Otto Messmer

Cartoon Carnival tells the story of the pioneering early days of the animated art-form and chronicles one film preservationist's quest to rescue pre-sound cartoons from obscurity and screen them to new, appreciative audiences.

An early trickfilm created by Otto Messmer.

Oceantics starts with Felix walking while whistling. He sees a monkey playing a harmonica. After finishing, the monkey gets showered with coins. Felix then comes upon a billboard of a player piano.

Cartoon short.

Felix travels to the equator.

Felix can't afford to get in to the theatre so he makes a hole in the wall to peep through. There are two wrestlers. A small Japanese mans overthrows an enormous opponent. Inspired, Felix ties a know in a lamppost and is chased by a policeman. He tries to karate a goat who head butts him. He lands in a Japanese garden where two Geishas are kneeling. Inside a hut another Geisha kneels.

An early trickfilm created by Otto Messmer.

Oceantics starts with Felix walking while whistling. He sees a monkey playing a harmonica. After finishing, the monkey gets showered with coins. Felix then comes upon a billboard of a player piano.

Cartoon short.

Felix travels to the equator.

Felix can't afford to get in to the theatre so he makes a hole in the wall to peep through. There are two wrestlers. A small Japanese mans overthrows an enormous opponent. Inspired, Felix ties a know in a lamppost and is chased by a policeman. He tries to karate a goat who head butts him. He lands in a Japanese garden where two Geishas are kneeling. Inside a hut another Geisha kneels.

Felix becomes a wildlife photographer.

Felix hires out to an optometrist as a mouse catcher.

Felix wants to know the future, so he first goes to see a Gypsy who tells him that misfortune is going to happen, Felix doesn't believe her one little bit, so he goes to the local astrologer, Professor Whoozit...

There's no real plot here: just a string of gags on the theme of sleep, or trying to get to sleep. First, Felix and a quartet of feline Felix clones are yowling while a man is trying to sleep; then Felix encounters various obstacles in his own attempts to tryst with Morpheus.

After enduring various indignities by the human population in town, including getting beaten up by the fish market owner and forced to eat hot mustard by a customer in a restaurant, Felix finally breaks when he hears the mayor give a speech vowing to drive all cats out of town. Felix gathers his feline friends and stages a revolution to restore cats to their rightful place in society.

Felix is after Peaches, a sexy female cat whom he spots skating on the pond.

Felix gets a babysitting job.

Felix's wife demands he stop his lazing and get a job. Off runs Felix to help a barber, a farmer, and a homeless saxophonist (for a price, of course).

On Halloween, Felix is both victim and victor in mischievous and bizarre jokes. A feline witch promises Felix a romance to lure him into a trap.

Boys playing back alley baseball improbably hold their afternoon game at the Polo Grounds. Felix the Cat takes action when his favored team seems poised to lose.

Cartoon short.

Felix Frolics at the Circus is an American animated short film featuring Felix the Cat and released on September 26, 1920.

Cartoon short.

Felix tries to get into a snooty nightclub, and is told that only people of "unquestioned lineage" are allowed in. Felix then relates his family history, including how his ancestors taught the Egyptian pharaohs how to do the Charleston and another one who showed Columbus that the world was round. In the end, Felix brings his family tree--literally--into the club to prove his lineage.

Felix frees all the animals from a zoo.

Felix the Cat becomes a soldier when the rats declare war on the cats.

Felix travels to Banana Island.

Felix pickets his owner's house.

When Felix's piano-playing causes Kitty's Ming vase to break.

Felix tries to eat a shoe and the paste from a billposter's bucket.

Felix's owner, a hunter, gets lost in the jungle and the animals capture him and his supplies. A nosy ostrich swallows the hunter's rifle. Complications ensue.

Felix the Cat can't find anything to eat, so he bribes Father Time to send him back to when life was easier. However, the Stone Age turns out to have its own problems.

Felix and his friend little Sammy Johnson are playing baseball when they discover a map that leads to the undersea treasure of Lizzie the Pirate Queen. Building their own submarine, they slip beneath the waves in search of the treasure, and meet up with a variety of undersea creatures, including the most dangerous of all--the loan shark.

Felix gets into trouble with a tribe of Indians out west, and is chased by a bear.

Felix and friends go fishing and camping.

Felix builds a submarine.

Felix is in love with a fair maiden. When serenading her, his rival spots him and tries anything he can come up with to get his girl back.

Cartoon short.

Felix discovers there's no such thing as a free lunch.

After partying at the local nightclub, Felix heads home, but falls asleep along the way. He dreams that he meets a doctor who has a new youth tonic. Felix tries it, and soon believes that he's capable of doing anything, so he heads for the African jungle to capture a lion.

Cartoon short.

Felix and Willie want to play ball.

Felix the Cat is walking along when he is abruptly blindfolded and subjected to an elaborate ordeal which turns out to be (as the title hints) a fraternal initiation.

Felix thinks better of his plan to kill a rival.

Felix the Cat is fishing, but has not caught anything. He goes into a restaurant and tries to steal a fish, but the owner sees him and throws a can at him. Felix looks at the can, which says that Alaska is rich in fish, so Felix treks to the great white north to feed himself.