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What is it about Hollywood and anthropomorphic animals? Movies and television’s reliance on animals who talk and act like humans as a comedic device has a long history going way back. In 1919 we got Felix “the wonderful, wonderful cat”, who was eventually superseded by the world’s most famous animated talking mouse (originally conceived as a rabbit)...Walt Disney has a lot to answer for but he’s not the only one!
When the age of commercial television was ushered in and animation became the go-to medium, every studio that made cartoons started turning out shows about animals who thought, acted and talked like human beings – the absurdity of which tended to contribute to comical storylines. The result, an inexhaustible assembly line of non-human screen entertainers headed by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (Disney), Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (Looney Toons/Warner Bros), Tom and Jerry, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound (all Hanna-Barbera), Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (Jay Ward), King Leonardo and his Short Subjects, and a host of other anthropomorphic creations.
Studios like Hanna-Barbera and Warners drew inspiration for their zoological personas from popular contemporary TV shows with real-life actors. “Top Cat” the feline boss of a not-overbright gang of conniving cartoon cats in the H-B animated sitcom of the same name, was a reworking of The Phil Silvers Show which depicted the get-rich-quick antics of master hustler Sergeant Bilko (Silvers) and his GI entourage. The 1950s hit sitcom The Honeymooners provided a template for the same studio’s The Flintstones (a prehistoric parody of mainstream contemporary American family life). The Flintstones in turn prompted a futuristic sequel in 1962, The Jetsons.
Another perennially popular anthropomorphic animal, Warner’s’ bombastic, XXL-sized cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn was based on a fictional radio character “Senator Claghorn”. For Foghorn, Warners’ copied Claghorn’s booming Southern accent and distinctive vernacular (“I SAY, SON!”). Some have also recognised elements of the preposterous braggart WC Fields screen persona in the overbearing Foghorn character.
Anthropomorphic characterisations in the movies and television hasn’t been confined to the realm of animation. The 1950s saw the arrival of Francis the Talking Mule on cinema screens. Francis (voiced by Chill Wills) is an army mule with capital ‘A’ attitude who spends most of his time extracting his slower-witted human friend (played by Donald O’Connor) from the fixes he gets himself into. The popularity of the Francis series (seven movies in all) spawned an early sixties TV sitcom, Mister Ed, about another equid blessed with the gift of speech. The star, a palomino horse, is a mischievous know-it-all who behaves (and is treated by his owner) just like a typical, wayward American teenager§.
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§ at times Mr Ed’s errant behaviour has borderline delinquent tendencies (cf. Dennis the Menace, concurrently running on American television at the time)
Anthropomorphism: the attribution of human traits, emotions and intentions to non-human entities (Oxford English Dictionary)
