I have spent combing through Felix toy offerings I have, as I said above, only seen him portrayed on all fours a few times so this toy is very unusual. I originally thought of the subject of another post, East London Toy Factory due to the almost hand-made, individual aspect of this and was going to attribute that company as his maker. I lean now instead toward thinking this was made by the folks at Chad Valley. I have not devoted much time writing about the company, they appear to have been the biggest makers of stuffed Felix toys, a company that still makes some toys today. I am, however, open and raring for discussion.

Cookie and Felix

Cookie and Felix Christmas Morning

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For those of you who have an Amazon gift card burning a hole in your pocket post-Christmas, the DVD above can be found at: Cartoon Roots

The eBay seller who sold us Felix did not seem to know much about the origin, but she was lovely. She is Mme Regine Beghin of Belgium and this is a nod to her.