One of Walt Disney’s oldest friends was sure Ub Iwerks. He has been with Walt since the earliest days of his career and played a very important role in the creation of Mickey Mouse. But in 1930 Ub Iwerks, after almost a decade spent working with Disney, left Walt’s studio to form one of his own. The first cartoon produced there was "Fiddlesticks", produced in Two-strip Technicolor. It's a cartoon like many others from the early 1930s, without an actual plot, but made of musical numbers where the characters sing and dance along with the music. The star of the cartoon, Flip the Frog, who appeared in 38 Ub Iwerks cartoons between 1930 and 1933, was created by Iwerks at the Disney studio, when he was still working there: an early version of the character appeared in the Silly Symphony “Summer”.
The influence of the Disney days in Iwerks' early solo work is clear: for example, in "Fiddlesticks", Flip's fiddle-playing pal bears a strong resemblance to a certain well-known mouse. It is debatable, though, whether Iwerks could be considered or not the real "man behind the mouse"; in fact, Disney never drew any of Mickey’s cartoons, which were completely animated by Iwerks during the early years. If you ask me, he actually was Mickey's creator.
Anyway, here you can see some pictures from Flip's debut in "Fiddlesticks":
More pictures from other Ub Iwerks cartoons to come in the next days, so stay tooned, folks!
I alway though the creating Mickey was a team effort: Walt thought of the character and Ub created the design. Also, I've seen that cartoon before. Intresting that Ub did a color cartoon before Walt(though another Walt did a Technicolor sequence firs).
ReplyDeleteYes , it's not a Technicolor cartoon as you said but
ReplyDeletea two strip color cartoon .
I always thought to Iwerks as the one who definitively created Mickey graphically and as a character .
Walt's role became greater after Iwerks left and he became the voice of the mouse ( with his inimitable falsetto )for many years !
Walt always claimed Mickey as a creation of his own but I suppose the character became Walt's only after Iwerks left for his own dreams of success .
After all , graphically , Mickey is only Oswald the Lucky Rabbit..with round ears !
And both characters shared many characteristics in the first years of life of the mouse , when Ierks was the main responsable of the shorts .
Only after , Mickey became Disney icon ( and less funny as a character per se ) .
This musical extravaganza is a good cartoon but I tink that Ub Iwerks , like Bob McKimson , was a better animator ( one of the greatest of the industry ) than a director .
Though both men somhow got to do better projects after many clunks. For example, Ub's speical effects in movies and theme parks and Robert's Inspector and Pink Panther cartoons and the Looney Tunes from 1968-69 were good and decent after a period of flops. But I'm going off topic here.
ReplyDeleteBy the way , mmm...donuts , GREAT POST !
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see other ones !
This cartoon is the pilot Flip the Frog cartoon.
ReplyDelete