Sound Car-Tunes

" Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes" (some sources erroneously say Sound Car-Tunes) is a series of short three minute animation films produced by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer between May 1924 and September 1927, pioneering the use of the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" device used to lead audiences in theater sing-alongs. The Song Car-Tunes were also pioneer efforts in the first application of sound and animation, years before the Paul Terry's "Dinner Time" (released October 1928) and Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie" (November 1928).

There were 36 titles in the series, with 19 using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process developed by Dr. Lee DeForest beginning with "Oh, Mabel", "Mother Pin a Rose on Me", "Goodbye My Lady Love", and "Come Take a Trip on My Airship" (all May and June 1924). The Fleischer brothers partnered with DeForest, Edwin Miles Fadiman, and Dr. Hugo Riesenfeld in forming Red Seal Pictures Corporation, which owned 36 theaters on the East Coast, extending as far west as Cleveland, Ohio.

In September 1926, the U.S. division of DeForest Phonofilm and Red Seal Pictures Corporation filed for bankruptcy, and the Fleischers ended their use of the Phonofilm system, releasing their last sound Song Car-Tune, "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (1927), just as the sound era was about to begin. Within a few months, the Fleischers signed a Paramount Pictures contract through Alfred J. Weiss. Weiss re-released some of the silent Song Car-Tunes between 1929 and 1932 with new soundtracks, new animation, and new main titles that eliminated the names of Max and Dave Fleischer.

With the sound era established, the Fleischers revived the song film series as "Screen Songs" in February 1929 and continued until 1938. While Ko-Ko the Clown had been retired, the "Bouncing Ball" was retained. This new series ran a full seven minutes, with more animation than the early Song Car-Tunes, built around the theme of the featured song. The first used standards such "The Sidewalks of New York" and "Old Black Joe" with new productions of songs previously released in the earlier series such as "Daisy Bell", "Good Bye, My Lady Love", "Mother Pin a Rose On Me", "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," and "Come Take A Trip in My Airship".

Many of the Screen Songs featured popular stars of stage, radio, and recordings such as Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Lillian Roth, The Mills Brothers, and the Boswell Sisters. Starting in 1934, the Screen Songs series focused on the big bands of the "Swing Era", such as Abe Lyman, Shep Fields, Gus Arnheim, Hal Kemp, Jack Denny, Vincent Lopez, Henry King, Jay Freeman, Jerry Baline, Bert Block, Frank Dailey, and Jimmy Dorsey.

The Screen Songs concept was revised in a special edition of the Technicolor "Noveltoons" series in 1945 with "When G. I. Johnny Comes Home Again," and the series officially returned in 1948 with "Base Brawl" and continued until 1951. The concept of the "Bouncing Ball" has become such an established cultural icon, that it has been used in television commercials to sell all sorts of products from sleeping tablets to cat food. Just before retiring in 1968, Dave Fleischer used a form of the "Bouncing Ball" for the ending of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" where he shot cutout animation to "bounce" the head of Beatrice Lillie over the lyrics to the title song.

ee also

*History of animation
*Sound film

ources

*Leonard Maltin, "Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Film" (1980, revised 1987)
*Leslie Cabarga, "The Fleischer Story" (1988)
*Richard Fleischer, "Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution" (2005)
*Ray Pointer, "Max Fleischer's Ko-Ko Song Car-tunes (with the Famous Bouncing Ball)" DVD (2002)

List of Song Car-Tunes

*"Alexander’s Ragtime Band" (1926)
*"Annie Laurie" (1926) (sound)
*"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (1927) (sound)
*"Come Take a Trip in My Airship" (1924)
*"Coming Through the Rye" (1926) (sound)
*"Daisy Bell" (1926)
*"Darling Nelly Gray" (1926) (sound)
*"Dixie" (1925)
*"Goodbye My Lady Love" (1924)(sound)
*"Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly?" (1926) (sound)
*"In the Good Old Summertime" (1926)
*"Margie" (1926)(sound)
*"Mother, Mother, Mother Pin a Rose on Me" (1926) (sound)
*"My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" (1925)
*"My Old Kentucky Home" (1926/28) (sound re-issue)
*"My Wife’s Gone to the Country" (1925) (sound)
*"Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" (1926)(sound)
*"Oh Mabel" (1924)
*"Oh Suzanna" (1925)
*"Old Black Joe" (1925) (sound)
*"Old Pal" (1925) (sound)
*"Pack Up Your Troubles" (1925)
*"Sailing Sailing Over the Bounding Main" (1925)
*"The Sheik of Araby" (1926) (sound)
*"Swanee River" ("The Old Folks at Home") (1925)
*"Sweet Adeline" (1926) (sound)
*"Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-Dee-Aye" (1925)
*"Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1925)
*"Toot Toot Tootsie" (1926)
*"Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching" (1925/28) (sound re-issue)
*"Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (1926)
*"When I Leave This World Behind" (1926)
*"When I Lost You" (1926) (sound)
*"When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'" (1926) (sound)
*"Yak-A-Doola-Hick-A-Doola" (1926)(sound)