Flip the Frog was one of the most original cartoon characters of the 1930s.
Ub Iwerks, the creator of Flip the Frog, started with Walt Disney and animated the first several Mickey Mouse cartoons; then he split off on his own and created Flip the Frog, one of the most memorable of all 1930s cartoon characters. When Flip failed to catch on with the public — he was simply too far ahead of his time — Iwerks eventually rejoined the Disney organization, doing special effects work on Disney animated features and cartoons, and also creating the special effects for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).
In addition, Iwerks pioneered the use of the Xerox process to transfer line drawings on paper to clear plastic cels for animation, thus eliminating the “inking” process in classical animation; the results can be seen in such films as One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). Iwerks won two Academy Awards for his work.
As Steve Hulett wrote, “Ub Iwerks was Walt’s strong right arm in the 1920s. He was a designer and work-horse animator on the early Disney shorts, considered so valuable that he was a 20% owner of the studio. But the 20% ownership ended when Iwerks departed Walt Disney Productions after a falling out with the majority owner. Bankrolled by movie mogul Pat Powers, Iwerks developed the frog character above, but within a few years flamed out as an animation kingpin and returned to Disney’s.” It’s too bad. Flip is, to my mind at least, much more interesting, and more varied, than Mickey Mouse.
Here’s Flip in Spooks, from 1932
Tags: Animated Cartoons, Flip the Frog, Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney
