Studio: Out of the Inkwell Films (Max Fleischer)
Short Synopsis
An Out of the Inkwell cartoon in the series' standard shape: Max Fleischer, in live action, sits at his drawing board, and Koko the Clown emerges from the inkwell to make trouble before being forced back into it. In Masquerade the occasion is a costume ball, with Koko disguising himself and running through a series of masks and transformations, and the gag between the drawn clown and his live creator turning on identity and disguise. Beyond that outline, which comes from the title and the series pattern, no detailed synopsis of this particular episode has been found in the sources used here, and the film is one of the less widely circulated Inkwells. The Fleischers released roughly one every month in 1924, and many have survived only in incomplete or retitled form.
Why It Matters
- The Inkwell films are the most inventive American cartoons of the early 1920s: Koko was drawn with the rotoscope from Dave Fleischer's own performance, which gave him a weight and grace no other character had, and the interplay between the drawn clown and the filmed hand set the tone for the Fleischer studio's whole career.
- Masquerade belongs to the busy middle of the series, the year the brothers left the Bray studio's distribution for their own company, Red Seal Pictures; the Inkwells of 1924 and 1925 are the bridge between Koko's early stunts and the Fleischer sound cartoons of Betty Boop and Popeye.
Notes and Trivia
- Koko was not given his name until 1924; earlier films call him simply "the clown".
- Max Fleischer's rotoscope patent of 1917 was the basis of the Inkwell series.
- See also: Popeye the Sailor (1933), Snow-White (1933).