Felix the Cat: A Cultural Phenomenon

Felix the Cat, widely considered to be the world's first animated film star, was "born" on November 9, 1919, debuting in an animated short titled Feline Follies (pictured below) released by Paramount Studios. Over the next ten years, Felix appeared in more than one hundred shorts. Produced for the general audience, these silent cartoons combined abstract and surrealist imagery with the antics of the cat, earning both public adoration and critical acclaim. He is also one of the most highly imitated and inspiring cartoon characters, going on to create a lot of imitations in other cartoons, as well as being a basis of inspiration for other cartoon characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. In addition to this, Felix also had an enormous impact on the merchandising industry.

Feline Follies

Directed by Otto Messmer, Feline Follies was the first of many animations to feature Felix the Cat. The plot takes a lighthearted and almost silly tone, but quickly takes a dark turn at the very end. Felix, starring as "Master Tom," meets a female cat whom he serenades and announces that he will devote his nine lives to her. In doing so, Felix's serenading wakes up the whole neighborhood. Back at home, a group of mice eat all the food in Felix's house. When his owner arrives back home and finds scraps of food everywhere, she throws Felix out of the house after assuming that Felix destroyed the pantry. Now homeless, Felix goes to live with his love interest, only to find out she is the mother, implying that Felix is the father, of a large litter of kittens. In reaction, Felix runs towards the local gasworks and commits suicide by intentionally inhaling gas.

While certainly not the best or most critically acclaimed silent animation film, it does deserve due credit for essentially beginning the silent cartoon era. It also wasn't explicitly the debut of what we know and love as Felix the Cat, but instead featured a character called "Master Tom." The animation style and character design also took some time to develop, the Felix we know didn't come into being until around 1924. 

Copy Cats and Rising Popularity

Felix was the first cartoon character to establish the archetype of the funny cartoon animal, and in doing so, set the precedent for how future animators would create characters and involve caricatured animals in their animations. In fact, Felix grew to become so popular that animators, like Walt Disney, literally copied the character design and gave the cat a different name for some of their works. Disney's animated cat, "Julius" (pictured right), who appeared in the Laugh-O-Gram and Alice series, looked almost identical to Felix. A number of other animators did this copy-and-change-the-name trick for their works as well. "Waffles" of Paul Terry's Aesop's Film Fables, and especially Bill Nolan's 1925 adaptation of Krazy Kat all seem to have been directly patterned after Felix.

Felix's cartoons were a hit with the critics as well. They have been cited as imaginative examples of surrealism in filmmaking, and Felix has been said to represent a child's sense of wonder. Felix's expressive tail, which could be a shovel one moment, an exclamation mark or pencil the next, serves to emphasize that anything can happen in his world.

With the growing popularity of Felix the Cat, he could be seen almost everywhere. By 1923, Felix was at the peak of his film career. Felix in Hollywood plays upon his popularity as he becomes acquainted with  celebrities such as Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille, and even Charlie Chaplin. His image could be seen on clocks, Christmas ornaments, clothes, stuffed animals, figurines, and even as the first balloon float ever made for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Felix also became the subject of several popular songs of the day, such as "Felix Kept Walking". Because of his popularity, Pat Sullivan made an estimated $100,000 a year from toy licensing alone, which equates to almost $1.6 million in todays money. In addition, Felix was one of the first images ever broadcast by television when RCA chose a Felix doll for a 1928 NBC experiment in New York's Van Cortlandt Park.

Felix the Cat was one of the most important developments in animation history. He created a new kind of character, one that would be imitated, repeated, and made successful for all time. He became a true cultural phenomenon, and in doing so, would inspire future animators to become what they became and allowed the industry to grow and to develop in so many new and amazing ways. A lot more can be said about Felix the Cat and his impact on animation as we know it, not to mention that he was created over one hundred years ago. He raised the bar for what animation could be, and allowed for different artists and animators to create new and exciting things within the world of animation.

Ettleman, Tristan. “Felix the Cat Signaled the Beginning of Silent Cartoons.” Medium, Medium, 30 Dec. 2018, https://trettleman.medium.com/felix-the-cat-signaled-the-beginning-of-silent-cartoons-ad279894ee83. 

“Feline Follies.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Sept. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_Follies. 

“Felix the Cat.” Felix the Cat, 2007, https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/f/Felix_the_Cat.htm

Furniss, Maureen. A New History of Animation. Available from: Yuzu, W. W. Norton, 2016.

Tom, Patricia Vettel. “Felix the Cat as Modern Trickster.” American Art, vol. 10, no. 1, [University of Chicago Press, Smithsonian American Art Museum], 1996, pp. 65–87, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109216.