Blog 4, Felix the Cat Old and New by John Lyver

I wanted to compare the Older Felix from the 1920s and the newer Felix that appeared more recently. Even though there is the obvious difference between these cartoons like the adding of color animation instead of black and white a more modern cartoon style and the newer cartoons containing talking and sound, there are still big differences in these characters. The Felix of the 20s and the Felix of today were marketed to different crowds.

In the 1920s we can see that Felix seems to be marketed to an older crowd, dealing with issues to pregnancy, suicide, prohibition of alcohol etc. While the newer Felix cartoons features a much more heroic and caring character. We can see from this cartoon that Felix seems to be interested with helping the poor with giving out gold coins made from the gold eggs of the goose who laid golden eggs. When the mean pirate character who seems to oddly resemble ‘Pete’ (a famous villain in the Mickey Mouse Disney cartoons) steals the bird Felix goes to get it back. In contrary to the helpful, joyful and peaceful Felix of the 50s and the later version of Felix many of us grew up with in the 80s and 90s, the Older Felix seemed more interested in himself, even though he sometimes helped people but in the end only to leave them somewhat jinxed. The Older Felix was also rather mischievous. Even though both of these cats seemed very fortunate in their circumstances as that they always seem to have whatever material they need to get the job done no matter the situation they found themselves in.  

The idea of having a character that is the hero seemed more common in the 1950s and for today, dealing less with adult matters and focusing more on teaching ideal morals to viewers while still retaining some humor that only adults may understand. This trend of the cartoon or Saturday morning kids show depicting a very moral and self sacrificing hero appears even in kids shows today. A trend most parents would probably rather their children be influenced by then some of the more racy cartoons of the 1920s.

I commented on Allisa Potter’s post http://apotter2.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/blog-post-4-colors-of-a-grammy/#comment-20 .

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