The result: while Sullivan basked in Felix’s glory, touring Europe as a celebrity and inventing tales of Felix’s origins, Messmer and his staff quietly produced upward of 150 Felix cartoons, at the rate of one and two a month.īy the time the first cartoon in our program, Felix Loses Out, was released (Janauary 1924), Felix was already five years old. But the true creative genius was a painfully self-effacing animator from New Jersey named Otto Messmer who slaved for years in anonymity, indifferent to whether he received credit or not.
His name, and only his name, was on the films. The illusion was that, because he was the producer, Sullivan had created Felix himself. The man who took the credit was Pat Sullivan, a businessman with feral sensibilities, a master showman, and former cartoonist who built the New York animation studio where Felix was created. Newspapers and magazines published his letters, conducted interviews with him, and starlets in photo spreads taught him to dance the Charleston and the Black Bottom.īut if he was a sensation, the public never knew (or, for that matter, much cared) how Felix films were made or who actually made them. For almost ten years, from 1919 to 1928, he seemed to be everywhere-in cartoons that appeared at least once a month, in syndicated comic strips, in songs, and on products you could eat, wear, and bring home with you. He was the mirthful personality kid, the effervescent trickster who could also play the lovesick Romeo, the lecherous sheik, or the doting uncle while still coming across as a loner. In his own time, he ruled animation as Chaplin ruled live-action comedy, Babe Ruth baseball, or Man o’ War horse racing. Felix the Cat was the most successful cartoon figure of the silent era.
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