Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Awesome Movie

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I love the history of film and have watched thousands of early--very early films. Among them have been quite a few animated films, so I have a good idea about what types of animated films were available back in 1920...and they were incredibly primitive. Most had very simple drawings and backgrounds and just a few years later, these simple sorts of cartoons simply wouldn't have made it in theaters. A wonderful exception to these simplistic cartoons were the Koko films of Max Fleischer. Before Fleischer started his own studio, he worked for Bray Studios. There, he perfected the use of the Rotoscope...a technique he invented by which a cartoonist would take live action film footage and trace over it to create animated characters. The biggest advantage with this sort of technique is that the characters were extremely fluid and moved about like real people or animals. "The Ouija Board" is one of these Rotoscoped films and uses Fleischer's first star, Koko the Clown. Like most of these Koko films, he is a character that can interact with the real world--much like you saw in later films like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". The plot for this short is very simple and the cartoon lasts less than six minutes. One of the animators and a janitor are playing with a Ouija Board and as for Koko, he's haunted by a bunch of ghosts until he ultimately leaves the cartoon and starts trying to scare the folks in the studio.For the most part, all of this this is good clean fun. There are a few stereotypes, common in the day, involving the black janitor and ghosts---certainly not politically correct nor all that funny. Though, Fleischer, too, reacts to the 'ghost' and so it's not all at the expense of the poor black man....so who knows if viewers today will be offended by it or not! Regardless, the animation is lovely and the film holds up pretty well today.By the way, if you are curious about who it was that dressed up like Koko and let themselves be animated for these 'Out of the Inkwell' films...it was Dave, Max's brother.

Max Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques. Ko-Ko similarly was an always amiable character to watch and among the better recurring characters in Fleischer's early work. Likewise, his series of Out of the Inkwell cartoons were among the best early efforts of Fleischer and silent cartoons in general. Fleischer may not be at his very finest and there are other cartoons of his that fit the word gem more. There is, like so many Ko-Ko cartoons, so much to like about 'The Ouija Board'.'The Ouija Board', being an early effort, is not one of the funniest or most imaginative Ko-Ko efforts, when the humour would become more refined and inventive later. Live action scenes don't really interest or entertain much and the janitor character agreed is not very compelling or funny as well as not very tasteful.A lot is done very well to brilliantly however. Love the character interplay as always, even so early on. One expects the animation to be primitive and very low quality, judging by that it's the 20s when animation techniques were not as many, as refined, as ambitious and in their infancy. While Fleischer became more refined and inventive later certainly, the animation is surprisingly good with some nice visual wackiness and wit.Pacing is bright and breezy and even though not hilarious or imaginative the humour is timed well and amuses. There is a great spooky atmosphere too, very early cartoons were not always this spooky. Ko-Ko is a very likeable lead that engages throughout. Liked the cartoonist and the ghosts, the janitor not so much. Altogether, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

WE RECALL WHEN some sales person at our local jewelry told us about some "new" animation process was used in the feature animated film, WIZARDS (Bakshi Prod./20th Century-Fox, 1977). She stated that the process utilized live action frames; which were traced in order to create the illusion of real movement.WE DID RESPOND, of course with the objection that the invention that produced such an effect was the ROTOSCOPE; which was patented by its inventor, animation artist, Max Fleischer in 1917. The sales clerk was incredulous and refused to believe such truth could come from such a peasant as I.ALTHOUGH THIS CARTOON is quite short, somewhat lacking on animated material and sort of unfunny (to one of our day & age), it is an outstanding example of the application of rotoscoping to the animated film. The sequences that portray KoKo the Klown's movement totally fool the most trained eye of any professional observers as to is it cartoon or real persons.THE STORYLINE IS quite brief and compact; although no much more story is needed to complete the necessary gags and action. In short, a clean-up man and another fellow animator begin to operate an Ouija Board, which garners the interest and attention of Max Fleischer, himself. A newly animated KoKo decides to mix it up with the three men and a number of properly "frightening" gags are brought to the forefront.THE LITTLE PICTURE ends up without the tradition of KoKo's usual retreat back into the safety and sanctuary of his Inkwell.* WE DID ENJOY this all too brief, little foray into the land where the cartoon invades the real World. It is worth taking in for several reasons. It is very short, it does make a fine example of "the Best in Rotoscoping" and it is an important landmark in the trail of the Fleischer Brothers' journey up the ladder of "Toontown"; as Eddie Valiant would say.NOTE: * We wonder just Dr. Sigmund Freud would have to say about KoKo's propensity of escaping the problems in the real world by retreating back into the Inkwell (Womb?).

This is an early Koko the Clown silent short produced by the Flieschers. There will be spoilers:This is a live-action/animated combination short featuring Koko the Clown. There really isn't much of a plot per se. It starts with a live-action shot of a janitor and a cartoonist, who eventually start messing around with a Ouija board.Max Fliescher comes in and draws Koko and then draws a haunted house before going over to the pair doing the Ouija board while Koko is interacting with the haunted house and a myriad of ghosts of all shapes and sizes. The animation is excellent and the ghosts are interesting.The live-action scenes, by contrast, aren't terribly interesting until Koko leaves the drawing and begins to interact with solid objects and scares the daylights out of all three, particularly the poor janitor. The characterization of the janitor is much like Stepin Fetchit and is likely to offend some people.This short is available for viewing online and is worth watching.