First cartoon to use concentric circles

[Jack]

Though Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies eventually made concentric circles their trademark, I remember seeing titles from older cartoons that use them.. This leaves me wondering what the very first cartoon or cartoon series to use concentric circles was.

Anyone know?



Jack :confused:

[Brian Cruz]

"I Wanna Play House" is generally accepted to be the first Merrie Melody to have them, but it's possible that one of the MMs that were released just before that one had the concentric circles. Since we can only see them in Blue Ribbon form, no one can be certain.

[Howard]

I don't think that Warner Bros. had any exclusive rights to the concentric circles, because some Tom and Jerry shorts used them on the T&J logo card. They've just become mostly associated with Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Makes you wonder why they dropped them in the late 60's when De Pattie-Freleng started producing the series on their own.

[Jack]

Oh sorry, I phrased the question badly. What I meant to ask was:

What was the first cartoon to ever use concentric circles (in the history of animation)? I'm pretty sure cartoons were using them before Merrie Melodies were.


Jack :confused:

[Larry T]

I know that some of the Willie Whopper cartoons from 1934 used them. They looked almost exactly the same way WB would use them in the 40s for the Looney Tunes, with the inner circles a lighter shade than the outer circles, and Willie was pictured sitting within the innermost circle, with his legs hanging out over the background.

Here's a sample:


http://members.home.net/kittyface/jpegs/WillieWhopper.gif


If you look at it, the word "Presents" almost looks the exact same as the way WB used it as well, on the 1944 Looney Tunes.

[Thad Komorowski]

The 1942-1944 season of Walter Lantz cartunes used a title card with concetric circles for their cartunes, that said:

"A WALT LANTZ CARTUNE"

In 1944, the cartunes had their own individual title card saying something like "AN ANDY PANDA CARTUNE".


-Thad

[DR. BELCH]

--to recall one theory, way back in the days of the old boards, that Tex Avery created the cocentric rings for Warners. Any validity to that?
Truth be told, whenever I look at them, it makes me think of peering down one end of a large drainpipe (the sort used to sluice rainwater off from ditches)....

[J Lee]

Well, the Freleng unit used the circles first, but apparently, they were liked because starting with either Tex's "Miss Glory" or Freleng's "The Cat Came Back" it gave the WB shield a comfortable place to shoot forwards towards the audience. Warner's began using that zooming shield opening on their feature films for the 1935 release season, and the cartoon studio followed a year later, using a circle in both the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes opening titles.

As has been mentioned before on the board, the circles were blue because that's the color WB was finally able to get when three-stip Technicolor was freed from the grasp of Mr. Disney.

[TServo2049]

Originally posted by J Lee
As has been mentioned before on the board, the circles were blue because that's the color WB was finally able to get when three-stip Technicolor was freed from the grasp of Mr. Disney.

But a couple early concentric-circle toons, including The Cat Came Back, were in 2-strip! Did they have green rings?