Thursday, July 10, 2008

Influences? (wild speculation)

Just for fun I'm going to take a biiig stretch but hey, that's what blogs are for right?

Something I've always wondered about was the cross pollination of entertainment in the 'golden age'. We all know the stories of how artists from other animation studios would visit theaters showing Disney films to try and figure out new aspects of animation.  But was the flow of inspiration one way only? 

The first thing I ever noticed in this regard was the opening to "A Car-Tune Portait" (A Fleischer Color Classic cartoon from 1936) and its similarity to a much better known film: "Fantasia" from 1940. Did the Disney artists see "A Car-Tune Portrait"? Were both influenced by something earlier?

"A Car-Tune Portrait" (1936)
"Fantasia" (1940)




To stretch even further is this scene from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) wherein Dorthy and Co. get spruced up for their meeting with the wizard and a similar 'sprucing up' sequence from 'All's Fair at the Fair' (1938).

"The Wizard of Oz" (1939)

"All's Fair at the Fair" (1938)


Obviously the simlarities are less evident here than the example above. However the color styling (greens), the influence of art deco (which is I suppose not unusual for the late 30's ) and the general concept (a futuristic salon) do bear perhaps a tangential relationship. 



The likely suspect connecting the two is  the poster  and advertising design of the two major World's Fairs of the 30's: Chicago and New York.  Even so, I am always for some reason reminded of  "All's Fair at the Fair" whenever I see the Emerald City sequence of 'Oz'.

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