Disney’s Alice Comedies
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an event at the San Francisco International Animation Festival: a showing of several of the Alice Comedies Disney did back in the 1920s! I met up with my friend and fellow animator Eleanor and we watched and listened as the director of the new Disney museum in San Francisco gave us inside details about the comedies.
The Alice Comedies were a series of shorts created in the 1920s. They featured Alice, a live action girl, and Julius, a cartoon cat. The first short, Alice’s Wonderland, was a silent black and white film that combined live action and animation. That’s right, animation and live action in the 1920s. Alice enters a cartoon world and interacts with the cartoon characters — a pretty amazing feat at the time.
Walt Disney didn’t have a production staff for the first six shorts, so he had animated them all himself, and his brother Roy operated the camera for all the live action shots. The director of the museum made an interesting note that these shorts provide an opportunity to see Walt’s own animated work — a rarity! Of course back then the principles of animation hadn’t quite been established and when you watch the shorts there are definitely things right off that stand out, but keep in mind that this was the 1920s and one of the major stepping stones leading Walt down his career path.
The Alice Comedies are not advertised by Disney, and aren’t even available to the public usually. The director noted that Walt even became embarrassed by the films! But looking back it’s great to see how ahead of its time these films were. They described the process of shooting against a white sheet and cutting sections out of mattes to combine the two — a VERY different way than we do things now!
There’s a lot to learn from these shorts. Whether its to remind us to always push to explore new ways of doing things, or to keep things simple and the story and comedy will come across. It’s an interesting look into the beginning of things for the animation world.
A lot of the Alice Comedies are available on youtube. The first film, Alice’s Wonderland, is up but be forewarned that it’s not the greatest quality. Check out the related videos as well to see more of the comedies!
