HAVE you ever seen a "flip" book? A pad of drawings that you flip with your thumb? Perhaps the "flip" book shows a man tipping his hat. If you look at the drawings separately, you will see that each one, after the first, shows the mans hand a little nearer his hat. But when you flip the pad, the drawings seem to run together and make a moving pic A "flip" book is an animated drawing. An animated cartoon in the movies works the same way, except that a projection machine performs the "flip" and transfers the pictures onto a screen. Anything an artist can draw on paper can become part of an animat ed cartoon, That is the reason Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters can do impossible things. That is why Mickey can play a game of hop-scotch jumping on clouds. And Pluto can grow a tail longer than a fire hose. And Popeyes spinachmade muscle can swell up to the size of a house.
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It costs about $50,000 to make an animated cartoon—a one - reeler. Two hundred people help. These are artists, writers, tracers, musicians, and photographers. If it takes 25 or 30 drawings in a "flip" book to show a man tipping his hat, you can understand why it takes thousands of drawings to make a Mickey Mouse short subject.
Right now the Walt Disney studios in Hollywood are busy putting the finishing touches on the first full-length animated cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Its running time will be over one hour. Guess how many drawings were made for Snow White? 250,000!
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