Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood
ISBN: 9780520950122
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Animated films -- United States -- History and criticism; Wit and humor in motion pictures;

This collection of essays explores the link between comedy and animation in studio-era cartoons, from filmdom's earliest days through the twentieth century. Written by a who's who of animation authorities, Funny Pictures offers a stimulating range of views on why animation became associated with comedy so early and so indelibly, and illustrates how animation and humor came together at a pivotal stage in the development of the motion picture industry. To examine some of the central assumptions about comedy and cartoons and to explore the key factors that promoted their fusion, the book analyzes many of the key filmic texts from the studio years that exemplify animated comedy. Funny Pictures also looks ahead to show how this vital American entertainment tradition still thrives today in works ranging from The Simpsons to the output of Pixar.

Daniel Goldmark is Associate Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University and the author of Tunes for 'Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon (UC Press). Charlie Keil is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of Early American Cinema in Transition and American Cinema's Transitional Era (UC Press).