Funny Animal - History

History

The funny animal genre evolved in the 1920s and 1930s, as blackface became more politically incorrect. Early black-and-white funny animals, including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey Mouse (perhaps the most enduring of the kind), Foxy the Fox, Felix the Cat and Flip the Frog, maintained certain aspects of the blackface design. The increased use of Technicolor in the 1930s allowed for greater diversity in the ability to design new "funny animals," leading to a much wider array of funny animal shorts and the near-total demise (except for Mickey Mouse and a few other Disney characters of the era) of the blackface characters. The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts by Warner Bros. Animation, for instance, introduced dozens of funny animals, many of whom have reached iconic status in American culture. Other notable funny animals from the color film era included Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker, MGM's Tom and Jerry (among many others), and Paul Terry's Heckle and Jeckle.

Television changed the dynamic of animation, in that although budgets were much smaller and schedules much tighter, this prompted a shift from the physical comedy that predominated film shorts to more dialogue-oriented jokes. Hanna-Barbera Productions focused almost exclusively on these kinds funny animal TV series in the late 1950s and early 1960s, creating an extensive line of funny animal series (Yogi Bear being one of the most enduring franchises). Jay Ward Productions also produced The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, a series representative of the genre (albeit with much stronger Cold War overtones than Hanna-Barbera).

By the 1970s, most funny animals had lost their lead status and had been relegated to members of an ensemble cast of mostly humans (e.g. Scooby-Doo) or supporting characters. Funny animals and animal-like characters made a brief comeback in the late 1980s and into the 1990s (most notably through various Warner Bros. and Disney television creations) but have mostly faded as animation as a whole has declined into the 2000s.

In the 1940s, Fawcett Comics published a comic book entitled Funny Animals, featuring such characters as Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, an anthropomorphic rabbit version of Captain Marvel.

Comic strips have long been an outlet for funny animal characters. Krazy Kat was a popular early comic strip featuring the titular cat and its companionship with a mouse named Ignatz. Snoopy, from the Peanuts comic strip, was frequently used as comic relief. Almost all of the non-human characters in the comic strip Garfield fit the category. In the cases of Peanuts and Garfield, the animal characters' words are portrayed in thought balloons instead of spoken dialogue.