Bouncing Ball - History

History

The bouncing ball was invented at Fleischer Studios for the Song Car-Tunes series of animated cartoons (both Max and Dave Fleischer later claimed to have devised the idea). It was introduced in September 1925 with the film My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. In these earliest films using the device, the bouncing ball itself was not animated. The effect was created by filming a long stick with a luminescent ball on the tip, which was physically "bounced" across a screen of printed words by a studio employee. The movement was captured on high-contrast film that rendered the stick invisible. The ball would usually appear as white-on-black, though sometimes the ball and lyrics would be superimposed over (darkened) still drawings or photographs. Later versions of the bouncing ball have used cel animation or digital effects. Some modern video editing programs achieve the same effect as the bouncing ball by highlighting each displayed syllable as it is sung.

The bouncing ball cartoons continued production at the studio formed after Paramount ousted the Fleischer Brothers, Famous Studios. The revived series, retitled Screen Songs, began in 1945 with Old McDonald Had A Farm, and continued into the early 1950s. An attempt was made to revive the series in 1963 with Hobo's Holiday, using a more modern folk music style. Meanwhile, in the United States, younger generations of children continued to be familiar with the cartoons from television rebroadcasts into the 1970s.