this is the only picture (so far) that I'll literally take to my grave.
Back in the day there were 2 major animation houses Disney and Fleischer Studios, we all know Disney but not many people have heard of Fleischer although you most definitely know their work.
This is Bimbo, a little animated dog whom starred in his own show, until that is the Fleischer's introduced Bimbo's girlfriend, another little dog called Betty. Betty was a runaway hit and soon was converted to human form and given a surname.....Boop, from then on Bimbo along with Koko the clown were Betty's sidekicks, the rest is history although I'm not sure when Pudgy (Betty's pet dog) came in?
Apart from Betty Boop the Fleischer's also produced the animated Superman, Popeye, Gulliver's Travels and invented two things that remain in use today, the rotoscoping camera and "the bouncing ball"
What happened to this studio you ask? after the breakout success of Snow White (Disney's first) the Fleischer brothers decided to release their own feature length movie, Gulliver's Travels, which saw mild success, they then invested all of their capital as well as significant finance from Paramount Pictures into "Mr Bug Goes to Town", it's release was delayed and in May of 1941 Paramount called in their debts and assumed control, the film finally got released on Dec 5th 1941, 2 days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as a result the film didn't recoup its production costs and the studio was broken down and its pieces sold off.
Bimbo was always going to feature in this project and thanks to two children that refused to sleep he got an early introduction.
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