Aesop's Film Fables

History

Terry was inspired to make the series by young actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook, who suggested making a series of cartoons based on Aesop's Fables. Although Terry later claimed he had never heard of Aesop, he said that Estabrook's idea was worthwhile. However, historian Hal Erickson notes that this claim that Paul Terry had never heard of Aesop is false, given that these fables were widely taught in all American schools at the time. Terry immediately began to set up a new studio called Fables Studios, Inc. and received backing from the Keith-Albee Theatre circuit.

The series launched on June 19, 1921, with The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg. On that same day, Van Beuren announced that the pictures would be distributed exclusively by Pathe. Only the earliest films are loose adaptations of the actual fables and later entries usually revolve around cats, mice, and the disgruntled Farmer Al Falfa. Terry had developed Farmer Al in the previous decade, and this series would be his most prolific appearance. Cartoonist Milt Gross worked briefly on the series as scriptwriter and animator.

Each short concludes with a moral that usually has nothing to do with the actual cartoon itself. Terry staffer Mannie Davis once remarked that the morals were even "funnier than the whole picture itself" and Terry said "the fact that they're ambiguous is the thing that made 'em funny". Morals include "Go around with a chip on your shoulder and someone will knock your block off" or "Marriage is a good institution, but who wants to live in an institution?". As the series became all-talking, these morals became brief animated vignettes in 1929, often featuring a cat and a mouse. However, these were dropped by early-1930.

The series proved to be enormously popular with the public during the 1920s. Walt Disney admitted that his earliest ambition was to produce cartoons of comparable quality to Paul Terry. With the popularity of Al Jolson's part-talkie The Jazz Singer in 1927, as well as the huge success of the first all-talkie Lights of New York in 1928, producer Amadee J. Van Beuren realized the potential of sound films and bought Fables Studios to produce sound animation films. Van Beuren, now owner of the newly-named Van Beuren Studios, urged Terry to add the innovation to his films. Terry argued that adding sound would only complicate the production process, but ended up doing so anyway, and the series was renamed to Aesop's Sound Fables.

Released on October 14, 1928. Dinner Time was the first cartoon with a synchronized soundtrack ever released to the public, but the film did not catch on and was soon overshadowed by Disney's Steamboat Willie, released on November 18 of the same year. Fables Studios did not cease production of silent cartoons until the release of A Bugville Romance on June 8, 1930. Other entries in the series are: The Window Washers (1925), Scrambled Eggs (1926), Small Town Sheriff (1927), A Close Call (1929), The Iron Man (1930), Good Old Schooldays (1930), Dixie Days (1930), Western Whoopee (1930), Laundry Blues (1930), Circus Capers (1930), Gypped in Egypt (1930), College Capers (1931), Cinderella Blues (1931), The Wild Goose Chase (1932), and Silvery Moon (1933).

In 1929 Paul Terry quit, starting his own TerryToons Studios, and John Foster took over the series under The Van Beuren Corporation, formerly Fables Studios, Inc. In early 1933, John Foster was also dismissed from his position as studio head in favor of conductor and composer Gene Rodemich. Van Beuren tasked Rodemich with creating animated adaptations of characters from cartoonist Otto Soglow's comic strips The Little King and Sentinel Louey. The first film produced, A Dizzy Day, was praised by critics for its modernist musical accompaniment.

In 1933, Van Beuren introduced Cubby Bear, a protagonist for the series to compete against Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Bosko. Cubby was meant to be the successor of their Milton & Rita Mouse characters. Van Beuren then subcontracted three cartoons to Bosko creators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who had cut ties with producer Leon Schlesinger over budget issues after having produced the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series for Schlesinger and Warner Bros. Pictures from 1930 to 1933. Three cartoons were produced and two were released, while one, Mischievous Mice, was cancelled after animation production was completed; Harman acquired the film's rights in 1948 and released it in television packages as a silent film with added sound.

The series finally came to an end in 1934, when the studio's veteran animators, fed up with the hours of unpaid overtime imposed by Van Beuren, decided to attempt unionization. These meetings were led by animator Harry Bailey, who had recently been introduced to socialist ideas by comic book artist Otto Soglow, for whom he had adapted several of his comics into animation. However, one of the studio's leading animators, Vernon Stallings, decided to denounce his colleagues to Van Beuren in exchange for taking over the studio from Bailey. In retaliation, Van Beuren decided to fire all the employees who had attended union meetings, with the exception of conductor Gene Rodemich, bringing Aesop's Fables featuring Cubby Bear to an abrupt halt, as well as canceling new series in production, such as the animated adaptation of the Amos 'n Andy series and another unnamed animated series centered on the Lucky Leo and Lily Lion characters. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) lists 447 titles from 1920 to 1929 under the production company name of Aesop Fables Studio, and 198 titles under Van Beuren Studios from 1928 to 1934.

Filmography

1934

Unreleased

Legacy

Aesop's Fables provided inspiration to Walt Disney to found the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, where he and Ub Iwerks co-created the Laugh-O-Grams and the Alice Comedies. Even into 1930, Disney wanted his cartoons to be as funny as the series.