Happy Hooligan tells a whopper to the young Hooligans about the time he was the ambassador to China in this Gregory LeCava cartoon.
Happy Hooligan was a cartoon strip tramp, created by Frederick Burr Opper in 1900. He appeared in a few live action shorts from Vitagraph as soon as he arrived; this series of cartoons flourished for a couple of years; Opper closed the strip down in 1932. Hooligan, well-remembered by fans of comic strips, was last seen as a semi-regular in SAM'S STRIP in the early 1960s.
Although this may seem a simple and even primitive cartoon, it was very advanced for the era. LeCava and his animators, Bill Nolan and Frank Moser, were inventing "rubber tube" animation for their cartoons, in which a rounder style of drawing would facilitate the appearance of motion. Earlier cartoons, like DINKY DOODLE and COLONEL HEEZA LIAR, look stroboscopic by comparison.
In any case, the gags, if racist by modern standards, are funny, the story makes sense and fans of Happy Hooligan -- and LeCava, who would become a major live-action director, best remembered for MY MAN GODFREY -- will be pleased to look at this.
Happy Hooligan was a cartoon strip tramp, created by Frederick Burr Opper in 1900. He appeared in a few live action shorts from Vitagraph as soon as he arrived; this series of cartoons flourished for a couple of years; Opper closed the strip down in 1932. Hooligan, well-remembered by fans of comic strips, was last seen as a semi-regular in SAM'S STRIP in the early 1960s.
Although this may seem a simple and even primitive cartoon, it was very advanced for the era. LeCava and his animators, Bill Nolan and Frank Moser, were inventing "rubber tube" animation for their cartoons, in which a rounder style of drawing would facilitate the appearance of motion. Earlier cartoons, like DINKY DOODLE and COLONEL HEEZA LIAR, look stroboscopic by comparison.
In any case, the gags, if racist by modern standards, are funny, the story makes sense and fans of Happy Hooligan -- and LeCava, who would become a major live-action director, best remembered for MY MAN GODFREY -- will be pleased to look at this.
