Animated Personalities

Cartoon Characters and Stardom in American Theatrical Shorts

David McGowan

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781477317440
• eBook ISBN: 9781477317464
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This pioneering book makes the case that iconic cartoon characters, such as Mickey Mouse, are legitimate cinematic stars, just as popular human actors are.

Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Felix the Cat, and other beloved cartoon characters have entertained media audiences for almost a century, outliving the human stars who were once their contemporaries in studio-era Hollywood. In Animated Personalities, David McGowan asserts that iconic American theatrical short cartoon characters should be legitimately regarded as stars, equal to their live-action counterparts, not only because they have enjoyed long careers, but also because their star personas have been created and marketed in ways also used for cinematic celebrities.

Drawing on detailed archival research, McGowan analyzes how Hollywood studios constructed and manipulated the star personas of the animated characters they owned. He shows how cartoon actors frequently kept pace with their human counterparts, granting "interviews," allowing "candid" photographs, endorsing products, and generally behaving as actual actors did—for example, Donald Duck served his country during World War II, and Mickey Mouse was even embroiled in scandal. Challenging the notion that studios needed actors with physical bodies and real off-screen lives to create stars, McGowan demonstrates that media texts have successfully articulated an off-screen existence for animated characters. Following cartoon stars from silent movies to contemporary film and television, this groundbreaking book broadens the scope of star studies to include animation, concluding with provocative questions about the nature of stardom in an age of digitally enhanced filmmaking technologies.

"[ Animated Personalities] is impressive for its lucid historical structure and exceptionally enjoyable content . . . McGowan breathes life into celluloid figures, giving readers a backstory for some of the most enduring iconic characters of screen history. This is a truly gratifying book." — Choice

"Combining historical, formal, and theoretical modes of analysis, Animated Personalities represents a vital contribution to both star studies and the study of animation in classical Hollywood and beyond. By embracing a key problematic of the study of stardom?the inability to take any element of its construction as authentic?McGowan does not undermine the validity of this approach so much as craft a more honest and complete understanding of it." — Synoptique

Index

Note: fictional names are not inverted.

Abbott and Costello Show, The (radio series), 200–201

Academy Awards, 90, 152, 170, 172, 174–175, 220, 257

acting, 33–34. See also comedian comedy

Adventures of Popeye, 134

Aesop’s Fables (film series), 66, 160–162. See also Terry, Paul

aging, 245–255

Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, 263n2

Alice Comedies (film series), 66, 169, 266n7, 271n8

Alice Solves the Puzzle, 266n7

All-New Popeye Hour (television series), 234

All This and Rabbit Stew, 233, 274n13

Allwine, Wayne, 16

Amador, Charles, 160–161

Andy Panda, 107

Animaniacs (television series), 242

animated stardom: academic interest in, 2–3, 9, 11–13, 16, 19; and literary characters, 15–17, 166, 260

animation production: decline of theatrical production, 207–210, 213–221, 242–243; industrialization of, 30–31, 34–36, 46, 49, 118, 124, 149–151, 175–176, 178, 181–182, 185, 203–204; “renaissance” in, 240–244; strikes related to, 31, 203–204, 271n4. See also studio system

Ant-Man, 255

Any Bonds Today?, 93–95

Arbuckle, Roscoe (“Fatty”), 54–55, 61, 115

Around the World with Douglas Fairbanks, 199

Assault and Flattery, 133–134

Associated Artists Productions (A.A.P.), 209, 239, 275n19

Astaire, Fred, 258

Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act, 258, 260–261. See also synthespians

At the Circus, 78

audience interest in animation, 1–2, 18, 85, 90–93, 107, 110, 169, 203, 243, 260, 267n1; animatophilia, 240–244

authorship: contested claims of, 16–17, 46, 144–148, 150–154, 176–177, 179, 181, 273n24; and on-scre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Section I. Stages of Theatrical Stardom
• Section II. Conceptualizing Theatrical Animated Stardom
• Section III. Post-Theatrical Stardom
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index