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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…
Dancing on the Moon (1935)
This is the first animated film I’ve had for the Retro SciFi Film of the Week. It was produced by Max Fleischer, who was a leading animated film producer during the first half of the 20th century. Fleischer created Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor and was very active at inventing new techniques for animation. He is the inventor of the rotoscope, which was used throughout the 20th century for producing graphic special effects in most live action films as well cartoons.
I’ve mentioned before that there was a lot of innovation during this time, including the development of rockets by Goddard and others, and the idea of using rockets for space travel was beginning to look like a reality.
Also happening at this time was a lot of class conflict and labor unrest. The Ludlow Massacre happened just two decades prior to the making of this film. Right after this film was released animators in Fleischer’s studio, who were working in poor conditions (as many workers at the time were), staged a major strike that crippled the studio.
This short film is about a tour company that specializes in honeymoon vacations on the moon. The technique and artistry of this short film surpasses many cartoons made even today.
In case you didn't notice, all of the couples in this film are mixed-race marriages, white and black. In 1935 when this film was released, most US states had so-called anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited interracial marriage. It wasn't until 32 years after this film was released that the Supreme Court ruled that those laws were unconstitutional.
This film was way ahead of its time by showing interracial marriage in 1935.
Also in the film, one of the black characters does the moonwalk dance while he's on the moon. 😆 (The moonwalk was popularized by Michael Jackson nearly 50 years later.) The moonwalk is attributed to Cab Calloway, who first demonstrated it a couple years earlier in 1932.
This film is only the second time that the moonwalk was featured in a cartoon, the first being "The Old Man of the Mountain" in 1933, also produced by Max Fleischer and scored/voiced by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra. (That cartoon actually used Calloway's dance moves and a rotoscope to produce that cartoon.)