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Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in 1919 by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer during the silent film era. An anthropomorphic young black cat with white eyes, a black body, and a giant grin, he is often considered one of the most recognized cartoon characters in history. Felix was the first fully realized animal character in the history of American film animation. Felix originated from the studio of Australian cartoonist-film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan. Either Sullivan himself or his lead animator, American Otto Messmer, created the character. What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character became well known in popular culture. Aside from the animated shorts, Felix starred in a comic strip (drawn by Sullivan, Messmer and later Joe Oriolo) beginning in 1923, and his image soon adorned merchandise such as ceramics, toys, and postcards. Several manufacturers made stuffed Felix toys. Jazz bands such as Paul Whiteman's played songs about him (1923's "Felix Kept on Walking" and others). In 1926, Felix became the first high school mascot for the Logansport, Indiana Berries. By the late 1920s, with the arrival of sound cartoons, Felix's success was fading. The new Disney shorts of Mickey Mouse made the silent offerings of Sullivan and Messmer, who were then unwilling to move to sound production, seem outdated. In 1929, Sullivan decided to make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1932. Felix saw a brief three-cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios. Felix cartoons began airing on American television in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned, "long-legged" Felix, with longer legs, a much smaller body, and a larger, rounder head with no whiskers and no teeth. Oriolo also added new characters and gave Felix a "Magic Bag of Tricks" that could assume an infinite variety of shapes at Felix's behest. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in two feature films. As of the 2010s, Felix is featured on a variety of merchandise from clothing to toys. Joe's son Don Oriolo later assumed creative control of Felix. Early versions of Felix the Cat entered the public domain in 1994 under the Copyright Act of 1976. In 2002, TV Guide ranked Felix the Cat number 28 on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list. In 2014, Don Oriolo sold the trademark and remaining copyrights to the character to DreamWorks Animation via DreamWorks Classics, which is now part of Comcast's NBCUniversal division via Universal Pictures. History Creation On 9 November 1919, Master Tom, a prototype of Felix, debuted in a Paramount Pictures short titled Feline Follies. Produced by the Manhattan-based animation studio owned by Pat Sullivan, the cartoon was directed by cartoonist and animator Otto Messmer. It was a success, and the Sullivan studio quickly set to work on producing another film featuring Master Tom, in Musical Mews (released on 16 November 1919). It too proved to be successful with audiences. Messmer claimed that John King of Paramount Magazine suggested the name "Felix", as in "feline", and for contrast of the felicity traditionally associated with a black cat. The name was first used for the third film starring the character, The Adventures of Felix (released on 14 December 1919). Sullivan claimed he named Felix after Australia Felix from Australian history and literature. In 1924, animator Bill Nolan redesigned the character, making him both rounder and "cuter". Felix's new looks, coupled with Messmer's character animation, brought Felix to a higher profile. Authorship The question of who created Felix remains a matter of dispute. Sullivan stated in numerous newspaper interviews that he created Felix and did the key drawings for the character. On a visit to Australia in 1925, Sullivan told The Argus newspaper that "[t]he idea was given to me by the sight of a cat which my wife brought to the studio one day". On other occasions, he claimed that Felix had been inspired by Rudyard Kipling's "The Cat that Walked by Himself" or by his wife's love for strays. Members of the Australian Cartoonist Association have claimed that lettering used in Feline Follies matches Sullivan's handwriting and that Sullivan lettered within his drawings. In addition, at roughly the 4:00 mark in Feline Follies, the words 'Lo Mum' are used in a speech bubble by one of the kittens; this was a term for one's mother not used by Americans, but certainly by Australians. Yet Messmer claimed to have single-handedly drawn Feline Follies from home, raising questions as to why an American would use the term 'Mum' in a cartoon he solely drew himself. Sullivan's supporters also say the case is supported by his 18 March 1917 release of a cartoon short titled The Tail of Thomas Kat more than two years prior to Feline Follies. Both an Australian ABC-TV documentary screened in 2004 and the curators of an exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales in 2005 suggested that Thomas Kat was a prototype or precursor of Felix. Few details of Thomas have survived. His fur color has not been definitively established, and the surviving copyright synopsis for the short suggests significant differences between Thomas and the later Felix. For example, whereas the later Felix magically transforms his tail into tools and other objects, Thomas is a non-anthropomorphized cat who loses his tail in a fight with a rooster, never to recover it. Sullivan was the studio proprietor and—as is the case with almost all film entrepreneurs—he owned the copyright to any creative work by his employees. In common with many animators at the time, Messmer was not credited. After Sullivan's death in 1933, his estate in Australia took ownership of the character; although Messmer told Harry Kopp that Sullivan promised him the rights to Felix in his will, no such will existed by the time he died. Kopp and the estate got the rights in 1934 from King Features Syndicate after numerous conferences with him. It was not until after Sullivan's death that Sullivan staffers such as Hal Walker, Al Eugster, Gerry Geronimi, Rudy Zamora, George Cannata, and Sullivan's own lawyer, Harry Kopp, credited Messmer with Felix's creation. They claimed that Felix was based on an animated Charlie Chaplin that Messmer had animated for Sullivan's studio earlier on. The down-and-out personality and movements of the cat in Feline Follies reflect key attributes of Chaplin's, and, although blockier than the later Felix, the familiar black body is already there (Messmer found solid shapes easier to animate). Messmer himself recalled his version of the cat's creation in an interview with animation historian John Canemaker: Sullivan's studio was very busy, and Paramount, they were falling behind their schedule and they needed one extra to fill in. And Sullivan, being very busy.... Discover the Felix Long popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Felix Long books.