TOONERVILLE TROLLEY

Year Published: 1935

Format: 16mm

Description: This cartoon "Toonerville Trolley" dates to 1935 and was directed by Burt Gillett and Tom Palmer. It is one of the "Rainbow Parade" cartoons, a series of twenty seven toons made between 1934 and 1936, when the Van Beuren Studio closed. The cartoon was based on the popular newspaper cartoon strips by Fontaine Fox, whose cast of characters included the "Skipper" (a colorful motorman who operates a decrepit streetcar) and "The Powerful Katrinka", a large woman with superhuman strength. In this cartoon, the Skipper's morning trolley run is held up by a steep hill, and then ends up in a muddy lake after an encounter with Molly Moo-Cow. The motorman asks Katrinka to help him get the trolley out of the mud. The car is refurbished with a new red paint job, which incites the anger of a bull, leading to even more chaos. "Toonerville Trolley" was produced using a three-strip Technicolor process, which resulted in a beautiful end product. Two other films were produced by Van Beuren with the Toonerville characters: Trolley Ahoy and Toonerville Picnic. The Van Beuren Corporation was based in New York City and produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s through 1936. It was founded by Amedee J. Van Beuren, who ran the business, and Paul Terry, who oversaw the animation studio up until 1929. When Terry left the business to form his own Terrytoons studio, John Foster took over. The Van Beuren studios remained in operation until union labor troubles and a stroke suffered by Amedee Van Beuren led to its closure in 1936. The company's library changed hands several times and many of the titles eventually made their way onto television in the 1950s. One interesting aspect of the Van Beuren Studios is that the company released the first sound cartoon in history, Paul Terry's "Dinner Time", a month before Disney's Steamboat Willie debuted in November, 1928. "Dinner Time" wasn't as sophisticated as "Steamboat Willie", and didn't succeed with audiences. Disney's cartoon on the other hand, was celebrated and — remembered as the first synchronized sound cartoon.

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