The Success Zone

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some sort of story or plot (even if it is a very short one).

Animation itself can be described as the rapid showing of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of methods.

It is hard to believe but the very earliest instances of attempts to capture the impression of motion by drawing can be found in Paleolithic cave paintings. Here animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to express the perception of motion.

Further instances can be seen on an earthenware bowl more than 5,000 years old from Persia and an Egyptian mural of wrestlers in action, which is about 4,000 years old.

However these examples cannot really be described as animation as there was no means of making the characters actually move.

The first mechanical devices designed to supply the illusion of movement were invented for children?s amusement or as entertainment at private parties. These included the zoetrope, magic lantern, praxinoscope, thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, and flip book.

Charles-Emile Reynaud created the first animated film in 1892 while he exhibited an animated film consisting of loops of around 500 frames. This film is also outstanding as the first known example of film perforations being used. His films were not recorded, but drawn directly onto the transparent strip.

But the first film which can truly be designated as an animated cartoon was ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ created by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906. It features a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard, and the faces apparently coming to life.

One of the very first successful animated cartoons was “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914) by Winsor McCay. It is thought of as the first example of true character animation.

All the major movie studios used animated cartoons of 5 to 10 minute lengths as ?fillers? before the main film was shown during the period of the 1930s to the 1960s.Theatrical cartoons were in colossal numbers and MGM, Disney, Paramount and Warner Brothers were the greatest studios producing these 5 to 10-minute “shorts”.

However the ever increasing popularity of TV and the subsequent waning in cinema going has meant that today most animated cartoons are produced for EV.

The most well-known animated cartoon character of all is no doubt Mickey Mouse who was introduced to the world by Walt Disney in May 1928 in Plane Crazy but also starred some six months later in the first animated cartoon with sound – ‘Steamboat Willie’.

By the way, Mickey was originally christened Mortimer Mouse until Walt Disney?s wife persuaded him to make the change.

Mickey Mouse, predated by another cartoon animal called Felix The Cat, made his first appearance in 1919. However another all time favourite cartoon series Tom and Jerry had to wait until 1931 to put in an appearance.

All these characters and many more have long since made the transition from movies to TV where, no doubt, they will be seen for numerous years to come.

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Ronald ‘Carl’ Giles was one of the most famous British post war cartoonists whose output appeared in the British newspapers The Daily Convey and its sister paper The Sunday Express between the dates of 1943 and 1991.

He was born Ronald Giles in Islington, London in 1916. His school-friends dubbed him ?Karlo? after the actor Boris Karloff to whom they believed he bore a resemblance. This was later shortened to Carl and it remained with him for the remainder of his life.

He left school when he was 14 years of age and started working as an office boy for a Wardour Street film company where he was later promoted to an animator for cartoon pictures. This led in 1935 to his employment by the famous producer and director Alexander Korda on the first full-length British sound-tracked colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt.

After a spell working in Ipswich, he joined Fleet Street in 1937. He worked as a cartoonist on the weekly newspaper Reynolds News where his efforts came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and he was offered a job working for both the Daily Express and Sunday Express at the not petty salary of 20 guineas a week. His first cartoon for his new employers was published in the Sunday Express in October 1943.

The 20 guineas a week proved a harbinger of greater fortunes to come as by 1955 he was being paid no less than ?8,060 a week for an output of three cartoons. He was now a wealthy man.

In 1959 he was given the OBE and among his greatest admirers and fans were members of the Royal family who often received originals of his work.

His most famous character creations were The Giles Family who first appeared in August 1945. They were a family from the more well off side of the British working class living in a suburban semi-detached house. The head of the family was Grandma a real battle axe of a person whom anyone crossed at their peril. She is now immortalised as a bronze statue standing in Queen St Ipswich gazing up at the office where Giles used to do his work.

They were utilized by Giles to comment on a topical event in the news of the day and proved to be highly patriotic although wary of authority. One remarkable attribute of the family was that although their homes, pastimes and clothes reflected the changing standards of the day, their ages remained unchanged although the cartoons ran for 46 years.

Today any middle-aged, middle class Englishman ( or woman) will have happy memories of the Giles Annual. This was a very welcome addition to the Christmas stocking and contained a assortment of Gile’s output for the previous year. For many years this compilation was selected by Giles himself.

Carl Giles passed away in 1995 and in 2000 he was voted ‘Britain’s Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century’.

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