''The Sidewalks of New York'' (1925 and 1929) are two cartoon

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s made by

animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

pioneers

Max Fleischer Max Fleischer (born Majer Fleischer ; July 19, 1883 – September 25, 1972) was an American animator, inventor, film director and producer, and studio founder and owner. Born in Kraków, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he became ...

and

Dave Fleischer Dave Fleischer (; July 14, 1894 – June 25, 1979) was an American film director and producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his older brother Max Fleischer. He was a native of New York City. Biography Fleischer was the y ...

, both films using the 1894 song "

The Sidewalks of New York "The Sidewalks of New York" is a popular song about life in New York City during the 1890s. It was composed in 1894 by vaudeville actor and singer Charles B. Lawlor (June 2, 1852 – May 31, 1925) with lyrics by James W. Blake (September 23, 1 ...

". Both films feature the " Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick, and are also known under the title "East Side, West Side", the informal title of the original song. The Fleischer brothers,

Lee DeForest Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode va ...

Hugo Riesenfeld Hugo Riesenfeld (January 26, 1879 – September 10, 1939) was an Austrian-American composer. As a film director, he began to write his own orchestral compositions for silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound ...

, and Edwin Miles Fadiman formed Red Seal Pictures to release the

Song Car-Tunes '' Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes'', ''Song Car-Tunes'', or (some sources erroneously say) ''Sound Car-Tunes'', is a series of short three-minute animated films produced by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer between May 1924 and September 1927, pioneering t ...

series, which started in May 1924 with the release of ''

Oh Mabel ''Oh Mabel'' is a 1924 American animation, animated short film, part of the ''Song Car-Tunes'' film series. This film is the first sound film of the series, and used the Phonofilm sound-on-film system. The ''Song Car-Tunes'' series, before it en ...

''. The first film, released in May 1925, was made for the Song Car-Tunes series and was filmed in the

DeForest Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...

sound-on-film Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...

process. The Song Car-Tunes series eventually totaled 36 films, of which 19 were made in sound using Phonofilm. The film was remade in 1929 and was released on February 5 by

Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

through the Fleischer brothers' new studio

Fleischer Studios Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of i ...

with a new soundtrack recorded in

RCA Photophone RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an opt ...

. The second film was the first entry in the Fleischers' new series ''

Screen Songs ''Screen Songs'', formerly known as KoKo Song Car-Tunes, are a series of animated cartoons produced at the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. Paramount brought back the sing-along cartoons in 1945, n ...

'' and the first by Fleischer Studios overall.

References

External links

''The Sidewalks of New York'' (1925) at IMDB''The Sidewalks of New York'' (1929) at IMDB
1925 short films Short films directed by Dave Fleischer American black-and-white films Phonofilm short films Fleischer Studios short films 1925 animated films 1929 short films 1929 animated films Paramount Pictures short films Sing-along 1920s English-language films American animated short films {{short-animation-film-stub