The Animation Studio of Producer Amadee J. Van Beuren was a busy place in the early to mid-1930's. They had a large number of different characters in their own series. There was CUBBY BEAR, a cherubic little bundle of fun and mischief. And they had a TOM & JERRY combo, but these two were not the later Hanna-Barbera MGM Cat & Mouse duo, but rather a human pair of the MUTT & JEFF tradition. They also did a short-lived AMOS & ANDY Series with the originators of the Characters, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. The 'Series' lasted two installments. But that's another story.
They also producer some live action shorts, at least one of which featured wayward Stooge, Shemp Howard along with some patsies of his own.
As the decade wore on and the animation field was becoming more and more accomplished, the Studio sought status, class, quality even. Disney led the pack followed by Fleischer, Warner Brothers and MGM. Terrytoons , Lantz and Van Beuren filled out the field, with some other minor studios, whose obscurity makes them forgotten to my mind.
So when Disney Director, Burt Gilett became a free-agent, Van Beuren inked him to a deal to Direct and oversee a series of full color animated shorts. Mr. Gilett was both experienced and successful; having been the Director on the phenomenally successful Disney short, THREE LITTLE PIGS (1933).
Van Beuren Studios quickly tooled up, bringing in some different characters to spearhead a new, livelier, more colorful and musically advanced product. As was the custom in those days, a studios series had to have some sort of colorful sounding sub title or sort of a tag line to give one of their little short pictures a high degree of instant recognition. Hence, we had Disney's 'Silly Symphonies', Warner Brothers 'Looney Tunes' and 'Merrie Melodies', MGM's Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising dubbed their films as "a Harmon-Ising Production and there were others.
When the new kick-off of the refurbished animation line, somebody thought of what they were to be called. And the winner was RKO Radio Pictures presents a Van Beuren Studios 'RAINBOW PARADE' Cartoon.
The Studio launched some new Series with some different 'Stars'. Their first was that bovine beauty, MOLLY MOO COW, their own character. Secondly, a resurrected and reconstituted FELIX THE CAT, from the teens and twenties silent days And then there was probably the best known of these characters at that time, directly from their popular and long-running Comic Strip, cartoonist Fontaine Fox's TOONERVILL FOLKS, we had the Driver, 'the Skipper' and 'THE TOONERVILLE TROLLEY-That Meets All The Trains.' The associated artist and technicians went to town and produced the RKO releases at a merry rate, and they were enjoying some degree of success.
As for 'THE TOONERVILLE TROLLEY (1936), it provides us with a very energetic Short, what with 'the Skipper' running about like whirling dervish, back and forth in keeping his ramshackle Trolley moving and in repair to continue. He is assisted by one of the Cartoonist Fox's Comic Strip Regulars, 'The Powerful Katrinka'.
This 'Toonerville' Series was short lived, much like their 'Amos 'n' Andy', Series ended abruptly , in three Cartoons. What was the problem? Well, in the case of 'Amos 'n' Andy', we believe that that it was the power of Amos 'n' Andy's primary medium, Radio. With a Radio Show, our minds fill in everything about the series characters, and any illustrations of them can only fly in the face of the portraits and other descriptions that our minds instantly paint for us.
With the case of The Toonerville Folk, anyone who is familiar with the work of Mr. Fontaine Fox, we know that his humor is one that is born of "the old town and neighborhood", and those idiosyncrasies' that we all share. For example, Mr. Fox's comic usually consisted of a single panel, with Title*, sub title (usually introducing a particular character, like for example; "The Powerful Katrinka", "The Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang!" or "Aunt Eppie Hogg, Fattest Woman in Three Counties." It was against this back-drop that he did his daily cartoons, which seemed to move closer to the heart-warming chuckle than to a true knee-slapper.
All of this became mute soon, because 1n 1937 RKO and Disney signed a deal for RKO to release and distribute Walt's Films, shorts and Features. They knew that it was the end for Van Beuren Studios. They knew that good old RKO didn't need to carry 2 studios output in their RKO Programme.
It was the end of the line for Van Beuren.
NOTE* In some newspapers the title was given as 'THE TOONERVILLE TROLLEY', because of the close identification with the Trolley itself. Other favourite characters from Mr. Fox's Comoc Panels were:"Suitcase" Simpson (so named for his huge, suitcase-like feet), Lem Chortle, "Stinky" Davis, spoiled brat of a rich kid and Mickey (Himself) McGuire, Irish street tough (who was played in a series of shorts (silent and sound)by Juvenile Actor, Joe Yule, Jr. (who is better known to the world as Mickey Rooney!)