Trivia / Felix the Cat (Otto Messmer)

• Channel Hop: The Felix the Cat cartoons went through numerous distributors. Paramount Pictures distributed the earliest cartoons from 1919 to 1921. Margaret J. Winkler distributed the shorts from 1922 to 1925, the year when Educational Pictures took over the distribution of the shorts. In 1928, after Educational ceased releasing the Felix cartoons, several were reissued by First National Pictures. Copley Pictures distributed the sound cartoons from 1929 to 1930. And then there was the brief revival of the series by Van Beuren in 1936, which were distributed by RKO.
• Creator Backlash: According to John Canemaker's Felix the Cat book, Otto Messmer said he regretted recommending Burt Gillett to direct the Van Beuren Felix the Cat cartoons in his stead—while Burt had worked on the original Felix cartoons, Otto felt his time in Hollywood working for Disney had gone to his head by the time he directed the cartoons. He felt that Gillett poorly utilized the character, turning Felix into a meek shadow of his former self and overshadowing the cat with his own cast of characters. It didn't help that when Otto tried to get work on the Van Beuren Felix cartoons (having initially passed on the offer), Burt refused to hire him because he considered his style "out of step" with his newer, slicker cartoons.

  "Felix was just a little figure in the background, instead of being the center figure. He [Burt Gillett] tried to push his own characters in there. Gillett tried to push himself, rather than the cat."

• Dueling Shows: The silent Felix the Cat shorts briefly became this to the Mickey Mouse cartoons, a series that took cues from Felix in the first place. Unfortunately, Pat Sullivan's reluctance to upgrade to sound ended up giving Disney a huge advantage over them, and Mickey quickly overtook the cat in popularity. And when Sullivan finally did upgrade the Felix cartoons with sound, the results were so half-assed and unpopular that it killed the series' stone dead. And when Van Beuren briefly revived the character for animation, they still consciously patterned Felix after Mickey Mouse in an attempt to compete with it.
• Missing Episode: A huge chunk of Felix cartoons from the silent era are currently missing.
• Stillborn Franchise: The Van Beuren Studios Felix cartoons, which only got three shorts made (with a fourth and fifth one never getting past the story and design stages) before the studio abruptly went belly-up due to RKO cancelling their contract in favor of distributing Disney shorts.
• What Could Have Been: There was a fourth and fifth Van Beuren Felix the Cat short in the works that got as far as story and design before the studio went belly up.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Feline Follies was improvised and animated by Otto Messmer in a rather short period of time as a side project so that Pat Sullivan could fill in for another cartoon that was late for the Paramount Cartoon reels.
• Write What You Know: Otto Messmer based the events of Felix Turns the Tide off of his own memories of friends and allies getting gunned down around him when he served in World War I.

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