“Koko’s Earth Control” by Max Fleischer (1928)

Video | | Paul Greer

Tropes:

“Apocalypse How: At least a Class 2, but it seems to turn into a Class X. It was definitely one for the cartoon world.
A God Am I: The characters play with the control of the earth.
Baby Planet: The cartoon world is small enough for the characters to see it curving.
Big Electric Switch: The world-ending lever in the “Control of Earth” station doesn’t fully look like this trope, but it’s just as important.
Casting a Shadow: Fitz hides under Kokos shadow as if it were a carpet.
Declarative Finger: Used by Koko to chastise Fitz, and even inflates it to spank him!
Deranged Animation: Particularly the scene where a volcano morphs into the face of a man smoking a cigar!
Downer Ending: The short ends with buildings collapsing, the cities dissapearing into water, the earth still shaking, and Koko and Fitz melting into a puddle of ink.
Dramatic Thunder: One of the signs of the apocalypse.
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Not the ending, but the toon earth they’re on blows up, throwing Koko back into the real world. This dosen’t stop the effects from going into the real world to wreak havoc as well!
Funny Animal: Fitz the dog.
Genius Loci: The volcano morphs into the face of a man smoking a cigar.
Hammerspace: How Fitz gets an ax out of thin air to chop apart a tree he is fighting.
Have You Seen My God?: There is a control room for earth with a lever to destroy it, but nobody watches over it.
Hell On Earth: One of the symptoms of the apocalypse, with demonheads living slightly under the ground level and volcanos turning into faces.
Hostile Weather: Happens after Fitz pulls the lever.
Instant Thunder
Losing Your Head: Koko, during the part where his head is stuck underground. When he first pulls it up, it has some…demon-esque-thing attached to it. Thankfully, he puts his normal head back on soon after.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Fitz causing the destruction of their cartoon world and of the real world.
Oh Crap: Koko when he reads what the lever that Fitz is trying to pull does.
Our Demons Are Different: There is a horned demon head coming out of the ground, and when Koko looses his head, he grabs into the hole and accidentally takes the demon head, that seems to be just a head.

Roger Rabbit Effect: Mostly during the ending.
Schmuck Bait: Whoever gave a big lever a warning sign like that was just begging to have it pulled.
Screen Shake: Used in the life action apocalypse scenes.
The End of the World as We Know It
The Face Of The Sun: Melts The Man In The Moon before being hit by a Comet of Doom and swallowing it
The Man In The Moon: Melted by The Face Of The Sun
The Silent Age Of Animation
Thick-Line Animation
Too Dumb to Live: Fitz and his attempts to pull the lever that will destroy the earth.
Weather Control Machine: One of the functions of the eponymous Earth Control is Weather Manipulation.
Weird Weather: caused by the main character.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Just where did Max Fleischer go while Koko and Fitz were having their escapades?
When It Rains, It Pours
When Trees Attack: The scene where Fitz encounters an agitated old tree.”

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Etienne-Jules Marey and his Chronophotographic Gun

Aside | | Paul Greer


Marey, Etienne-Jules (1830 - 1904)

“A polymorphic scientific, Etienne Jules Marey explored numerous techniques and disciplines, obsessed by one unique concept: movement. First interested in flight, he studied birds and imagined mechanical devices capable of flying. From 1878, he focused on movement within human beings and, inspired by Edward Muybridge he had met in 1881, used photography to document his research. He thus imagined, in 1882, a camera entitled photographic gun that enabled him to capture a moving subject in twelve poses. Etienne Jules Marey thus decomposed the gestures of men practicing sports, animals in motion, everyday tasks precisely observed and even the migration of air. He also invented the chonophotography that would be the precursor of cinema. Photography in its early days was the ultimate accomplice of reality but with Etienne Jules Marey (and Edward Muybridge), photography suddenly also captured the invisible.”


Marey, Etienne-Jules (1830 - 1904)

“Marey started by studying blood circulation in the human body. Then he shifted to analyzing heart beats, respiration, muscles (myography), and movement of the body. To aid his studies he developed many instruments for precise measurements. For example, in 1859, in collaboration with the physiologist Auguste Chauveau and the watch manufacturer Breguet, he developed a wearable Sphygmograph to measure the pulse. This sphygmograph was an improvement on an earlier and more cumbersome design by the German physiologist Karl von Vierordt.[3] In 1869 Marey constructed a very delicate artificial insect to show how an insect flies and to demonstrate the figure-8 shape it produced during movement of its wings. Then he became fascinated by movements of air and started to study bigger flying animals, like birds. He adopted and further developed animated photography into a separate field of chronophotography in the 1880s. His revolutionary idea was to record several phases of movement on one photographic surface. In 1890 he published a substantial volume entitled Le Vol des Oiseaux (The Flight of Birds), richly illustrated with photographs, drawings, and diagrams. He also created stunningly precise sculptures of various flying birds.”


Marey, Etienne-Jules (1830 - 1904)

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“Marey studied other animals too. He published La Machine animale in 1873 (translated as “Animal Mechanism”). The English photographer Eadweard Muybridge carried out his “Photographic Investigation” in Palo Alto, California, to prove[dubious – discuss] that Marey was right when he wrote that a galloping horse for a brief moment had all four hooves off the ground. Muybridge published his photos in 1879 and received some public attention.”


Marey, Etienne-Jules (1830 - 1904)

“Marey’s chronophotographic gun was made in 1882, this instrument was capable of taking 12 consecutive frames a second, with all the frames recorded on the same picture. Using these pictures he studied horses, birds, dogs, sheep, donkeys, elephants, fish, microscopic creatures, molluscs, insects, reptiles, etc. Some call it Marey’s “animated zoo”. Marey also conducted the famous study about cats always landing on their feet. He conducted very similar studies with a chicken and a dog and found that they could do almost the same. Marey also studied human locomotion. He published another book Le Mouvement in 1894.”