When the Theater Was Entertainment
This episode starts with the earliest days of animation. It gives a brief idea of some of the ways that cartoons evolved in the early 20th century. There were color cartoons long before there were color movies. There were sound cartoons a few years before there sound films. The second half of the episode focuses mostly on the two big cartoon studios of the 1930s: Fleischer and Disney. Fleischer was the home of Betty Boop and Popeye and later the first Superman cartoons. There are lots of samples of early work by Disney, Fleischer, and some of the smaller cartoon studios.
Fleischer Studios went out of business during World War 2. Disney survived by branching out and doing more than just cartoons for movie theaters. They also created a lot of instructional movies and war propaganda for the US Government.
The host of this 12-part series is Dr. Thomas R. Reich.
I don't think this is great but there's enough here to keep me interested and this episode is just 23 minutes long.. The clips of early cartoons, most of which I don't think I have seen before, are fun to watch.
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