#731) KoKo’s Earth Control (1928)

The Plot: Out from the inkwell comes Koko the Clown, as well as his companion Fritz the Dog. While walking around the world, KoKo and Fritz come across a small warehouse labeled “Control of Earth”, with several levers that can manipulate the weather, the seasons, and everything under (and including) the sun. Curiosity gets the better of our two, and what follows is the kind of abstract surrealism that was a hallmark of the Fleischer brothers.

Why It Matters: The NFR describes the Fleischer Studios’ animation as “[i]maginative, sassy, surreal and non-linear” and gives historical background on the Fleischer brothers and KoKo the Clown.

But Does It Really?: This one’s for all the animation buffs out there. Before Betty Boop and Popeye there was KoKo the Clown, and while he is all but forgotten today, the Clown – and his creators at Fleischer Studios – deserves a moment in the spotlight. As for the short itself, I found it highly inventive and very funny. An easy and enthusiastic yes for “KoKo’s Earth Control” on the Registry.

Everybody Gets One: Not his only NFR appearance, but shoutout to Max Fleischer. Born in Poland, Max and his family immigrated to New York City when Max was three years old. After studying at the Art Students League of New York, Fleischer found work as the staff cartoonist for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In the early 1910s, with the birth of animated short films, Fleischer began tinkering with more refined animation, inventing the earliest version of the Rotoscope, in which animation is drawn over live-action reference footage. One of these reference films was of Max’s younger brother Dave Fleischer in a clown suit (he was a part-time clown at Coney Island), which inspired their “Out of the Inkwell” series. Each cartoon in the series began with Max drawing a clown (using an ink pen and inkwell), with the clown coming to life and getting into all kinds of animated/live-action hybrid mischief. The clown went unnamed for the first five years of the “Inkwell” series, until animator Dick Huemer joined the Inkwell Studios staff and named him Ko-Ko.

Title Track: In several places online, you will see the title of this short as “Ko-Ko’s Earth Control”. KoKo’s name was spelled with a hyphen when the “Out of the Inkwell” series was distributed by The Red Seal Pictures Corporation. Following the bankruptcy of Red Seal around 1927 and a new distribution deal with Paramount, the series was renamed “The Inkwell Imps” and Ko-Ko became the legally distinct KoKo. Both the title within the film and the official NFR entry list the clown as “KoKo”.