Wild Minds The Artists and Rivalries That Inspired the Golden Age of Animation

Reid Mitenbuler, Kevin R. Free

eAudio - 2020

The vivid and untold story of the golden age of classic animation and the often larger-than-life artists who created some of the most iconic cartoon characters of the twentieth century In 1911, the famed cartoonist Winsor McCay debuted an animated version of his popular newspaper strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland. Loosely inspired by Sigmund Freud's research on dreams, the film was one of the very first of its kind and astonishing for its time. McCay is largely forgotten today, but his work helped unleash the creative energy of animators like Otto Messmer, Max Fleischer, Walt Disney, and Chuck Jones. Their origin stories, rivalries, and sheer genius, as Reid Mitenbuler skillfully relates, were as colorful and subversive as their creati...ons—from Felix the Cat to Bugs Bunny to feature films such as Fantasia—which became an integral part of American culture over the next five decades. Before television, animated cartoons were often "little hand grenades of social and political satire"... more