THE MAGIC PENCIL was a Terrytoon that seems sorta like the Van Buren cartoon PENCIL MANIA. It can also be seen as similar to the Fanny Zilch cartoons, because of the heroine and villain characters that appear in this cartoon.
A black-and-white Paul Terry cartoon starring Gandy Goose and Sourpuss the Cat. Gandy acquires a magic pencil via a radio program, and havoc breaks loose as he and Sourpuss starts to fight over it. It was, in all likelihood, the 1932 Van Beuren Tom & Jerry cartoon "Pencil Mania" that was the inspiration for this Terrytoon.
HYPNOTIC EYES is another Fanny Zilch cartoon, with appearances by Charlie Chaplin, Joe E. Brown, and Jimmy Durante characters as well as Puddy the Pup.
Recolored version of a black and white Fanny Zilch cartoon, which was originally titled THE VILLIAN STILL PURSUED HER. While they were at it they also replaced the original soundtrack with a new musical score. The effect is the same as if it were an old silent movie with a new musical soundtrack, and evidently that was what the people who were responsible thought. It seems they were working with silent prints of sound films that had been released on the home movie market.
Another Fanny Zilch cartoon turned up on youtube, KING ZILCH. This one actually has the first appearance of the character, although the regular series began with THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER shortly afterward.
This cartoon features a "Little King" and could owe some inspiration to the "Little King" series at Van Beuren, which was based on the comic strip by Otto Soglow*.
I thought some of the other characters in this cartoon resembled the type of characters that Otto Soglow drew. But Fanny Zilch wasn't one of them. I guess she owes a lot to thirties blondes, Helen Kane, and Betty Boop.
* Actually "King Zilch" is close enough to "The Little King" that it could be considered a different form of the same name.
The first Fanny Zilch cartoon was THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER, which was made in 1933. The character of Fanny Zilch was originally blonde,
although in the other cartoon which I had on the blog before ( THE SAWMILL MYSTERY ), she was a brunette.
The character also seems to have been simplified somewhat and looks as if an effort was made to make her less sexy as she is more fully clothed in addition to being less shapely. This parallels what was done with Betty Boop in the later part of the thirties.
The Fanny Zilch cartoons were done as parodies of the old melodramas, something that had been done in silent movies and in comic strips such as HAIRBREADTH HARRY and DESPERATE DESMOND. The same formula was also used in the Betty Boop series, but actually another cartoon had been made with a Betty Boop voiced character ( outside of that series ) that predated Fanny Zilch, PENCIL MANIA.
Eventually Terrytoons would return to the formula in the Mighty Mouse cartoons, with Pearl Pureheart in place of Fanny Zilch, Mighty Mouse in place of Stongheart, and a cat named Oilcan Harry in place of the original villain.
Watching this cartoon, my immediate reaction was that they were making another Fanny Zilch cartoon. But it actually predates the Fanny Zilch cartoons. The characters in this cartoon
are pretty much stock characters anyway: this was intended as a spoof of old melodramas, something which had already been done in the silent movie era and in comic strips such as Desperate Desmond and Hairbreadth Harry.
The girl in this cartoon was also similar to Betty Boop
and was in fact voiced by Margie Hines,
who was also the original voice for Betty Boop.
Betty Boop would later have a boyfriend named "Fearless Fred" who looked a great deal like either the stalwart hero in this cartoon or the comic strip character "Hairbreadth Harry", and had about the same villian as in the other two versions as well. And of course the supporting cast in the Fanny Zilch cartoons was about the same, which led to about the same characters being used all over again in the Mighty Mouse cartoons.
Fanny Zilch was a female cartoon character in the 1930's.
Here is what I wrote on wikipedia:
Fanny Zilch was a fictionalcartoon character in the 1930s series Terrytoons which was composed of musical spoofs of melodramas. In these adventures she was pursued by the villainous Oil Can Harry and protected by the heroic Strongheart. The character of Fanny Zilch later became Pearl Pureheart in the Mighty Mouse cartoons and Oil Can Harry became a cat archvillain in the same cartoons.
Here are some screen captures from colorized versions of a couple of the cartoons, which were originally in black and white.
THE LUMBERJACK ( original title THE SAWMILL MYSTERY )
THE LUMBERJACK
MUSIC AND CHARM
MUSIC AND CHARM
Oil Can Harry in original black and white.
Toonpedia ( link at bottom of page ) says that these cartoons were originally run on television as part of the Terrytoons package, but they later took them off because they were in black and white. I don't remember seeing them on television myself, but I remember a film clip of Fanny Zilch being used on Bakshi's "New Adventures Of Mighty Mouse" along with scenes from other Terrytoons.
Oilcan Harry cat and Pearl Pureheart mouse.
The formula had been used before and would be used again. They did it with Betty Boop, and Warner Brothers did it with some other characters in 1938. You can watch those cartoons as well as one with Fanny Zilch by using the videos embedded at the bottom of this page.
Betty Boop in SHE WRONGED HIM RIGHT, which had about the same hero and villian characters as in the Fanny Zilch series.
The little dog in Betty Boop cartoons - "Pudgy", above - was also very similar to the little dog in Terrytoons - "Puddy", below.
The later Dudley Do-Right cartoons also used about the same characters all over again.
Filmography
: KING ZILCH ( 1933 ) ( Terry Toon Cartoons ) featuring "King Zilch" and Fanny Zilch.
The Banker's Daughter (1933) (TerryToon Cartoons) featuring Fanny Zilch, Strongheart, Oil Can Harry.
The Oil Can Mystery (1933) (TerryToon Cartoons) featuring Fanny Zilch, Strongheart, Oil Can Harry.
Fanny In The Lion's Den (1933) (TerryToon Cartoons) featuring Fanny Zilch, Strongheart, Oil Can Harry.
Hypnotic Eyes (1933) (TerryToon Cartoons) featuring Fanny Zilch, Strongheart, Oil Can Harry. FANNY'S WEDDING DAY ( 1933 ) FOILED AGAIN ( 1935 )
Show
The Saw Mill Mystery 1937
The Villain Still Pursued Her 1937
Special thanks to my brother Dale Drinnon for his asisstance with this blog entry.
Watch THE SAWMILL MYSTERY on youtube:
Watch SHE WRONGED HIM RIGHT on youtube:
Watch WITH LOVE AND CURSES on youtube:
And see how Nell gets out of it in "Dudley Do-Right" on youtube:
