Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon

About this book

Seven Minutes is a social and aesthetic history of the controlled anarchy of the cartoon from the first talking Mickeys to the demise of Warners and MGM theatrical productions in 1960. Norman M. Klein follows the scrambling graphics and upside-down ballet of Fleischers Betty Boop Popeye Superman of the Wolfie cartoons by Tex Avery of the Bugs and Daffy Tweetie and Roadrunner cartoons from Warners of full animation at Disney of the whiteness of Snow White and of how Mickey Mouse became a logo. Reviewing the graphics scripts and marketing of each era he discovers the links between cartoons and live action movies newspapers popular illustration and the entertainment architecture coming out of Disneyland. Klein shows that the cartoon was a perverse juggling act invaded constantly by economic and political pressures by marketing for sound by licensing characters to stave off bankruptcies by Prohibition the Great Depression World War II and the first wave of television.