Studio: Pat Sullivan Studio
Short Synopsis
Detailed plot documentation for this early Felix short is thin, and this summary is based on the surviving film. Felix goes to the circus, or rather to its edges, where the animals are kept. An elephant, sitting by a tent pole and holding a harmonica, is cornered by a tiny mouse, and the old joke of the elephant terrified of a mouse plays out in front of him. Away from the tents, in an open landscape of rolling hills, fences and a broken tree stump, Felix has his own business to attend to. He prowls, crouches and creeps along the ground on the trail of something, stops by a tall tree with a hole in its trunk, and puzzles over what has happened, a question mark popping up from his head. The gags follow one after another rather than building to a single plot, and the ending is not described in sources this book could check.
Why It Matters
- The question mark is the thing to watch for. Messmer lets Felix's thoughts appear as solid graphic symbols beside his head, objects that can, in later films, be grabbed and used. Here the device is in its early form, but it is already the signature of a character who solves problems by thinking visually.
- This is one of the Felix films from 1920, the year after his debut in Feline Follies, when the cat was being developed into a regular series character. Within a few years he would be the most famous cartoon character in the world, and Messmer's economical, graphic style here is the foundation of that success.
Notes and Trivia
- The elephant-and-mouse gag was already a stock joke; it lived on for decades in later cartoons.
- See also: Feline Follies (1919).